Magazine Adds targeting boys in the 1960s/ 1970s

[GON]

Anyone remember these type of ads?

I remember sending in a envelope full of coins for a "pen spy AM radio", I think the company was Johnson Smith or something like that.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Oh ya. I remember these ads.

 

[atikovi]

Magazine Adds targeting boys in the 1960s/ 1970s​

From the title I thought this was about some untoward ads posted by pedos. Maybe "targeting" wasn't the appropriate choice of words? How about, "appealing to" instead.

 

[Zee09]

Yep just like Boys Life magazine in the day.

 

[aquariuscsm]

My best friend in grade school ordered those x-ray glasses. Nope, they didn't work haha!

 

[doitmyself]

LOL, you rock Gon. Thanks for the memories. I ordered live sea horses, sea monkeys, and a small incubator with quail eggs from those ads. Even in middle school, I was allured by the ads "Catch your breakfast from a stream, live in a log cabin, work where others vacation"....... all possible with our mail-order course in forestry and wildlife conservation. Ha! Great post!

 

[Touring5]

Yep just like Boys Life magazine in the day.

I was just looking at an old issue of mine from ~1970 the other day. It also had a large section of ads for military schools. And not to forget the various ads for "sales opportunities" like Christmas cards, grit, etc..

No more time or money was spent (wasted) than on the Johnson Smith catalog, lol.

 

[Passport1]

Boy's Life and Popular Mechanics magazines in the '50s&'60s had lots of those ads on the back pages. How to build your own mini bike/go-kart, space rocket, ant farm etc. I was especially intrigued by the book section. Ordered one titled 'How to hypnotize your female friends.'

Sub-optimal results.

 

[mk378]

Ironically one of the more honest offers was the one where you could buy a live monkey, and they would send you-- an actual live monkey. It was not tame at all though. This led to the USPS banning the mailing of most types of animals, including monkeys.

 

[iahawk]

loved those ads..always some cool stuff that I wanted. I also remember the Charles Atlas bodybuilding ads..for a few dollars he's send you a plan to become a hulking bodybuilder to win all the girls at the beach!

 

[Zee09]

I was just looking at an old issue of mine from ~1970 the other day. It also had a large section of ads for military schools. And not to forget the various ads for "sales opportunities" like Christmas cards, grit, etc..

No more time or money was spent (wasted) than on the Johnson Smith catalog, lol.

I won the JS sweepstakes one year.
$25 but then I was just a young bloke

 

[PF52]

I was just looking at an old issue of mine from ~1970 the other day. It also had a large section of ads for military schools. And not to forget the various ads for "sales opportunities" like Christmas cards, grit, etc..

Grit.... That was a newspaper or magazine of some sort if I remember right? They sure advertised it everywhere but I don't remember ever seeing a copy of it in person, or knew anyone else who had.

 

[Kruse]

I remember Johnson-Smith well. Used to be out of Michigan, then moved to Florida before closing their doors. Reminds me of J.C. Whitney. Some stuff was good, most stuff was a gimmick, some stuff was really bad.

 

[opus1]

I remember Johnson-Smith well. Used to be out of Michigan, then moved to Florida before closing their doors. Reminds me of J.C. Whitney. Some stuff was good, most stuff was a gimmick, some stuff was really bad.

Thank you - I saw the Florida address in the ad and was thinking that I remembered them being in Michigan.

 

[aquariuscsm]

I remember the ad for the flying hovercraft. You send them some money and they send you back these plans or blue prints or something on how to make a flying hover craft using a vacuum cleaner engine. I’m guessing you were supposed to heist the engine off your parents vacuum cleaner and use it haha!! The ad had a picture of this kid in this hovercraft flying around over his neighborhood above all the houses haha!! I wanted that so bad and my parents said NOPE

 

[JohnnyG]

I had the Pocket Calculator!

 

[Duffyjr]

I remember drooling over them mini-bike adds because we lived in the country. I never will forget the day my parents did one better and got me a Honda 70, saaaaweeeeet little ride it was.

 

[Kira]

From the back of the room a voice calls out.....Edmund Scientific, anyone? Maybe that "science surplus" catalogue is the last of that breed.

I wish I had representative copies of the catalogues mentioned.

The Johnson-Smith catalogue used ads from my Dad's youth. The surprised bearded man carrying the box -HELP HELP, LET ME OUT- (a ventriloquist toy) was the oldest looking.

 

[DwightFrye]

I loved the ads in the outdoor magazines showing a boy getting a BB gun or .22 for Christmas. The woke crowd would mount a hate campaign on social media and call for Congressional hearings if they saw such a thing today.

 

[Kira]

I saw a Beretta shotgun ad on TV in Switzerland. I thought it was cool.