Returned for insufficient payment

October 1992: Evans Mortuary played hardball. When a customer didn't make full payment, they simply returned the body, right to the customer's doorstep. More details here, including these lines:


And from the mortician:


The mortician was charged with abuse of a corpse, but eventually acquitted.

Salem Statesman Journal - Oct 14, 1992

Posted By: Alex - Sun Jul 01, 2018 - Comments (3)
Category: Death | 1990s

Indoor Fishing

Not a new idea.

Source of 1931 article.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jul 01, 2018 - Comments (4)
Category: Sports | Fish

Push-Button Toothpaste

Toothpaste in a shaving-cream can.

Colorado Springs Gazette - Nov 24, 1972

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jun 30, 2018 - Comments (4)
Category: Products | 1970s | Teeth

Follies of the Madmen #372

Sentient cigarette fulfills its duties as matchmaker, despite dying an excruciating fiery death.

Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jun 30, 2018 - Comments (3)
Category: Anthropomorphism | Business | Advertising | Tobacco and Smoking | 1930s

Marybel - the doll that gets well

Introduced in 1959 by the Alexander Doll Co. You could break her bones or give her measles, then nurse her back to health.

via Theriaults

"I need crutches and I must wear a cast 'cause I broke my leg riding pony too fast."

"I broke my arm when I stumbled and fell. Now I wear a cast to make it well."

Cincinnati Enquirer - Oct 21, 1959

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jun 29, 2018 - Comments (6)
Category: Toys | 1950s

Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 14

Wood Gaylor, "Rites of Spring"

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jun 29, 2018 - Comments (4)
Category: Art | 1910s | Russia

Vend-a-Joke

In 1971, Ussery Industries debuted a vending machine that for 10 cents would play a joke by Henny Youngman as well as dispense a candy bar.

Sample jokes: "My mother-in-law got a mud pack. For two days she looked nice. Then the mud fell off."

"Let me tell you about my brother-in-law. I wish he would go to trade school so I would know what kind of work he is out of. He tells people he's a diamond cutter; mows the lawn at Yankee Stadium."

The vend-a-joke machine apparently didn't do very well. But two years later Youngman was featured on one of the first dial-a-joke lines in New York City, and that did much better.

The Odessa American - Jan 28, 1971

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jun 28, 2018 - Comments (3)
Category: 1970s | Jokes

Truck Turner

The Wikipedia page.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 28, 2018 - Comments (2)
Category: Crime | Death | Destruction | Detectives, Private Eyes and Other Investigators | Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough | Movies | Exploitation and Grindhouse | 1970s

Opposed cream in coffee

The French scholar Arsene Thiebaud de Berneaud liked his coffee black. So much so that he "opposed with ferocity the then comparatively new custom of adding milk or cream to black coffee."

"He seems to have had an obsession that all mixtures of fluids were injurious... Sustained by this preconceived notion, he was able to publish a long diatribe in 1826, in which he accuses cafe au lait of causing almost every derangement known to medicine."

I've been able to find almost no other information about de Berneaud, so this one odd theory seems to be the most enduring thing he left behind.

The Chatham Press - July 15, 1922

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jun 27, 2018 - Comments (5)
Category: Health | Weird Theory | Coffee and other Legal Stimulants | Nineteenth Century

Miss Garter Throw of 1958

I can't find much on this beauty contest, nor any indication it was more than a one-time thing in 1958.

Source of foto.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Jun 27, 2018 - Comments (1)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues | Contests, Races and Other Competitions | 1950s | Legs