Themes That Rocked the Challenge - Retro Ads!

Today we welcome our very own Jeremy Hawkins and his awesome theme of old, retro ads.

Jeremy is also the genius behind the A to Z graphics. Many of his amazing graphics are available as t-shirts at Neat-O-Shop. He’s an author and you can find his books at Amazon. He also runs Howlin’ Wolf Records: Six Strings, a wicked cool online magazine, and he heads up the Horror Blogger Alliance.

Your theme was old ads – how did you come up with that idea?

Oh, I just completely love this kind of stuff, the early trial and error of the infomercial in written form. Coming up with it was simple, I had been downloading images for years and finally a place to share with people...

Which ad shocked you the most?

Many of the smoking ads, where at the time... putting babies with smoking mothers seemed like a good thing. Yes, the Fight Club soap for people who are heavy using headers “Fat is Folly”... what does that mean anyway?

Were you familiar with any of the odd products in the ads?

Not really, I think as I found them, I was like “what” are you kidding? It's amazing on crazy stuff then, transfers into crazy stuff now. There might have been much more “odd products” then due to there wasn't people look out like now.

Do you think any of the products actually worked?

Scarier thought, some of the corsets and nose products that actually look like they would just crush your bones... some of the products that are still in production today.

Why so many products about noses?

People with them big crooked noses, I am terrified to honestly know this actually work and how long people would keep using it before someone said, “hey stop that crazy thing”!

What was the obsession with the face vibrator? (And give people an idea how it worked. Well, not that it did…)

Well all vibrators work in all different ways, some better for others and in some in the best places... People must really needed them, think it's the early addition of Botox? Body shapes were like a bell or a pear... and coverage from neck to your toes, maybe it's the only thing people really see?

Any products you would be brave enough to try? (Besides the Vicks Vapor Rub of course.)

Honestly I am wearing Hanes underwear right now, though these adds have a body suit of coverage and I am sure I would never play sports showing my goods. I might even be up for using one one of those vibrator thingys for my face, yeah... my face. Lol.

If you participate in the Challenge next year, what theme would you run with?

I have always had a love for film score music for as long as I can remember, I might do a best of 26 composers, top 26 soundtracks that I like, best 26 sci-fi scores, best 26 horror scores, 26 scores you should skip or well the list goes on and on.

THANK YOU... for asking me to do this, you know I love talking about myself and it wouldn't be me if I didn't promote something... So here we go... Hey, everyone get the latest edition of our online magazine called “SIX STRINGS” where we share MUSIC, FILM, BOOKS, INTERVIEWS, etc. Some great stuff, it's free and some really cool giveaways. So please do check it out by going to Six Strings.




Co-host Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh is the author of Amazon Best-sellers CassaStar, CassaFire, CassaStorm, and Dragon of the Stars, founder of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, and his blog can be found HERE