When I was a kid comic books featured a lot of ads just like this one above. They came in several varieties, and all were enticing, and to be honest, a few of them were unsettling, which didn't stop them from being enticing.
Like everyone I know who studied these sorts of ads regularly, my parents refused to let me order any of this stuff because they recognized it as cheap crap, though how they were so certain I'm not sure because c'mon look at those ads. How cool would it be to have a ghost at your command to terrify others? Or a giant monster?
Well, it turns out my parents were right. Here's what the actual products turned out to be:
That's right, a two piece plastic poster and a balloon with a plastic sheet.
I don't know, though. They still look pretty cool to me.
As a special bonus to this cautionary tale, here's a link to a short film by one of the Countdown to Halloween's founding fathers, Kirk Demarais of Secret Fun Spot. Here's his award winning film, Flip. Be sure to check out his two books on the items found in all those comic book ads through the links below.
That Frankenstein one was the only thing I ever ordered out of a comic book. I was disappointed when I pulled it out of the box, but by the time I got it on the wall and put the little glow-in-the-dark dots on his eyes, I was thrilled.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was so worth the money for all the horrified comments I got from grown-ups. "How can you sleep with that thing staring at you?!"
Do you still have it?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, no. It went from house to house with me and the plastic it was printed on was pretty cheap (shocker!), so it eventually got scratched up and torn enough that I threw it out.
ReplyDeleteI wish now that I'd held onto it anyway, but teen-aged me didn't have that kind of foresight.