Sometimes gentleness is required of your toddler. Sometimes ill-tempered old folks get too agitated and threaten you with canes. That’s why sometimes the best solution is a good old fashioned thorazine pill, or a barbiturate elixir. Weirdomatic has a collection of bizarre ads like these from the past. Our favorite, aside from the drug ads, is the one showing Olympian speed skater Jack Shea taking a break from his skating to enjoy the rejuvenating effects of a Camel cigarette. So that’s how Phelps did it.


“Creepy Ads” [Weirdomatic via Very Short List]







I still follow those type of ads to the T. Like the ad for Camel that show Team USA promoting smoking!
Better living through chemistry, that’s my motto
OMG! Union Carbide pouring chemicals out on India? WTF?
Google “Bhopal, India” if this makes no sense to you, Union Carbide killed a few thousand people there with a chemical release.
When corporate honesty used to be acceptable!
“composed and useful life” = The Thorazine shuffle
Well I think the big difference between contemporary ads and these is that these were ads marketed towards doctors and not to the public. There was no need to spook people into thinking they had something so they could ask for drugs by name.
omg, the Union Carbide in India ad: “A hand in things to come”
Indeed!
That “Senile Agitation” guy: I would not dare step on his lawn.
look at the size of that kid’s pupils! hope he’s in a happy place…
LOVE the Senite Agitation ad!!!!
Many, many years ago a man walked by me on the street and said “People on thorazine aren’t wanted anymore.”
That kid is holding on to his mom’s arm so he doesn’t fly away, he’s that high.
Back in the day,baseball players smoked in the dugout and pro football players smoked on the bench….funny to watch..
And did everyone see the ad for Lysol? Who knew that it can help a suffering marriage? Perhaps the “Sanctity of Marriage” crowd should stop worrying about gays & lesbians and start promoting Vaginal freshness. Divorce rates will plummet.
Mmmn! Smells like a pine forest!
@SkokieGuy: I know I was like WTF!
I probably have a sick mind, but I thought these ads were pretty cool looking.
Sorry for the double post, but the pig slicing itself-yeah, i’m gonna have nightmares
These girls
look like this guy
You really have to watch the whole video to get the full effect.
@MayorBee is getting what plants crave:
That video is extremely creepy… It’s like a Barny/pickles/LCD overdose.
All of the ads with kids staring wide-eyed at various food… very creepy.
I actually have a paper copy of that Thorazine ad…ran in a medical journal/magazine called Modern Hospital from the mid 1950′s. I should go flipping through there for some of the more fun ones. A few cigarette adverts in them.
Ah, the wonders of print ads!
I recall flipping through some of those while browsing through some really old magazines for a media class. It’s amazing how quickly tastes have changed (some of those companies would be hanged and quartered by the public if they print similar ads today).
Of course, our great grandchildren will probably laugh at us when they see the ads from our generation, no doubt.
for when life angries up the blood…. thorazine!
Also…. take a look at the faces of those kids in the ads…. some look as if they are insane!
“Ooh! Put some Lister’s Carbolic Unguent on a wad of cotton, put the cotton it in her ear. That’ll stop them shakes.”
“No, no. What she needs is a Balsam Specific.”
Oh! While we’re burning money, why don’t we give her a Curative Galvanic Belt too.”
“Don’t forget to give her Smeckler’s Powder.”
“Don’t make fun!”
Oh, Lord and Lady…NEMBUTAL for a TODDLER? Holy crap. I imagine it would work rather well for bad behavior though. Drastically increases suggestibility in microdoses, can floor an elephant in seconds in megadoses. Add a little DMSO, and you can apply it by squirt gun from across the room…
It’s important that we control the old people and make sure their lives are useful to us.
That toddler looks really out of it, how many toddlers got to see pretty colours with that stuff.