Category:
Drugs
Drugs
She was boring her husband to death
This ad for Vivarin stimulant tablets ran in newspapers and magazines in 1971. It prompted a complaint from the FTC.
San Bernardino Sun - Mar 28, 1971
Ivan Preston provides more details in The Great American Blow-Up: Puffery in Advertising and Selling:
ads for a product called Vivarin told women their husbands would be more attracted to them if they used it, apparently implying some sort of sexually based arousal which would renew the lagging instincts of tired old married folks. To quote the ad directly:
"One day it dawned on me that I was boring my husband to death. It was hard for me to admit it—but it was true…. Often by the time he came home at night I was feeling dull, tired and drowsy, and so Jim would look at television and, for the most part, act like I wasn’t even there. And I wasn’t. I decided that I had to do something. I had seen an advertisement for a tablet called Vivarin. It said that Vivarin was a non-habit forming stimulant tablet that would give me a quick lift. Last week… I took a Vivarin tablet… just about an hour before Jim came home, and I found time to pretty up a little, too. It worked. All of a sudden Jim was coming home to a more exciting woman, me… The other day—it wasn’t even my birthday—Jim sent me flowers with a note. The note began: ‘To my new wife…'"
All very nice, but but the contribution of Vivarin was to provide merely the amount of caffeine found in two cups of coffee. No miracle aphrodisiac, just good old caffeine at a premium price!
The major allegation of the FTC's complaint about Vivarin concerned this social-psychological misrepresentation... But the Vivarin ads were also alleged to be deceptive because they did not disclose caffeine to be the critical ingredient.
"One day it dawned on me that I was boring my husband to death. It was hard for me to admit it—but it was true…. Often by the time he came home at night I was feeling dull, tired and drowsy, and so Jim would look at television and, for the most part, act like I wasn’t even there. And I wasn’t. I decided that I had to do something. I had seen an advertisement for a tablet called Vivarin. It said that Vivarin was a non-habit forming stimulant tablet that would give me a quick lift. Last week… I took a Vivarin tablet… just about an hour before Jim came home, and I found time to pretty up a little, too. It worked. All of a sudden Jim was coming home to a more exciting woman, me… The other day—it wasn’t even my birthday—Jim sent me flowers with a note. The note began: ‘To my new wife…'"
All very nice, but but the contribution of Vivarin was to provide merely the amount of caffeine found in two cups of coffee. No miracle aphrodisiac, just good old caffeine at a premium price!
The major allegation of the FTC's complaint about Vivarin concerned this social-psychological misrepresentation... But the Vivarin ads were also alleged to be deceptive because they did not disclose caffeine to be the critical ingredient.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 20, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Drugs, Advertising, Wives, 1970s
LSD: The Vinyl Album Version
Discogs entry here.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 08, 2020 -
Comments (1)
Category: Drugs, Psychedelic, PSA’s, 1960s
The Mystery of the Leaping Fish
In this unusually broad comedy for Fairbanks, the acrobatic leading man plays "Coke Ennyday", a cocaine-shooting detective who is a parody of Sherlock Holmes. Ennyday is given to injecting himself from a bandolier of syringes worn across his chest, and liberally helps himself to the contents of a hatbox-sized round container of white powder labeled "COCAINE" on his desk.
Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 24, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Addictions, Detectives, Private Eyes and Other Investigators, Drugs, Humor, Parody, Movies, 1910s
Latawnya the Naughty Horse
This book, first published in 1990, must be in demand by collectors. The cheapest used copy on Amazon is $50, while to get a new copy you've got to fork over $318.25.The reviews are worth checking out.
There was a sequel, published in 2010, titled (boringly) Latawnya The Naughty Horse Two.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 14, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Drugs, Books
South Dakota on Meth
South Dakota reportedly paid an advertising firm $449,000 to develop its new anti-meth campaign. The firm came up with the slogan, “Meth. We’re on it.”The public reaction, so far, hasn't been kind.
More info: Philly Voice
Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 21, 2019 -
Comments (3)
Category: Drugs, Advertising
Opiated Hash
You might think that ‘opiated hash’ would be marijuana laced with opium. But not so. According to Cincinnati policeman Carl Rauschenberger, in a 1970 interview, it was “droppings from guinea pigs which had been fed marijuana.” Presumably people were smoking these droppings.The clipping below also contains a curious claim about kids supposedly injecting peanut butter or mayonnaise into their veins. I've looked into that claim at some length over at the Museum of Hoaxes.
Cincinnati Enquirer - June 7, 1970
Posted By: Alex - Tue Nov 12, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Drugs, Smoking and Tobacco
Hallucinogenic giraffe livers
It's possible that the livers of some giraffes might be hallucinogenic when consumed. Although the claim is controversial.
The idea was first introduced into the scientific literature in 1958 by anthropologist Ian Cunnison, in an article published in the obscure journal Sudan Notes and Records.
Cunnison had spent time with the giraffe-hunting Humr tribe of Sudan, and he reported that after a successful hunt they would often consume a drink called umm nyolokh made from the liver and bone marrow of the giraffe. Cunnison didn't try the drink himself, but its effects, as described to him by the Humr, seemed to be hallucinogenic, Here's the relevant passage in Cunnison's article:
It's noted on Wikipedia that, if the reports from the Humr were accurate, “this claim would make the giraffe the first mammal to be discovered to contain a hallucinogen in its bodily tissues,” However, Cunnison himself was skeptical, suggesting that the perceived effects might be “brought about subconsciously.”
Cunnison’s article didn’t attract much attention until 1998, when Richard Rudgely discussed it in his Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances. Rudgely was far more willing to believe that the giraffe livers really were hallucinogenic.
Since then people have speculated that the giraffes in Sudan might have been consuming plants, such as Acacia trees, that contained psychoactive substances, which then concentrated in their livers.
But to date, to my knowledge, the issue remains entirely speculative because no one has gone to Sudan to find and test some of this umm nyolokh.
Members of the Humr tribe skinning a giraffe after a hunt.
Source: Sudan Notes and Records
Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 11, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Animals, Drugs, Psychedelic, Inebriation and Intoxicants
Cannabliss Wallpaper
Scratch-and-sniff wallpaper that smells like marijuana. Available from Flavor Paper.Just a wild guess: most of the people who will buy this already have rooms that smell like marijuana.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Aug 20, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Drugs, Smoking and Tobacco, Interior Decorating
Narcotic Pangolin Scales?
Wildlife researchers would like everyone to know that the scales of pangolins (a kind of anteater) DO NOT contain the opiate tramadol, because apparently there’s a thriving black-market trade in the scales fueled by people who think they can use them to get high. In fact, the scales are made entirely of keratin, which is the same thing fingernails are made out of.I wonder how this rumor ever got started. Was it as a joke? Or did someone seriously think they got high from pangolin scales?
More info: Nat Geo
image source: wikipedia
Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 15, 2019 -
Comments (7)
Category: Animals, Drugs
Gateway Drug
Posted By: Paul - Sat Apr 06, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Business, Advertising, Drugs, Candy, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1960s
| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |