It's a full-page ad that ran in the Lorain Journal on January 7, 1960 – 60 years ago today promoting the paper's Classified section. The ad's theme is 'horse sense' and consequently, a great, goofy cartoon horse is used to drive home the theme. It's practically a coloring page.
Looking back, the ad is quaint on two levels: the simplicity of building the ad around a corny pun, and the concept of selling things through the newspaper. Today, many people seem to want to use their smart phones for literally everything, including peddling their unwanted stuff.
Nevertheless, I like 1950s and early 60s advertising because of its bold, graphic nature, and use of attention-getting cartoon illustrations.
Unfortunately, even if this type of 1950s style advertising would become trendy again, newspapers – previously the best showcases for it – are just about gone.
2 comments:
That was a highlight of my day, reading the Journal back when it was still a real newspaper. From the front page to the last, I read it all, generally stretched out on the living room floor, with the paper spread before me.
As an indication of what has changed, for the worse, I present this anecdote;
A few years back, I called the Journal, seeking some archived information. I asked the young man who answered to please connect me with the morgue.
His response was one of confusion. So, I asked for the Archives, and received the same baffled response.
Sometimes, stuff just makes you want to lie down for a bit.
After I had been doing the blog for about a year, the Editor of the Journal at that time invited me to become one of their 'official' blogs, with a link along with several others on the MJ website. It was a nice relationship, and generated some blog traffic. I also used to email the Editor once in a while with some historical questions and I was shocked when he told me there were no Journal archives of any sort; no photos, clippings etc. I could hardly believe it. And this was before the paper was eventually sold.
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