Category: Art

Never Ever Pour Your Beer This Way

Unless you like a frothy mouthful of head, do not pour your bottle into your glass this way. I watched a patron at a pizza parlor pour his pitcher (that’s a lot of p’s!) into his pint sans tilt, and he wound up with a pint o’ foam. Nasty. And he was well into his middle years, so he should have known better.

You Really Need To Get Your Schlitztogether

1957

And the award for best illustration of ale with squirrels, accordions, and ascots goes to…

Schlitz! Y’all, this ad did its job. It actually makes me wants Schlitz, despite the fact that I would never order a 4.6% ABV beer because that’s just wasting my time. My mouth tells me to rebuke the “Schlitzness” but my eyes say “Carry on, my wayward daughter.”

Seriously, tell me, doesn’t this look like more fun than a barrel of monkeys?

Turns Out They Were Saying ‘Merica Back In ’58

This 1958 Ford ad isn’t cropped or split down the middle of a page. It actually says “Merica’s” instead of America. I’m assuming it was implied that the painter had painted it on the part of the billboard to which we aren’t privy. But as it stands, it’s pretty funny. And the rest of the ad itself was peppy and colorful.

Mabel, If You’re Able, Black Label On The Table

1958

Note the M on Mabel’s daisy dress, a precursor to Laverne’s sweater L.

Though no longer widely distributed in the U.S., Black Label remains the official beer of Beer Frisbee, aka Beersbie–because that’s a thing.

In South Africa, they went in another direction, a decidedly non-Mabel direction. MANLY.

http://www.behance.net

Doesn’t it look HEAVY? That must be the 22 oz mug.

And in Australia, it was even weirder.

Snoopy Was A Carnivore Who Probably Ate Horses

Painting done not by Norman Rockwell, but Douglass Crockwell. Seriously.

Ah, yes. In the years before talk of puppy mills and Pit Bulls & Parolees, folks would go to the Pet Shop and actually procure puppies there, not just on the days when the Humane Society pimped strays on Saturdays. Can’t you just smell their little puppy breath and the softness of their puppy heads? This is part of a 1956 ad for Friskies.

Now, I’ve had plenty of dogs in my day, and they all liked meat. Carrots, no. Cabbage, wouldn’t touch it. Celery, forget it. But chicken and beef and pork? Yes. Basically any of the Chipotle proteins, dogs like. Now in case you didn’t skim the ad up top, it says Friskies contains “lean red horse meat.” Yum! Giddyup! So we can safely assume those beagle puppies were into horsemeat. It makes me wonder about Jemima. Jemima was the beagle we lost last year to cancer, and she looked nothing like Snoopy, who is also purportedly a beagle. Even this Pinterest image shows you that Snoopy and beagles have hardly anything in common. But I bet they’d both eat horse meat.

And turkey.

And bacon and eggs.

Maybe, just maybe, they’d both like watermelon for dessert, like this happy beagle.

But then it’s strictly back to horse meat.

mises.org

Antique Mall Stroll

Dr Pepper’s old ad campaign used to suggest drinking it during peak sugar- and energy-deficient moments during the day, at 10am, 2pm, and 4pm. Perhaps one could say a prayer thrice daily as well?

At least thank God for beer. No need to get all aboard the bottle itself. Quite a core workout, that.

War images were available as well. 

Y’all know how I feel about my Coke. 

This is cute, even to folks who aren’t sci-fi nerds.

In the words of Carrie Underwood, “I don’t smoke, but sometimes I need a long drag.” Or in this case, a long draw…

 

Sign O’ The Times

Nestled snug inside my August 1947 copy of National Geographic lies this interesting piece of art.

Isn’t it just fantastic? I love the split levels. As with many ads of yore, it contained many more words than we’d bother reading today. But this was 1947, and most folks didn’t own a TV. Reading was a way to pass the time. With no information highway, ads were the information.

Having never visited New York, or anywhere up north for that matter, I had no idea what an SRO sign was. Evidently, it’s a single-room-occupancy residence. So I learned something today! How ’bout them apples? However, I have seen pics of subways, and they don’t look like “bright, cheerful cars” to me. And as far as 7.8 million population, that’s another lesson in demographics. New York City only has 8.5 million residents today. Yes, it’s true that there were 7.8 back then, but it’s also true that by 1980, the population had actually reduced down to a straight 7 million. It wasn’t until the 1990s that it surpassed what it had been in 1947. I guess you can only shove so many marbles in a jar.