Follies of the Mad Men #50

What image could possibly be great enough for our milestone fiftieth installment? Only this one!

At one time, during either the seventies or the eighties, I believe, this campaign was ubiquitous. I would run across OJ and his boots in every issue of Playboy I intended to cut up for collages, whereupon I would promptly rip out the page intact and mail it to a friend. That's why I had to find a scan on eBay, for this post, and can't tell you the exact provenance of the advertisement.

Of course, today we laugh because of OJ's appearance. "So that's how he was able to escape so fast after the murders! He deployed his third leg!"

But consider the campaign even without OJ.

First you get the off-color allusion to "third leg = penis." Then you get the Addams-Family-style associations of "Our boots are worn by mutants and freaks."

Brilliant!

Follies of the Mad Men #48

[From Life magazine for March 5 1956. Two separate scans, picture and text.]

"And they come with matching panties, as you can plainly see!"

Follies of the Mad Men #44

[From Life magazine for September 30 1940.]

Either a 20th-century man's shoe has been transported through time back to pre-Columbian America, confounding the primitive redksins, or else some 20th-century Native Americans on some especially traditional and cloistered reservation somewhere are incredibly ignorant.

Or, some Madison Avenue genius thought this was brilliant.

Spring Heel Shoe

These ridiculous shoes come in many different styles at the J. Rubio website. I saw a guy wearing a pair when I was passing through an airport recently, and he looked like the dorkiest dork that ever dorked.

The verdict is still out, however, on whether wearing them will turn you into the mythic monster known as Spring-heeled Jack.

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.