Frankenstein in Person at the Palace – October 1957

Here's an eye-catching ad that appeared in the October 29, 1957 Lorain Journal – for a live (or undead?) appearance by the Frankenstein monster at Lorain's Palace Theater.

It was all part of the campy Dr. Silkini & Company touring stage show, which was headed by the namesake doctor character and featured various monsters, ghosts and horror scenes, along with some interaction with the audience. Sometimes the show featured a name monster like Frankenstein, other editions of the show apparently had different themes. But Dr. Silkini was the guy who held it all together with his various assistants.

It looks like it was a lot of good, clean fun.

Below is a vintage theater promotion for another edition of the Dr. Silkini show, this time featuring Garganta, the giant Gorilla of the Universe. Give it a click – it's hilarious.

Here's a link to a blog that has some promotional stills from the Asylum of Horrors edition of the show.

Brady's Restaurant Ad – October 1957

Here's a cute ad for Brady's Restaurant (one of my favorite topics for this blog, natch) that ran in the Lorain Journal on October 30, 1957 – 55 years ago today.

I love the stylized black cat clip art.

The ad hearkens back to an era where the Halloween parade was a pretty big deal in Lorain, along with the Downtown window-painting contest. Things like that really united the city back then.

As for Brady's, I'm constantly impressed by the creativity that went into the restaurant's promotions (such as the "Lucky Chair" mentioned in the ad). The owners ran a lot of ads and the restaurant must have really achieved top-of-mind awareness for so many people to remember it fondly.

October 1957 - O'Neil Halloween Ad

Here's a full-page ad that ran in October 1957 in the pages of the Lorain Journal. It was a pretty unique promotion for the well-remembered O'Neil Sheffield Center, featuring a series of weekly square dances in the parking lot leading up to a Halloween-themed dance on the 26th.

The music for the square dancing was provided by "Pappy" Miller and his Buckeroos.

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The other night, the spouse and I had reason to go out to Crocker Park in Westlake. We fought our way into the complex to the parking garage, and then walked through a drizzling rain to get to the particular store we were interested in. When our shopping was done, we hurried back through the rain to get to the parking garage.

I kept thinking – this is what's popular today shopping-wise?

And yet 1950s "open air" shopping centers like Sheffield Center were eventually done in by enclosed malls (like Midway Mall) because people didn't like to deal with the elements.

Remember Kreskin's ESP Game?

I was driving downtown over the weekend and noticed that Kreskin is appearing at the Palace on October 27. That's kind of cool that the Palace booked the famed magician and mentalist for an event right around Halloween.

Image courtesy of The Strong website

Right away it brought back memories of a childhood game we had: Kreskin's ESP. For some reason, my siblings and I had a lot of creepy games such as Ka-Bala, Green Ghost, and, of course, our Ouija board (shudder) – so the Kreskin game fit right in.

The Kreskin's ESP game was supposed to help you determine if you had E.S.P. But after looking at the various components of the game on this website, I remembered why we didn't play it too much. It was too confusing!

But we did enjoy swinging the pendulum back and forth while saying, "You are getting sleeeeeepy...." Then we probably lost interest and reached for the Monopoly board.

Anyway, here is the link to Kreskin's official website. And here's the link to the Lorain Palace Theater's site as well in case you're interested in information about the event.

Kresge's Halloween Ad – October 25, 1956

Here's yet another one of my annual vintage ads showing what Lorain kids were wearing for Halloween in the 1950s. This Kresge's ad appeared in the Lorain Journal on October 25, 1956.

You can tell that the ad dates from the early TV era, because there aren't any licensed TV cartoon characters except for the Disney menagerie, featured on the Mickey Mouse Club by then. It looks like the indifferent artist on this ad drew Mickey and Donald from memory!

There's plenty of generic costumes, though, such as Happy Clown, Devil, Bunny, Lion, Skeleton, and Gay Gypsy (no comment).

P.O.C. Hockey Ad – October 12, 1949

Here's a great ad featuring two iconic things that aren't around any more – the Cleveland Barons and P.O.C. beer. (WEWS is still around.) The ad was pretty big, taking up the better part of a page in the October 12, 1949 Lorain Journal – sixty-three years ago this month.

According to this Wiki entry, the Cleveland Barons were the most successful team in American Hockey League history, winning ten division titles. For many years they were owned by Al Sutphin, who was an owner of the Braden-Sutphin Ink Co. (The printing company that I work for still buys ink from Braden-Sutphin.)

P.O.C. beer is still well-remembered. Of course, everyone is aware of the mystery as to what the P.O.C. name stood for ("Pride Of Cleveland," "Pilsner On Call," etc. ) Apparently, even the beer's owners weren't sure as time went by.

P.O.C. went out of production in 1986. I didn't feel too bad, since I was too busy drinking Old Dutch to notice.

I remember when some entrepreneur briefly revived P.O.C. in the late 1990s. (Here's the story.) It was only available locally at a beverage store on Clague Road. I drove out there and bought a few six packs, thinking they would be collector's items.

I guess I lost interest in them as collectibles because I ended up drinking them. I did save one bottle, though, and displayed it on my desk at work for a while (which probably didn't look particularly professional).

Fall Color 2012 – Round 2

Elyria Avenue north of State Route 254

I brought my camera along this past Sunday while I was out and about, in case I saw some nice autumn color. In some areas (such as Lorain) the colors have more or less peaked, but here and there there was still much to see. Above is the view from Elyria Avenue looking west near the water tower, just north of Route 254.

For about the fourth weekend in a row, I headed out to Brownhelm Township. Cooper Foster Park Road had some nice color, as well as Brownhelm Cemetery and old favorite Mill Hollow.

Cooper Foster Park Road looking east towards Baumhart Road

Looking north on Sunnyside Road next to Brownhelm Cemetery

Mill Hollow House (looks different than my photo from last week!)