It has Room for 2!
I remember these Flexy Racers. Dangerous, foolhardy and fun. Toys like these make me wonder how America isn't missing an entire generation. You braked by dragging the toes of your shoes on the ground, tipping over or slamming into immovable objects. When the racer got older and abused the middle slat would come loose at the back end and painfully pinch your thigh when it shifted or your knee would drop through the gap and get barked by stones while you were riding it.
Awesome fun. Good times. Would have been funner if I had a chance for some tandem belly-whopping, though.
Page from DC's Real Screen Comics #24 (June-July 1954)
Tags: Comic Book, Advertisement
Acknowledgements: GCD for the cover and the usual guys for the nifty vintage page.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Comic Book Ad: Swell for "Belly-Whopping"
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It's like parents back then were practicing some twisted form of Darwinism.
ReplyDelete"Let's give Johnny and Mikey this jagged piece of rusty metal to play with. Whoever survives will be strong enough to fight the Communists."
C'mon, Sleestak! You know kids who're into tandem belly-whopping just don't have time for comics. You gotta choose, man!
ReplyDeleteAlso, who the hell is that kid? It ain't the Bazooka Joe I know. Maybe all his fans belly-whopped into trees, and they hadda come up with a new mascot.
ReplyDeleteHahaha!
ReplyDeleteThat's not really the WORST of it.
As kids, we were ALWAYS playing in and around dangerous settings with highly questionable toys.
Heck, playgrounds were worse than the DANGER-ROOM.
Rusty metal bars on a concrete slab.
And in the sun a slide was a 2nd degree burn waiting to happen...to your WHOLE BODY.
This item isn't Bazooka's only "attempt" to ween off the younger generation.
For awhile I actually WORKED at the place where kids would send their bazooka comics to buy the toys and stuff.
It was a small stockroom type place (abutted to a tennis shoppe) and they handled the mail-order for BAZOOKA GUM toys AS WELL AS the mail-order items for "Soldier of Fotune" type mags.
So, right next to the fake handcuffs or plastic pirate blades were REAL, MUCHO DEADLY blades, brass knuckles, bayonettes and such.
If you weren't paying attention to what you put in which padded mailing envelope, little Timmy could get himself a nice GAROTING WIRE to frag that bully who always stole his lunch-money.
I'm SURE it MUST have happened...at LEAST once.
It was a surreal set-up.
If there was any order to the placement of the items, I didn't figure it out.
It seemed like whatever came in was placed in any open spot on a shelf.
"Oh...a shipment of grenades came in? Place it on the shelf next to the Gum that turns your tongue black."
Wild.
~P~
P-TOR
The Bazooka kid is "Bazooka the Atom Bubble Boy" who could fly by blowing a bubble and saying 'bazooka'. He would float back to earth by saying 'akoozab', reversing the magic gum spell.
ReplyDeleteThe name “Atom Bubble Boy" was chosen in 1947 from a list of names submitted through a national contest conducted by Topps, makers of Bazooka Bubble Gum. The winning entry came from a young boy in Washington State who came up with the name based on the military might of the United States and the future plans of developing atomic power. The young man's name is Joe Ramirez who resides in Los Angeles, California. Though the name “Atom Bubble Boy” was short lived, the name “Joe” lives on in the well-recognized comic character “Bazooka Joe”.
ReplyDelete