There was a 1946 Thanksgiving ad here, and a January 1947 ad with a comely Scottish lassie here. Then there was that 1954 Father’s Day ad with the Mystery Starlet, and a November 1957 Christmas Layaway ad featuring the Wyatt Earp Frontier Marshall Set. (By the way, the Mystery Starlet is a mystery no more – but that’s the subject of a future post.)
And here’s another one, from Christmas 1957. The nearly full-page ran in the Journal on December 19, 1957 – 62 years ago. As you can see, the words HART’S has been crookedly pasted at the top of the ad to give it some branding.
As usual, there’s fun things going on graphically. For starters, Santa Claus looks somewhat diabolical to me – almost scowling. And his bushy eyebrows contribute to his demented look.
But what really caught my eye was the small cut-in ad near the bottom right advertising a GIANT 35-INCH PANDA DOLL.
Anyway, if anyone has any happy memories of playing with this (ugh) doll, be sure to leave a comment! I tried finding one on the internet but I think they’ve all been relegated to that scrap toy bin of history.
I had a nightmare last night, but it was nothing like that Giant Panda (?) Doll.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thanks for sending me back to that post with the Ol' Lanky Long doll. I had forgotten until seeing it that I had one of those creations. Like the anonymous commenter on your post, I thought it was Pinocchio. It was not nearly as scary in person, which goes to show you how inept these ads were.