When I saw this ad in the March 3, 1966 Journal featuring Dennis the Menace, I naturally assumed it was a Dairy Queen ad. Imagine my surprise when I realized the mischievous moppet was actually shilling for Howard Johnson's restaurants.
As you might remember, the Howard Johnson's restaurant in Lorain was located on West Erie Avenue (U. S. Route 6) just a short distance west of Leavitt Road. Today the building is home to Chris' Restaurant.
But getting back to the ad.
It's kind of odd seeing Dennis promoting a Clam Plate Special, as well as Clam Chowder, instead of ice cream. Maybe it was a Lenten thing (Easter was the second Sunday in April that year). But the tousle-haired tyke wouldn't begin his thirty-year gig as the official mascot for Dairy Queen until 1971.
I've been a loyal Dairy Queen customer since the mid-1980s. Even though cartoonist Hank Ketcham's most famous creation hasn't on the DQ paper cups and wrappers, etc. since 2002, it still seems weird to me.
By the way, I once facetiously ordered an "M&M Floor Sweepings Blizzard" in the DQ drive-through (you know how the candy pieces are all broken into bits). I'm sure the DQ worker thought I was nuts.
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Speaking of Chris' Restaurant, I enjoyed a great perch sandwich carryout this past Friday. I'm not Catholic but I still like fish on Friday. Plus it was Mom's favorite restaurant (and one day away from the third anniversary of her passing). The place was busy for dinner, and I noticed that Brenda, Mom's favorite waitress, was still gainfully employed there.
Thanksgiving 1955 was celebrated against the backdrop of President Dwight D. Eisenhower making a comeback from a heart attack suffered on September 24th. Here's the front page of the Thanksgiving edition of the Lorain Journal of Nov. 24, 1955.
In Lorain, preparations were being made for the annual Mary Lee Tucker Christmas benefit show on Dec. 7th. Thanksgiving was observed in the Lorain City Schools with a re-enactment of the Pilgrim Thanksgiving by students at Fairhome School.
The November 21st edition of the Lorain Journal was stuffed with grocery ads. Below are the ads for Food Center Super Markets, Food Fair, Homewood Shopping Center, Meyer Goldberg and A&P so you can compare prices. Most of the ads have great Thanksgiving illustrations.
For those who wished to dine out that day, there were a few restaurant ads, including Gartner's Supper Club in Elyria and the Charcoal Pit in South Lorain.
There weren't too many ads in the paper with a Thanksgiving theme. Then – as now – the transition to Christmas was already taking place even as the turkey was being stuffed, so ads were more likely to feature Santa Claus. But I found a few Thanksgiving ads (in this case, one national, and one local).
The Editorial Page was graced with a insightful column reflecting on whether past Thanksgivings could really be described as taking place in the "good old days."
And lastly, only a few comic strips acknowledged the holiday – Dennis The Menace, and the always hilarious The Ryatts (which had only been launched the year before, according to this great article).
Well, Spring is finally here. In a few weeks we'll see if March truly goes out like a lamb.
Apparently it didn't seem to be going in that direction sixty years ago. Above is an editorial cartoon that ran in the Journal back on March 20, 1965 by the great cartoonist Vaughn Shoemaker. That's a terrific drawing of a lion, representing March.
Let's look at some other items found in that same edition of the Journal. Elsewhere on that page was a pretty good pair of editorials – one about the confusion caused by Daylight Saving Time, and the other one a charming homage to Spring.
Also on that same page was the daily dose of Dennis the Menace.
I like him as he is here, young and saying outrageous things to adults (love the pained look on the old lady's face). But in later years, Dennis was drawn to be older and taller, like on the later Little Rascals when Spanky and Alfalfa weren't cute anymore, and were literally growing out of their clothes.
That same edition of the Journal also included a very early The Passing Scene, appropriately welcoming Spring in one of the panels.
Also on the cartoon circuit of the paper were two visits by our old buddy, Reddy Kilowatt.
Reddy was still in his heyday in the mid-1960s, not yet rejected by hippie-types who preferred 'flower power' to the kind he promoted.
Another local utility with an ad in the March 20, 1965 paper was the Elyria Telephone Company. But its ad doesn't feature the anthropomorphic phone mascot. Instead, we get an elegantly dressed woman yakking on her phone in her fancy bedroom. Sadly, the days of a land line on a nightstand are over. Now we get to wonder where we left our cell phone, and if we remembered to charge it overnight.
Elsewhere in the Journal was this ad for the well-remembered Steve's Shoe Repair on Oberlin Avenue, just a little down from Yala's Pizza.
It was always interesting going into Steve's to drop something off or pick something up. The store reminded me of the one in the old fairy tale about the Shoemaker and the Elves, with every kind and size of shoe piled up in rows, waiting to be repaired. Some of them looked like they had been there for years.
If you were in the mood for dancing, there were several options to be found in ads in that Journal. For adults, my old trumpet teacher Alex Visci and the rest of the musicians that made up his Quartet were appearing at Lincoln Park.
For the teens, there was an upcoming dance at The Hut at 3709 West Erie. Lee Abel's Red Ryders were the featured band.
Lee Abel and Walter Rothgary were leasing the restaurant at that address as "The Hut," as well as the Lorain Arena behind it for dancing.
The movie screens were also catering to the teens. The Lorain Drive-in was about to reopen for the season, with a triple feature of popular Beach Party flicks.
The Palace had the T.A.M.I. Show – Teenage Awards Music International – with "the Excitement, Entertainment and Music of Teenage America."
I see one of my favorites on the bill: Gerry and the Pacemakers. While I was at Ohio State, 610 WTVN played "Ferry Cross the Mersey" a lot on their "Million Dollar Weekend" radio program. The tune came to be a real reminder of my college days.
Seventy years ago this month, the headline of the January 31, 1955 Lorain Journal had some big news that would impact countless businesses located on Lake Road (U.S. 6 and State Route 2) between Lorain and Vermilion.
"Three hundred parcels of land will be sliced this year and many buildings moved when the state highway department widens Lake Rd., extending 8.9 miles between Lorain and Vermilion," the article noted.
"The extensive slicing of properties, including some buildings, became known today when state highway officials revealed the highway will be widened from the existing 30 feet to 52 feet."
The widening of Lake Road really changed the landscape forever, completely wiping out some businesses that were located very close to the highway. Other businesses were isolated with the creation of those odd frontage roads.
The highway widening has been a regular topic on this blog, with posts covering a variety of aspects of it, including: reaction by highway property owners (including the Pueblo) to the announcement of the widening (here); how the Bohemian Tavern was affected (here); and how Fior's Lake Road Spaghetti House was impacted (here).
Elsewhere on the front page: the first appearance of Dennis the Menace in the Journal; some Lorainites put their personal safety on ice (literally) by taking a stroll on frozen Lake Erie; and a former Lorainite makes the FBI's 10 Most-wanted list.
As I noted yesterday, the Sunday Journal debuted its comic page on September 8, 1968 with an interesting lineup of classic comics. There were ones dating back to the early 1920s (Moon Mullins), the 1930s (Smiling Jack), the 1950s (Dennis the Menace) and at least one brand new in 1968 (Boner's Ark).
I was hoping to post some comics from the Sunday Journal's initial offering in 1968, but unfortunately they're not on microfilm. But here's a complete comic section from early December 1976. As you can see, some of the ones from 1968 were still going strong. Prince Valiant was one of my Mom's favorites.
Gasoline Alley is still running today. However, the strip's gimmick – that the characters age in real time, like us – became a problem. Walt Wallet, the strip's patriarch is about 120 years old now!
I always liked Moon Mullins and its great cast who all lived together in a boarding house of sorts. Besides happy-go-lucky, cigar-chomping Moon and his little brother Kayo, the cast included Lord Plushbottom (who looked like the top-hatted guy from the Monopoly game) and his wife, Emily; Uncle Willie (who resembled a hobo) and his wife Mamie; and a few attractive women for Moon to flirt with.
And since I couldn't find a 1968 comic section from the Journal, here are a few examples of strips that you would have seen then, such as Lolly.
And I couldn't resist posting this color Moon Mullins from 1972. The men of the house sure are getting worked up over Miss Swivel's perfume.
And here's another Moon Mullins, this time from 1970 featuring Myna Byrrd.
Here’s an cute ad that the Journal ran back on Feb. 12, 1971. The nearly 3/4 page ad promoting the newspaper itself features the comic strip character Dennis the Menace.
The tousle-haired tyke had first appeared in the pages of the Journal back in 1955 (which I wrote about here). The popular one-panel strip enjoyed a high profile location right at the bottom of the editorial page for years.
The ad is interesting because it mentions a few of the things that made the Journal special back then, including syndicated columns such as Ann Landers and Art Buchwald, as well as the great local features, such as Bill Scrivo’s People, the Hot Line help column, reporter Jim Mahony’s column, etc. Unfortunately, too many papers have had to cut their staffs in order to save costs and stay afloat.
I really think newspapers such as the Journal today really need to bring back those kind of special local features and columns, if they want to have any chance at all of rebuilding their circulation numbers.
Many people have fond memories of going Christmas shopping in Downtown Cleveland and enjoying the various window displays in the department stores.
Well, the O’Neil Sheffield Center was not to be outdone during the 1963 Christmas season.
The article below, which appeared in the Lorain Journal on December 13, 1963, describes the special animated window scenes that the O’Neil store featured that Christmas. The displays starred famous comic strip icon Dennis the Menace, as well as his parents, his dog Ruff and "good old Mr. Wilson.”
Journal Staff Writer Lou Kepler wrote the story. The window scenes sound really cute.
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I did a post about the first appearance of Dennis the Menace in the Lorain Journal in 1955 back here.
For those of us that still read newspapers, a peek at the comics is like having dessert after a so-so meal. No matter how bad the main course was, you still have something to look forward to.
While many of my favorite comics are newer ones (such as Pearls Before Swine and Overboard), I still read many of the classics out of habit – including Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace.
Although Dennis the Menace made his debut in comics back in March 1951, the cute lad with the cowlick didn't make his first appearance in the Lorain Journal until January 1955 – 60 years ago last month. A short teaser campaign appeared in late January to drum up interest in the adventures of the mischievous youngster and his parents, Henry and Alice Mitchell.
Here are the panels that were featured on the front page of the Journal on January 27, 28 and 29. It's a nice little bit of promotion that you don't see anymore when a new strip is launched – probably because so few new ones are actually introduced these days.
The first Dennis the Menace comic strip ran on the front page of the Monday, January 31, 1955 Journal (below).
And here's the second one, appearing a day later on February 1st (below).
It would take a week or two before Dennis would assume his longtime home at the bottom of the Page of Opinion. Here's the February 19th strip (below) in its well-remembered natural habitat. (Note the appearance of a drone in the Laff-a-Day strip!)
I like the design of the early Dennis. He's very appealing and a little bit younger than the version that currently appears on the comic page.
One thing's for sure – I always had a hard time associating the TV series Dennis the Menacewith the comic strip, despite the fact that the adult actors were very well cast for their parts. Maybe it's because the comic strip art wasn't featured in the credits. Instead, a whirling cyclone graphic (similar to the Tasmanian Devil) was used to represent Dennis. Plus, by the time my siblings and I were watching it, Jay North was getting a little old – not unlike when Spanky and Alfalfa were literally growing out of their clothes on the Little Rascals movie series near the end.
Here's the opening theme to the Dennis the Menace TV series. It includes the well-known Kelloggs musical tagline that's been stuck in my brain for more than fifty years!
My favorite Dennis the Menace memory is probably of this Tip Top Elf Book: Dennis the Menace Camps Out (1958). I remember it being mixed in with our collection of Golden Books that we had when I was a kid.
Unlike the Golden Books, which were largely fairy tales or stories about animals, Dennis the Menace Camps Out told a story in which we could relate. We were a camping family, so it was amusing to see Dennis set up his tent in his backyard, bringing along all kinds of funny stuff like an electric frying pan, a TV, a toy truck, etc.
In the story he gets scared in the middle of the night, and ends up wandering into good old Mr. Wilson's house, looking for some company, as well as some cookies. It's a cute tale.
Anyway, despite Hank Ketcham's passing back in 2001, Dennis the Menace continues today, still appearing in more than 1,000 newspapers.
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Speaking of the Dennis the Menace TV theme song, you might vaguely remember (like I did) a Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon that used a variation of it. The explanation is that the cartoon was made during a musician's strike, and instead of a custom written music score, stock music themes – including a variation of the music used as the Dennis the Menace theme song – were cobbled together for use on the soundtrack.
