Giant Tiger Ad – Sept. 12, 1963

A few of you may remember the Giant Tiger discount store chain, which I've featured many times on this blog. Above is a full-page for the Elyria store at 230 Broad Street, which ran in the Journal on Sept. 12, 1963. Back then shoppers used the Layaway plans that were available, so that's why the ad had a Christmas theme.

There's plenty of interesting things to check out in the ad, including the Safety Eye Running Lights with 21-candle power bulbs, which according to the ad would "attract the attention of approaching motorists – DAY OR NIGHT!!" Today, running lights are quite common, and even required in some countries.

What's amusing to me in the ad (as usual) is the appearance of Kellogg's cereals Tony the Tiger doing a side hustle as the Giant Tiger mascot. (I've devoted several posts to this.) What's really funny is that whoever prepared the artwork decided to also superimpose Tony's whiskered face on top of that of a cigar store Indian.

But if you look closely at the part of the ad devoted to boxes of matches, however, you see what's probably the real Giant Tiger mascot on the package.

We've seen that rather tame-looking cat on a piece of Giant Tiger paraphernalia (below) on an earlier blog post. 

Yet, the GrrrrRRREAT one was appropriated time and time again.

Anyway, the tale of two kitties eventually came to an end with the name change to 'Gaylords.' 

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At the time of the above ad, Lorain's store hadn't been built yet (destroying the Hopewell homestead at 1867 Elyria Avenue in the process). It wouldn't open until August 1967 (which I wrote about here).