Remember these? - Sea Monkeys, $7 Submarine, X-Ray glasses (1 Viewer)

[Ross Williams]

Just found a fun site: http://www.steveconley.com/comicads.htm
It has a lot of the old ads that were found in comic books. Brought back some great memories; lying under the covers with a flashlight, on a summers night, dreaming about owning all these miraculous products.
I think the only thing I ever got was the sea monkeys. As I remember they didn't do a damn thing. Poured them into the water, and they just sort of swelled up a bit and floated there. I was really disappointed.
Did you guys buy any of these things?

 

[Kevin Farley]

Whoa; We were watching Unwrapped the other night and grooving on old candy, (they had Clark and Almond Joy among others; how they were made... great show!) and there was an old candy collector on there. He had a plastic camera that was a prize from Bazooka, and it made me think of those old comic book ads. Thank you for that link! I tried once to buy about 30 bucks worth of stuff, but my mom busted me.

 

[JasenP]

I ordered the GIANT footlocker with OVER 100 ARMY MEN!! After the excrutiatingly long wait, it finally arrived. It wasn't the size of a footlocker and it was cardboard. The box about the size of what your checks come in from the bank and it had those teeny plastic molded soldiers. Talk about a dissapointed 7-year old.
:frowning:

 

[Scott Dautel]

cool ... I remember every one of those. Bought the Sea monkeys (i.e brine shrimp) and the X-ray vision glasses.
But the best nostalgia trip all was:

I have every one of these items in a box in my basement right at this moment.

 

[Michael*K]

I remember those ads from the comic books and from "Boy's Life" magazine. I ordered from them a couple of live chameleons that arrived in the mail in matchbox-sized boxes with little holes in them that allowed the creatures to breathe.

 

[Jack Briggs]

There was also a plastic "log cabin" you could buy for around $10. And those "X-Ray glasses" showed the cartoon of a lacivious fellow oggling a woman in a skirt. Never bought a pair, though.

You saw these ads mostly in DC Comics. Marvel Comics took a higher road. Sort of.

 

[MickeS]

 

[Jon_Are]

I always wanted the X-Ray specs, and I remember trying to come up with some legitimate reason to want them ("Really, Ma, it would be cool to be able to see all the bones in my hand!"). Never got up the nerve to send for them, but I spent many an hour daydreaming about what I could do with those suckers
Never got sea monkeys either, but I do remember getting the Jackpot Bank.
Cool link, Ross.
Jon

 

[Ross Williams]

I want to find somebody that actually got the submarine. That was the one thing that I wanted the most. Now I'm wondering what it really was?
http://www.steveconley.com/pages/sub.jpg

 

[Jon_Are]

...and I'd like to hear from someone who got the X-Ray specs. What do they send you???

Jon

 

[Brett Hancock]

"they package brine shimp and sell them to kids, thats not right man!!"-Tweek

"YES I AM GOD OF THE SEA PEOPLE!!"-Cartman

I also want to find somebody who got the submarine, that would be rad.

 

[Scooter]

I had a sub..maybe the same one..but I didn't order it from the comic. It was propelled by what essentially was Alka Seltzer...and moved along in my bath water.

 

[MickeS]

Scooter, I had one of those too, but this is something else... this thing is 7 feet long, seats two kids and fires rockets! All for $6.98...
/Mike

 

[Darren Mortensen]

I bought a SPY PEN RADIO when I was probably eight or so. I came in the mail, after what seemed to be forever.
Actually, it was kinda cool. Looked like a fountain pen, but had wire with a small earphone attached to it...and another small wire that you would use to attach to a metal object to use as the AM antenna. I would pick up local AM stations.
Oh, yeah...saved my BAZOOKA bubblegum wrappers and sent them in for a "MAGIC SMOKE FROM FINGERTIPS" item.
It arrived as promised. Wasn't really magic. Wasn't really smoke. What it was, was some small tube looking like airplane glue. You dabbed a small amount on your fingers...then pinched the fingers tips together..then opened them quickly. When the finger tips pulled apart, the sticky substance would release these clear fibers into the air...somewhat "smokelike" in appearance. I am sure the stuff was highly toxic....BUT HEY! IT'S MAGIC!

 

[Ryan Wright]

Darren,
I still have a half used tube of that magic smoke around here somewhere... Bought mine at a magic shop, though.

I also want to find somebody who got the submarine, that would be rad.

!! "Rad"?? Now THAT was a trip down memory lane! I haven't heard that word used in a LONG time!
Re: Sea Monkeys. Yeah, I had them too. What a disappointment. I don't remember mine living long enough to be cool, let alone ever being able to teach them to do tricks...
I'd also like to hear from someone who had that submarine. Boy does that look cool... I wonder what it was really about? Something to throw on the living room rug and pretend in would be my guess. I doubt anyone could get away with putting two kids IN a somewhat-sealed $7 enclosure and putting said enclosure in a body of water. Drowning would seem inevitable.

 

[RobertR]

I found this:

THE GLORIOUS SUBMARINE: This one is my absolute favorite. This is the end-all, be-all in child dissapointment. If you got this for Christmas, you would've been better off with coal. The legacy of this horrible item is so great, Chris Elliot immortalized it in an episode of Get A Life. Now, by my time, someone had cracked down on this company I guess, since the ads for this one were few and far between, and I never had a chance to buy it. Unfortunately, my older brother wasn't so lucky, as he was subjected to quite possibly the worst kid's toy in history.

Now first off, just by looking at the picture you can tell there's a problem. I can't imagine *anyone* believing they were getting what you see above for seven dollars. It just defies logic. The sub appears to be better put together than a Volvo, and far more fun. It promises rockets that really shoot, a working periscope, etc. It sounded like a kid could start his own army to fend off enemy nations with a week's allowance.

So what did you really get? A lot of cardboard. Basically, you put this thing together, and you ended up with a big box that, if you really stretched your imagination or were on a hallucinogenic drug, may have slightly resembled a submarine. The 'working rockets' in most cases were flat pieces of cardboard that you'd push out of slits. The periscope was usually covered by the inside-cardboard from a wrapping paper roll. Contents varied from each company that carried the sub, but the one generality is that they all sucked.

The claim that the sub was big enough for two kids was also a little lacking. If the kids were two weeks old & dwarfs, sure. If the kids were remotely healthy and able to walk under their own power, you might've run into a problem. That's actually how my brother's met his demise. Him and a friend got in the sub, just like the ad says they can, and the thing's sides just broke open. Course, they could always return it for a full refund, but that would entail packing all the *unused* cardboard back in the box and returning it to the sender, and then waiting another 6 months to get back the lousy seven bucks back. Ick.

Another biggie was $6.98 sub offer. "How proud you will be as commander of your own POLARIS SUB -- the most powerful weapon in the world! What hours of imaginative play and fun as you an your friends dive, surface, maneuver, watch the enemy through the periscope and fire your nuclear missiles and torpedoes!" Children are shown having a grand old time in a riveting (and riveted) submarine adventure. The tip-off something wasn't kosher was in this line: "Over 7 Feet Long -- Big Enough for Two Kids". (italics Geoffie) The sub you got, of course, was no more than a large narrow box with portholes -- and you were Captain Nemo, commander of the Laughingstock.

 

[MickeS]

It says in the $6.98 submarine add that it's "sturdily constructed of 200 lb. test material"... what exactly does that mean, I wonder?

The comment above seems to be about a different submarine, except for the last paragraph.

 

[RobertR]

MickeS:

The last paragraph is from a different web page than the preceding pargraphs, but they're talking about the same product.

"200 lb. test material" refers to the bursting strength of the cardboard. You'll sometimes see this sort of spec on cardboard boxes.

 

[Ryan Wright]

Wow, what a scam! Glad I didn't get one...

 

[Jeff Kleist]

http://www.seanbaby.com/stupid/comicads02.shtml
http://www.seanbaby.com/stupid/comicads04.shtml
http://www.seanbaby.com/stupid/comicads01.shtml
http://www.seanbaby.com/stupid/comicads03.shtml