Monday, July 23, 2018

Canada Dry Ad Featuring Esther Williams – July 6, 1956

Canada Dry has been a regular topic on this blog for some time.

Inexplicably, my 2013 post on the old Canada Dry bottling plant on Colorado Avenue remains one of my most-visited, with 576 page views this month, and 15,664 views total – making it second in popularity only to my post about the American flag painted on the old quarry overlooking Route 2.

I sure wish I knew why.

Anyway, I still like to post vintage Canada Dry ads that appeared in the Lorain Journal, and the one below features a celebrity: Esther Williams. The huge ad included a photo of her sons Benjamin and Kimball, and appeared in the paper on July 6, 1956.

Here’s a color version of the same ad that ran in the magazines later that year. It has a different glamour shot (of the bottles, not Miss Williams). There are other, subtle differences such as the cropping of the pool photo.
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Speaking of Esther Williams, my favorite movie of hers is Dangerous When Wet (1953). Why? Because it features a cute cameo of our old pals Tom & Jerry swimming with her in an extended fantasy sequence created by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbara.


MGM's promotion for the movie included some great publicity photos of the famed cat and mouse team and Miss Williams. 

2 comments:

Wordlady said...

Do you remember Cotton Club Ginger Ale, AKA Cotton Club Less Sweet Ginger Ale? That’s the ginger ale we drank on the rare occasions we had pop in the house. Generally that meant my dad’s yearly turn to host his investment club meeting - I really should say my mom’s turn to host. No alcohol, but the meeting was the only time any one was ever allowed to smoke in our home!

The jingle was “It’s not too sweet. I repeat it’s not too sweet. Cotton Club Ginger Ale, it’s not too sweet.”

Dan Brady said...

I did do a couple posts on Cotton Club.

https://danielebrady.blogspot.com/2018/11/cotton-club-thanksgiving-ad-nov-25-1947.html

This one has a commercial from the disco era, and a shot of the Big Ginger bottle!

https://danielebrady.blogspot.com/2018/01/baby-new-year-cotton-club-ginger-ale.html