Old ads

November 26, 2006 8:45 AM

For prompt control of senile agitation... Vintage ads are all over the blogosphere today it seems. Here's a pill to cure your ill. If that won't work, put a bandage on it.
posted by caddis (28 comments total)

These are grrrrrreat!
posted by Bravocharlie at 9:06 AM on November 26, 2006

Jeez, those are hilarious.
posted by squidfartz at 9:21 AM on November 26, 2006

those drug ads are a trip. in 50 years ya think everyone's gonna look at the drugs our psychiatrists and GPs are prescribing now and say, "holy shit! I took that for that?!?!" ?
posted by carsonb at 9:25 AM on November 26, 2006

the senile agitation poster looks like the precursor to every zombie poster ever.
posted by dflemingdotorg at 9:30 AM on November 26, 2006

For those who haven't seem them already, these ads are also very funny:

So, Unafraid, He Faced The Setting Sun: Newspaper Ads From The Golden Age of Advertising
posted by sindark at 9:36 AM on November 26, 2006

"Pipamazine: All drug products containing pipamazine. Pipamazine, formerly marketed as Mornidine tablets and injection, was associated with hepatic lesions. Approval of the NDA for Mornidine tablets and injection was withdrawn on July 17, 1969 (see the Federal Register of July 17, 1969 (34 FR 12051))." from the FDA

Hepatic lesions? Small price to pay for fixing the breakfast machine!
posted by ninjew at 9:41 AM on November 26, 2006

caddis, you've done it again. you're a genius!
posted by brandz at 9:53 AM on November 26, 2006

Is this one really just an ad for some dude named Bobb's bar in Cheyenne, Wyoming?

My lord. I simply do not know what to make of a bar that attempts to draw people in by combining little-black-sambo stereotypes, a bestiality glory hole, and Nazi war tactics.
posted by noahpoah at 9:59 AM on November 26, 2006

Oops. I didn't realize that all of the ads make up a single image.

Well, if you've looked through them all, you know which one I was talking about.
posted by noahpoah at 10:00 AM on November 26, 2006

Mabel is unstable!

Is your woman cranky from going through "the change"? Hey, no problem! Just load her up with barbiturates and she'll be back to her passive self, cooking you breakfast and bringing you your pipe and slippers in no time.

Heck, boys.. you might even be able to have sex with her, and not have to deal with those disturbing "waking up in the middle of it" ordeals that you suffer through now.

Better living through chemistry! (For him, anyway...)
posted by mstefan at 10:13 AM on November 26, 2006

These are really fun. But also sad. I forget with all the television ads for medications to ask my doctor about, that this pharmaceutical push isn't really so new.

The thorazine ones with scary gramps are weird. That's one of those drugs that was thought to cure so many mental ills - until it fell out of favor as the long-term users on it started to get all those tardive dyskinesia ticks. Those ads make it look like a simple setative. Poor Pops.

On a brighter note those band-aides are sooooooo cute!!!! I love those old tin boxes!
posted by dog food sugar at 10:49 AM on November 26, 2006

It's funny. We can agree that these old drug ads are ridiculous, but plenty of us still fall for new ads for newly-approved drugs that turn out to be unsafe, problematic or just pointless.

It's not that we've gotten much smarter about advertising. We're just neophiles — neo, not necro — laughing at something old.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:02 PM on November 26, 2006

For soothing relief, and mild taste.
Make mine Heroine please!
posted by nola at 12:02 PM on November 26, 2006

Crass whippersnapper does not know Risë Stevens was a Metropolitan opera star who also made a few movies.
posted by Cranberry at 12:20 PM on November 26, 2006

Perhaps if she hadn't smoked, she would have been a soprano instead of a mezzo
posted by Cranberry at 12:22 PM on November 26, 2006

I don't know, nebulawindphone. We still fall for the drugs themselves, but I don't think it's because of the ads. We fall for them because we put stock in pharmaceutical companies and the FDA. The ads themselves are mostly laughingstocks. How long have we been hearing those "side effects include" jokes? Decades?
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 1:26 PM on November 26, 2006

More ad goodness, modern this time: Japanese Doritos with a kick in the crotch (larger nsfw version). via dabitch
posted by caddis at 1:40 PM on November 26, 2006

Powerful Religious: Those are actually an innovation about twenty years old. Before that, television advertising for prescription drugs was illegal or severely limited. (A potted history of such ads.)

Of course, not long before that, television advertising for cigarettes was legal. We're a funny society.

I will say that a substantial fraction of the included drug ads were professional publication ads aimed at doctors.
posted by dhartung at 1:44 PM on November 26, 2006

"You Can't Beat the Axis if you get VD" - awesome

I'd like to see this maxim incorporated into the next Medal of Honor or Call of Duty title. Some sort of movement penalty or health loss from burning piss should your digital soldier get carried away during shore leave.

Loved the ads - having them all in a single image was a bummer, though. Those old band aid tins were a real treat. Thanks, OP.
posted by EatTheWeak at 1:45 PM on November 26, 2006

More wacky drug ads in this post I made a couple of months ago.
posted by MetaMonkey at 2:27 PM on November 26, 2006

That's interesting, dhartung, thank you for the clarification. I wasn't born in time to experience tv ads for cigarettes, so I'm off to watch a few on youtube.
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 2:39 PM on November 26, 2006

On the advert tip, how I wish this were a real one...oh, to catch a ride on a comet!
posted by Holy foxy moxie batman! at 2:44 PM on November 26, 2006

These ads make me very glad that I am not old and it is not the 50's.
Mostly the latter.
posted by tehloki at 12:16 AM on November 27, 2006

I've seen those before, but the "senile agitation" one always gets me giggling for some reason.
posted by clevershark at 12:48 AM on November 27, 2006

When little patients balk at scary, disquieting examinations (before you've begun) ...

When they're fightened and tense (and growing more fearful by the minute) ...

When they need prompt sedation (and the oral route isn't feasible) ... try

stuffing a barbiturate up the kid's ass first.

And--since the drug is quickly and completely destroyed in the body--there is little tendency toward morning-after hangover.

And less evidence.
posted by pracowity at 1:27 AM on November 27, 2006

I often find old pharmaceutical ads creepy more than funny. I can't quite place my finger on it—it's not just that some of the drugs turned out to have nasty side effects (though I think I would probably scream if I ever saw a Thalidomide ad), but also some disturbing feeling I get of malice from the design and imagery of some of the ads.
posted by chrominance at 9:59 AM on November 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

Yeah, incredibly creepy. More barbiturate ads.
posted by chrominance at 10:24 AM on November 27, 2006

Augh! That first link is just... what the hell were they thinking? Since when does the horror-movie staple "catatonic little girl on a swing" move product?!
posted by tehloki at 1:53 PM on November 28, 2006