You know I'm old enough to actually remember some of these ads. OMG I really really wanted that submarine, and I actually tried to raise the sea monkeys, but nothing ever appeared in the water.

 I'd probably like another shot at seeing if I could get those sea monkeys to appear...

 You know what though?  Because of these ads I was raised with squirrel monkeys!

 

 

Nothing from comic book ads but with 2 Kellogg's corn flakes box tops and $1 I got this:

 

The ads I remember were from the fledgling "Harbor Freight" who started peddling Chinese tools by mail order. Boy have times changed. They are now a very successful company with hundreds of physical store fronts!  😉

The one ad that I remember that really bugged me was this one:

 

What good was having a coupon for free admission if I lived 2,500 miles away from Palisades Park?  Thanks for nothing, Superman.

And these ones I almost would pull the trigger on:

I like how they have a roster for all the stuff you get (including Waves & Wacs!).  Just couldn't go for it. it seemed too good to be true ("HERE'S MY $1.75! Rush the TOY SOLDIER SET TO ME!"). I like how the address is in a different font from the rest of the ad, like it's been typed in. Maybe they changed their location frequently to stay a step ahead of the authorities 🤣

I was a sucker for the cereal pitches.  When I went to the grocery store, my "comparison shopping" would consist of evaluating which cereals had the best prizes included, or what you could send away for (send 2 box tops and 25 cents to:).

Not related, but thinking about this stuff reminded me about sometimes when my friends & I were little kids and bored, and no adults were around, we used to make random phone calls. Saying stupid things like "Is your refrigerator running? Yes? Well you better go chase it!"  The one that stands out to me is I used to watch "Jeopardy", the original show with Art Flemming as host, which was based in New York back in the 1960s.  I remember one answer was "You get this by dialing N-E-R-V-O-U-S", and the correct question was "Dial this number to get the time in New York City."  Back then, in San Francisco, you would get the time by dialing P-O-P-C-O-R-N.  So, with this piece of information, I just had to try it out.  So I got the New York area code and added n-e-r-v-o-u-s to it, dialed it, and sure enough, the time given was 3 hours ahead of San Francisco.  Funny that it was that same lady's voice (years later I read an article about the woman whose voice it was, probably when they eliminated that service).

So several week later, my mother came to me with the phone bill.  "Did you make a phone call to New York?"  Uh, yes, I did.  "Why?" I wanted to see what time it was in New York.  I explained how I got the number.  She gave me a look like she realized her son was an word not allowed.  A couple of months later, the newspaper arrived in a separate bag as it was raining that day.  When my mother brought it in, she looked at the bag, which advertised the S.F. Chronicle's Want Ad office which included its phone number.  She pointed at it and said "Should I hide this so you don't call them too?" I didn't say anything out loud but in my mind I answered:  I already called that number.📞

I had the 100 toy  soldiers, and it was actually pretty cool.  These were "flats" but that was OK at my age at the time.  I didn't send away myself (never had the $0.99 they cost originally) but someone in the family did.  I also had a version of the Superman glider... I think I was about 2 years old at the time.

Hook

1 minute ago, LHookins said:

I had the 100 toy  soldiers, and it was actually pretty cool.  These were "flats" but that was OK at my age at the time.  I didn't send away myself (never had the $0.99 they cost originally) but someone in the family did.  I also had a version of the Superman glider... I think I was about 2 years old at the time.

Hook

I had the toy soldiers, and all adults learned you could find them in various nooks and out of the way crannies of the house, guarding us all.

Also, my grandfather promised every year to take me to Palisades Amusement park. I could see it right across the river, but the trip was always cancelled for various reasons, and one day the park was shut down and that ended that.

8 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I had the toy soldiers, and all adults learned you could find them in various nooks and out of the way crannies of the house, guarding us all.

Decades later, after my mother passed away & I had to settle her estate/prepare her house for sale, I found all these wooden tokens like the ones below for the board game Risk behind furniture and under rugs:

More often than not when my friends & I played Risk when we were kids, the game would eventually fall apart in arguments and we would start throwing the tokens at each other.

Sea Monkeys were common in Comic Books, I never ordered them knowing it was a big scam 😅

Edited October 15, 20241 yr by Matthew Kane

Half of my purchase decision was influenced by ads. Unfortunately, I don't know which half.

7 hours ago, Matthew Kane said:

Sea Monkeys were common in Comic Books, I never ordered them knowing it was a big scam 😅

 

They apparently really can be hatched, though they look nothing like the cartoon pictures in the ad of course.

I tried to follow the instructions on preparing the water for them, but I was very young and must have made some mistake(s).

Nothing ever hatched. Maybe that was fortunate, because I would have had zero idea what to feed them.

14 hours ago, Mike A said:

She gave me a look like she realized her son was an word not allowed

So eye-dee-eye-oh-tee is a word not allowed?  I hereby invoke the insult-myself-clause, as there is no harm/no foul.

Palisades Park, New Jersey today!

 

 

1 hour ago, charliearon said:

Palisades Park, New Jersey today!

 

My understanding is that the park was doing well and was essentially closed by government fiat to make way for housing....?

12 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

They apparently really can be hatched, though they look nothing like the cartoon pictures in the ad of course.

I tried to follow the instructions on preparing the water for them, but I was very young and must have made some mistake(s).

Nothing ever hatched. Maybe that was fortunate, because I would have had zero idea what to feed them.

I've heard they could hatch too, apparantly they are just shrimp eggs and adding water trigers the process, not sure how successful that would be when you pour tap water in a bowl and drop them in though, and I don't think you can train shrimp to do tricks, play games or follow your commands as claimed in the ad. I think every comic book I ever owned in the 70s and early 80s had that advertising I will admit being tempted to order them too but never did, goes to show the power of that kind of constant advertising on young kids

Edited October 15, 20241 yr by Matthew Kane

31 minutes ago, Matthew Kane said:

I've heard they could hatch too, apparantly they are just shrimp eggs and adding water trigers the process, not sure how successful that would be when you pour tap water in a bowl and drop them in though, and I don't think you can train shrimp to do tricks, play games or follow your commands as claimed in the ad.