Category:
Smoking and Tobacco

Cigarette Karaoke



Plus, millions of free cigarettes for our hospitalized fighting men!

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 26, 2013 - Comments (14)
Category: Addictions, Business, Advertising, Hospitals, Television, Smoking and Tobacco, 1950s

Murad Cigarette Ads

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[Click either to enlarge]

Surely one of the most gorgeously over-the-top ad campaigns for any cigarette was the long-running series for Murad brand. What a realm of fantasy!

Read a small history of the brand and see a large gallery of images here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Aug 12, 2013 - Comments (6)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Fantasy, Smoking and Tobacco, Middle East, Twentieth Century

Smoke Smoke Smoke



The first musical anti-smoking propaganda?

Posted By: Paul - Tue Feb 05, 2013 - Comments (4)
Category: Music, Smoking and Tobacco, 1940s

The Sport-Briar Pipe

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"Is that an Indian Club between your lips, or are you just glad to be smoking?"

No wonder this never caught on.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Oct 01, 2012 - Comments (3)
Category: Inventions, Chindogu, Smoking and Tobacco, 1920s

Cremo and Spit-tipped Cigars

We all know that ad campaigns have often created the disease or deficiency they wish to sell remedies for. "Halitosis" and "BO" were Madison Avenue inventions.

But perhaps no campaign dared quite as much as that for Cremo cigars, with its charge that all its competitors spit on their product.

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Original text here.

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Original ad here. (Scroll down.)

But although Cremo increased its market share, their scheme ultimately backfired.

As this history says:

During the 1920s, the cigar industry began to suffer from image problems. The rise of organized crime during Prohibition, and the image of the stogie-chomping gangster--developed in part by Hollywood, and personified by such actors as Edward G. Robinson--gave the cigar an aura of disrespect among the public. Later that decade, the cigar industry faced a second crisis, when American Tobacco began promoting new, machine-rolled cigars. Its advertising asked: "Why run the risk of cigars made by dirty yellowed fingers and tipped in spit?" The image proved disastrous for the cigar industry as a whole. Cigar makers rushed to convert their manufacturing from hand-rolled to machine-rolled products, but cigar sales plunged through the 1930s. During this same time period, the cigar industry was hit hard by the rise in cigarette use across the United States. Cigar consumption never recovered to its early 1920s peak.



Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 18, 2012 - Comments (5)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Lies, Dishonesty and Cheating, Smoking and Tobacco, 1920s, 1930s

Smokin’

Just when you thought the anti-smoking campaign might be working, along comes a news story that proves otherwise. Ardi Rizal, aged two years, has a 40-per-day smoking habit. His mother has tried to get him to stop, especially since the government has offered to buy the family a new car once the child quits, but she says he is entirely too addicted. His father, on the other hand, doesn't see any problem - "He looks pretty healthy to me..." In the meantime, Ardi's health is such that he can't run around and play with the other kids. Instead he rides around on a plastic toy truck while puffing away, looking like a parody of a middle-aged truck driver.

Posted By: Nethie - Thu May 27, 2010 - Comments (13)
Category: Addictions, Health, Tobacco and Smoking, Smoking and Tobacco, More Things To Worry About

No Smoking in Bismarck, North Dakota

And they mean it, too. Ron White, the popular comedian from the Blue Collar Comedy tour and various Comedy Central specials, is a whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking redneck, and proud of it. He's included those two fundamental elements in all of his shows. But apparently grumpy people in North Dakota won't stand for that kind of blatant disregard for the law. This is one of those times where you wonder just how uptight Americans have become since Janet Jackson flashed a tit on prime time.

Posted By: Nethie - Wed May 20, 2009 - Comments (6)
Category: Crime, Drugs, Smoking and Tobacco, Comedians

Follies of the Mad Men #21

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[From Life for March 10 1952. Two separate scans, top and bottom.]

The weirdest thing about this ad is the notion that an airline would give a customer something for free!

Posted By: Paul - Tue Sep 02, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Drugs, Smoking and Tobacco, Flight, Travel, 1950s

Young Rastafarians

Following up on my previous post about the Kuku-Kuku of Papua New Guinea, here's another image from The Circle of Life: Rituals from the human family album. It's my favorite image in the book. It's captioned, "Outside of Kingston, Jamaica, young Rastafarian church members smoke ganja."



The text goes on to explain that Rastafarians consider marijuana to be a sacred herb, and that the ritual of smoking it mirrors similar rituals in many other cultures: "Ritualistic smoking of tobacco is an expression of group bonding in numerous Native American ceremonies, and the use of incense, hallucinogens, or alcohol to alter the senses is a common initiatory practice worldwide."

Posted By: Alex - Fri Aug 29, 2008 - Comments (2)
Category: Drugs, Smoking and Tobacco, Children

Page 8 of 8 pages ‹ First  < 6 7 8




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Who We Are
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.

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