Christmas Club Ads – 1970

The concept of Christmas clubs is a topic that I’ve pretty much beaten to death (with a club, natch) annually over the years on this blog. I’ve done about eight different posts, with a sampling of ads from 1950, 1953, 1956, 1957 1963, 1966, 1967 and 1968. 

For decades – even in the late 1960s – the banks featured some kind of illustration of Santa Claus in their ads. It was an easy way to symbolize the holiday at a glance.

But for some reason, the 1970 crop of ads seemed to be different. Here are some of ads to prove my point.

First up is the ad for Elyria Savings & Trust that ran in the Journal on December 2, 1970.

By George, there’s no Santa at all – just a nebbish-like character with a Santa hat. 

With his lack of definable clothes, he kind of resembles the comic strip character Smidgens, which ran in the Journal for years (and was always great).

Next is an ad for Citizens Home and Savings Association that ran in the paper on December 1, 1970. No Santa in this one either – just a pants-suited woman frolicking on a Publishers Clearing House-sized check.

At least this ad for Lorain County Savings & Trust Company (that ran in the Journal on December 11, 1970) features a Santa – well, a comely Santa babe. 

(A couple years ago I did a post about Christmas ads that would be seen as politically incorrect today.)

And although this next bank ad is for one of them newfangled credit cards rather than a Christmas club, it follows the same theme of going with something other than the classic illustration of Santa Claus. It’s for Central Security National Bank and ran in the Journal on December 5, 1970.

This Santa looks more like a Rankin-Bass TV puppet than the jolly old elf we all know.

Oh well, that’s the 1970s for you.

Santa Arrives in Lorain – 1960

Well, Christmas Eve is only a week away – so I’d better get going with the inevitable parade of Christmas-themed posts. 

I guess it’s appropriate to kick off the holiday hoopla with a pair of 1960 ads anticipating Santa Claus’ arrival in Lorain. 

The first ad is a full-page one from the November 17, 1960 Lorain Journal. But rather than Santa, it actually is promoting the upcoming Thanksgiving Day edition of the paper. The illustration depicts Santa straddling a jet resembling a missile.  

(I posted a similar ad years ago and remarked that it reminded me of the ending of Dr. Strangelove.)

The second ad announces the actual arrival of Santa in Downtown Lorain, and appeared in the Journal on November 24, 1960. 

What’s interesting is that Santa was going to land at the airport on Leavitt Road, before heading down W. 21st Street to join his own Christmas Parade. It’s a nice reminder of the Lorain of old.

It all seems so quaint and small town-ish now. 

Hawkins Chevrolet Campaign – Dec. 1950

If you’re a fan of the various home remodeling shows on television, you know that the ‘big reveal’ at the end is the highlight of the programs, where everyone oohs and aahs over the changes that took place (hopefully for the better).

Well, decades ago, the 'big reveal’ concept also applied to the annual unveiling of eagerly awaited new car models. 

Of course, giving consumers a new look at the latest version of their favorite vehicle is still a big thing. The enduring popularity of the Cleveland Auto Show is testimony to that. 

But back in the 1950s, the process was done in a more quaint manner – in this case, a newspaper teaser campaign designed to get the potential buyer into the local showroom.

Below are a few of the ads that were part of the Chevrolet campaign back in late fall 1950. The tall format and use of cartoons was designed to attract attention and build anticipation. The first ad appeared in the Lorain Journal on November 30, 1950 and the second on December 5, 1950.

Finally, on December 8, 1950 this full-page ad appeared in the paper, on the eve of the big event.

E. J. Hawkins was the owner of Hawkins Chevrolet. According to his 1956 obituary in the Chronicle-Telegram, he had come to Lorain in the 1920s and opened his dealership. 

(I wrote about how my mother remembered trick-or-treating at Hawkins' stately home in the 1930s back here. I also wrote about how he sponsored the Hormel Girls Drum and Bugle Corps as part of the Chevrolet Caravan in Lorain’s 1949 Santa Claus parade here.)

Hawkins sold his business in the mid-1950s to Bob Beck (subject of a post last week).

Paige’s Sohio Car Wash – Dec. 1970

I’m not sure why, but car washes continue to show up regularly on this blog. 

And here’s another one, which is the subject of the article above, which appeared in the Lorain Journal on December 6, 1970. It was owned by Pete DeSantis (a cousin of Pete DeSantis the potato chip distributor) and was called Paige’s Sohio Car Wash. There was a relationship between the car wash and Sohio Corp., who issued discount tickets for it at its service station.

The article notes that the car wash property used to be part of the DeSantis coal yard. When he got out of the coal business, DeSantis became a land developer. He built an Open Pantry convenience store on part of his land; he also leased part of it for the well-remembered Mister S restaurant, and part for a Sohio service station.

What’s interesting to me is that I’ve driven by the car wash building countless times in my life, and I’ve always thought that it had to be something else before it was a car wash. It just doesn’t look like one. My guess was that it was some kind of bank.

And that’s the same observation made in the article, that the building “looks more like a branch bank than a car wash.”

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Longtime blog contributor Jeremy emailed me to remind me that the car wash on Broadway had a lookalike sister outlet at 2115 W. 21st Street – also called Paige’s Sohio Car Wash – that I had forgotten about. Both eventually dropped the ‘Sohio’ affiliation in their name.

And as Jeremy remembered, the car wash on Broadway became Charleston Car Wash by 2000.

These days, I’m not sure if the building on Broadway is still being used for anything – but it still says “Car Wash” on it, so maybe it is.

On Area Movie Screens – December 1970

It’s always fun (for me, at least) to see what was playing on area movie screens back in the days when we had area movie screens. Even without the pandemic, there simply aren’t a lot of options these days if you want to see a first run movie in the Lorain area. 

But there were plenty of options fifty years ago, when the ads above ran in the Journal on December 4, 1970. As usual, there is quite a variety, with ‘hip’ offerings that reflected the changing times, as well as more wholesome fare.

The first thing to catch my eye was Mr. Magoo’s Holiday Festival, playing at matinees at both the Palace in Lorain, and the Avon Lake Theater. The movie was merely a mash-up of the Christmas special (which I wrote about here), and a two-part episode ("Snow White") from the Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo TV series. 

The other thing that leaped out at me was the re-release of one of my favorite movies, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World (which I wrote about here and here), which was playing at the Capitol Cinema in downtown Elyria.

The drive-in theaters were still open (note the Tower Drive-in ad promoting their in-car heaters). While the Carlisle and Lorain Drive-ins were showing adult fare, the Tower had Rebel Rousers (with Jack Nicholson), Wild Scene and Born Losers.

The regular theaters were all over the place with their offerings, including House of Dark Shadows at Amherst Theater, M*A*S*H at the Ohio Theater, TROG and Taste the Blood of Dracula at the Tivoli, Airport at the Midway Cinema, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at the Palace, and (gasp) Beyond the Valley of the Dolls at the Liberty Theater in my now-adopted hometown of Vermilion.

(I’ll leave it to you to see what was playing at the, ahem, VL Cinema.)

Note that the Lorain Downtown Merchants were sponsoring a “Free Kiddie Show” at the Palace on Saturday. They obviously knew their audience, with the scheduled showing of The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (which I wrote about here). 

OSU Clobbers Michigan – 1970

My souvenir photo of Coach Woody Hayes. The Columbus Dispatch
sold them through the mail after he was fired in 1978.

Well, the big game between the Buckeyes and the Wolverines may be cancelled this year, but we can still look back at what happened at the November 1970 match-up. Namely, Ohio State beat Michigan 20-9.

It was revenge of sorts for the Buckeyes, who had lost to the team from up north the previous year, 24-12. Read all about it on the Lorain Journal sports page of November 22, 1970.

The funniest thing in the article is learning about Woody Haye’s ‘secret weapon’ utilized in the preparation for the game. The article notes how OSU running back Leo Hayden “picked up most of his yardage running an off-tackle play which Hayes refined after countless hours viewing a set of Michigan play films which he purchased from the Michigan Athletic Department for $80.

“"It was the best $80 we’ve ever spent,” Hayes said. “I’d recommend it highly.””

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Woody Hayes, much like Woody Mathna (and Woodrow the Woodsman for that matter), seems to pop up here on the blog every so often. 

I wrote about my own memories of Woody Hayes (and how I ‘met’ him) here. I also posted a 1967 Journal article about him here.

Superhost & Operation Toothbrush – Dec. 1970

Here’s an odd little article that appeared in the Lorain Journal on December 2, 1970. 

WUAB-TV (which is still licensed to Lorain, Ohio) was promoting its “Operation Toothbrush,” with the goal of collecting 2,000 new toothbrushes for distribution to needy families. The TV station made a direct appeal to Lorain residents with this article, which notes, “in many households there is only one toothbrush for the entire family and often not even one.”

Yuck.

While the premise seems strange today (when dentists routinely give toothbrushes away), what’s odd is that good old Superhost himself, Marty Sullivan, is featured in the provided photo – but not identified. He had been on the air since the previous year; perhaps the Journal staffer putting together that page layout didn’t know who he was.

Anyway, Mr. Sullivan passed away in February of this year, leaving only a small handful of still living Cleveland television children’s show hosts from the 60s and 70s. 

It’s too bad that children's television has changed so much in the last thirty years. Kids are hardly ever allowed to enjoy shows just for the mindless fun of it (like watching the Three Stooges). And there are no locally produced shows just for kids, with adult hosts that the kids can identify with.

The Cleveland TV hosts (Captain Penny, Barnaby, Woodrow the Woodsman, Franz the Toymaker, etc.) that today’s aging Baby Boomers grew up provided them with adult figures that were friendly and kind and local. They could connect with the young viewers because they talked about things and places familiar to them, such as Cedar Point or the Animal Protective League. They made public appearances and drew crowds of adoring kids.

But that era has passed, along with the most of the communal TV watching experience. With all of the streaming options available today, the majority of the public is probably not watching the same programming (unless it’s sports or one of the dancing/singing competition shows).

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In case you missed it back in 1989, here’s Superhost saying goodbye to his fans on his final broadcast.  I remember watching it live and being somewhat surprised that it was such an anticlimactic wrap-up to such a long, memorable TV career. But it still chokes you up a bit.