Selling in the seventies

February 21, 2009 7:22 PM

From the 70s version of a bad hair day to disco chart-toppers leaping out of cassette tape boxes to three-legged celebrities who are currently in jail to... well, you just gotta see this one, the Advertising Sillyness from the Seventies flickr group has the groovy images you'll recall (or may want to forget) if you were around in those halcyon days.

The group also offers a sampling of the little ads that dotted the comic book back pages of the 1970s, like this old favorite, and this. And lo and behold! Here's an ad for that classic 70s book that I really wanted when I was sixteen, but somehow never got my hands on.: How to Pick Up Girls!. Yep, the future looked bright back then...

See also: the Advertising Through the Years group, heavy on 50s and 60s ads.

posted by flapjax at midnite (37 comments total)

neat..

I just e/mailed this one to Dick Purtan...he still broadcasts here in the detroit area.
posted by HuronBob at 7:37 PM on February 21

This is why you're fat
posted by peggynature at 7:42 PM on February 21

This is why you're fat

Hey, no ads from the 90s, please!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:47 PM on February 21

Here's some classic seventies animated advertising. I was just entering adulthood back then. I was also learning how to drink alcoholically. There may have been a correlation.
posted by netbros at 7:47 PM on February 21 [2 favorites has favorites]

Hey netbros, that Levi’s (“The Stranger”) ad from your link is pure awesome.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:50 PM on February 21

But it was on the group you linked to (Advertising Through the Years)! NO FAIR!
posted by peggynature at 7:50 PM on February 21

I take it back
posted by peggynature at 7:52 PM on February 21

This is MetaFilter, peggynature. Fair's got nothing to do with it.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:52 PM on February 21

What the hell is it with 70s and green/brown earthy shades? Is it like some sort of artistic guilt for the environmental excesses of the 1950s/60s?
posted by crapmatic at 8:06 PM on February 21

Orange was big too. Oh, god, the orange.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:16 PM on February 21 [1 favorite has favorites]

It's a good thing future generations aren't going to have any means by which to remember this stuff.

"You used our resources—for this?"
posted by sonic meat machine at 8:20 PM on February 21 [1 favorite has favorites]

Did someone say my name?
posted by hal_c_on at 8:23 PM on February 21

SLACK POWER! I endorse this product wholeheartedly.
posted by not_on_display at 8:26 PM on February 21

Classy!
posted by captainsohler at 9:30 PM on February 21

My God....

Yes, they were halcyon days for me; but I fear that I should have left this vault unopened. Will I now be haunted and pursued by their mummified remains in the cold, bitter watches of the night...?
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 9:40 PM on February 21

Orange was big too. Oh, god, the orange.

Let us not forget our old friend "Harvest Gold".
posted by MikeMc at 10:29 PM on February 21

My parents had three-color paneling in their bedroom: brown, tan and ORANGE. With orange-flecked dark brown shag carpeting and Danish Modern furniture.

It seemed so normal then.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 10:50 PM on February 21

MikeMc: "Harvest Gold"

The slogan on that add actually made me laugh out loud. Well played, sir.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:15 PM on February 21

I forgot all about OJ's third leg until my old college room mate sent me this photo from about 1982. You can see the ad posted on our dorm room door just to the right of the orange sticker. Third leg jokes are eternal.

Added old people bonus: Wall-mounted rotary dial telephone!
posted by Tube at 11:30 PM on February 21

Forgive me if I've linked to this before, but here is one of my favorite consumer products, which I assure you is not a parody as I have the original catalog.
posted by Tube at 11:41 PM on February 21

Hey, that How To Pick Up Girls book is still in print and there's even mp3 files on the web. Holy smokes, now I can be like Larry from Three's Company.
posted by crapmatic at 12:25 AM on February 22

May all your slacks be anti-establishment
posted by Cranberry at 12:55 AM on February 22

That How To Pick Up Girls book is still in print... for $154.16.
I bet it's shrink-wrapped, just like the "Cure to Cancer and All Other Diseases" book they sold at the health food store I worked at.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:13 AM on February 22

This appliance-color palette was in use from the 50s through the 70s:

almond, aqua blue, salmon pink, avocado green and harvest gold.

These were accent colors in the design of the period.
In the 70s, brown and orange (and almond, and that awful avocado) were base colors.
Salmon was a 50s base color, but wasn't by the 70s.

And clothes. Salmon and avocado. Leisure suits and Nehru jackets. Is it Halloween?
posted by hexatron at 4:44 AM on February 22

I actually kind of like those colors.
posted by dunkadunc at 4:45 AM on February 22

I did a little dot about an hour ago .....
posted by caddis at 5:08 AM on February 22

Google's magazine archive has some big glassed harvest gold goodness in it. Lil orange too.
posted by cashman at 8:05 AM on February 22 [1 favorite has favorites]

That How To Pick Up Girls book is still in print... for $154.16.

That's just a small circle of marketplace sellers exploiting Amazon. I have books in the Advantage program and have this problem all the time when I fail to supply Amazon and they sell out and their inventory falls back on the marketplace sharks.
posted by crapmatic at 8:40 AM on February 22

I remember the heady days when avocado and goldenrod gave way to almond, and the other heady days when almond gave way to black.

I fear that sometime soon stainless will give way to goldenrod.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:44 AM on February 22

Google's magazine archive has some big glassed harvest gold goodness in it.

I was going through that magazine and I found this gem. Did any kid ever actually dream of being Lou Rawls?
posted by MikeMc at 9:32 AM on February 22

Oh.mi.gawd. School supplies flashback. In the late 1970s I needed a spiral notebook for school (the school supplied some items - looseleaf paper, pens, pencils, but we needed to provide other items). She returned home from Woolworth's with a David Cassidy notebook. "It was on sale for only 10 cents," she explained. Why pay 50 cents for a generic Mead notebook when you can embarrass your ninth grader with a David Cassidy notebook and save 40 cents in the deal?
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:01 AM on February 22

Should've previewed; the "she" mentioned above was my beloved but frugal Mom.
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:10 AM on February 22

Didn't see my favorite cringeworthy 70s ad, which featured two little girls and photographic evidence that if your mother didn't use Downy you'd end up with thick glasses, unkempt braids, and a rumpled acrylic cardigan.
posted by pernoctalian at 10:29 AM on February 22

The Flagg Bros. I want that catalog sooo bad now.
posted by cashman at 2:02 PM on February 22

Oh man, I remember selling those crazy cool girl scout cookie boxes! Back in the days when parents would let a 2nd or 3rd grader go wandering miles from home by herself hawking sweeties to strangers.
posted by dejah420 at 10:14 PM on February 22

Hey, I missed this over the weekend -- obsessed with other Flickr sets. This is too cool -- I love old advertising.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:28 AM on February 23

"Bzzzzzzzzzzzt."

Man whatchyou doin'?

"Man, you KNOW what I'm doing, I'm SUPERFLY!!!!!!!!!!!! BBBzt!"
posted by snsranch at 5:04 PM on February 23