Midway Mall Ads – August 1969

Here's a pair of ads for Midway Mall that appeared in the Journal in August 1969.

This one (below) ran in the paper on August 3 and celebrated the 50th Anniversary of 4-H Clubs with a special exhibit.

This full-page ad (below) ran on August 6 – 45 years ago today. I guess the back-to-school ads started just as early back then as they do now.

That vaguely British-looking crossing guard seems to be giving that cocky kid the evil eye.

Anyway, it's interesting that Midway Mall – in its early years at least – positioned itself as sort of the community gathering place for Lorain. Various community events – such as Lorain City Schools art shows – were always held there. With the decline of Downtown Lorain, and the disadvantage of the Sheffield Shopping Center being open to the elements, Midway Mall stepped in and took advantage of its opportunity to become the 'town center' of Lorain.

If you look closely at the newspaper ad, you can see all sorts of fun attractions designed to appeal to kids, including a visit by Scollon's Famous Marionettes, as well appearances by Les Barker, the creator of Bugs Bunny, and…

The creator of Bugs Bunny? Les Barker?

I thought Chuck Jones, Tex Avery and a bunch of other guys contributed to the creation of the Oscar-winning rabbit. Who was Les Barker – and what kind of show did he do at the Mall?

Well, the Bradys caught one of his shows – and I'll tell you about it tomorrow!

In the meantime, click here to learn about Scollon Productions. They're still around, but instead of creating traveling puppet shows, they have shifted their creativity to the production of costumed characters. (Here's a link to their history page, which mentions their mall shows.)