HONDA BALLADE CR-X advert

A classic combination of the compact, stylish CR-X and what appears to be Clare Grogan's stunt double. 

WALDORF advert

 

...splinters? 😲

SCARY MONSTERS promotional advert

 

What a splendidly odd advert. There's no harm in plugging the back catalogue while promoting the new album when it's as good as Bowie's but 137 is touted like it's somehow a significant number and contains numerous doubles. And Peter and the Wolf.

SHOP BETWEEN 10 AND 4 poster

 

One of the many superb posters E. McKnight Kaufer turned out for the London Underground, extoling the virtues of doing the post-war shopping while the place is quiet.

ANGELYNE promotional photograph

Angelyne remains one of the most interesting curios of the eighties. Variously described in modern media as an early influencer or a model she was really neither. As a failing singer she fell in with the entrepreneur Hugo Maisnik,  who erected billboards all over LA bearing her bimbo form in various poses. Despite looking like oversized prostitute calling cards both the billboards and her pink Corvette gained her a degree of very local notoriety. Despite gaining an enthusiastic fan club and the billboards becoming a Hollywood landmark, Angelyne was totally unable to make any sort of serious career out of music or acting despite the publicity barrage.

NEW DIRECTION BALL BEARINGS advert

GM advertised their ball bearings concern across 1956 with a series of print adverts positing future technical innovations. Some were, atom age styling aside, closer than you'd think but largely it adds to that feeling that society as a whole has let fifties artists down somewhat. Though this particular one did give a somewhat tight three-year timetable.

TRIPLEX advert

Art deco adverts are incredible, the great talent of the day slinging out beautiful artwork for the most arcane stuff. This poster by A M Cassandre for British toughened windscreen manufacturers is rightly hailed as a classic.

LEGO TECHNIC 8860 Advert

One of a series of adverts ran in American comics in the early eighties to push Lego's range, this one quite rightly forefronts the drool-worthy feature-packed 8860 Car Chassis.

New Universe advert

Launched in 1986 with this stunning promotional image drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz, the New Universe was Marvel's first attempt to launch an all-new imprint. Sadly the talent on the titles themselves was largely less stellar, typified by so much of it being written by the amiable but limited Mark Gruenwald. Four of the eight launch titles were cancelled within a year of their debut, and the line as a whole was wound down in 1989 to widespread apathy.

Maserati advert

Produced at a rare time of financial stability for the company, artist René Gruau took an abstract approach for this poster - harsh considering they had yet to produce the Volvo-esque Biturbo.

Texas Instruments home computer advert

Calculator giant Texas Instruments entered the computing boom in 1979 with the T4A - with disastrous results. Despite this ad extolling its' versatility the machine lacked software due to going out of its' way to make coding difficult, while the tiny arcane keyboard and its' inability to produce lower case letters were roundly mocked at the time. Slashing the price by 80% didn't help and neither did a compact version in 1981, and in 1983 Texas discontinued their home computer range after a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. The whole programme was such a disaster that IBM used it as a what not to do for their own range.

Man from UNCLE Spy Pen advert

 

Based on all those times Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin used the device to spy on women undressing. Sadly for  voyeuristic secret agents any actual seeing through walls was entirely coincidental.

Miss Jockey advert

Promoted in movie magazines by Paramount, Miss Jockey was due to be another vehicle for the very popular Bebe Daniels in 1927. However the film was never made and very little else is known about it, with conflicting reports as to whether it entered production. 

Operation X-500 toy

Manufactured by Deluxe Reading Toys in 1962, this looks, in all sincerity, preposterously exciting.

Venus comic advert

Beginning publication in 1948, Timely's Venus came into a struggling market. While Bill Everett drew the promo he wasn't avaliable for the title. It started off as a kind of superpowered romance title before morphing into a science fiction-slash-horror series. It lasted 19 issues, with the last three coming after the company had reorganised as Atlas. Some fifty years later modern successor Marvel would revive Venus as one of the Agents of Atlas.

Viceroy advert

Dubious doctor-relayed health advice from a 1951 print advertisement. Though if you assume your only two options are to smoke filtered cigarettes or to smoke unfiltered cigarettes the text is largely accurate.