Happy Father’s Day from The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and from the fine people who bring you Edgeworth Pipe Tobacco!

1. It’s Dad who tends the furnace, it’s Dad who mows the law,
2. And it’s Dad who pushes off to work before the crack o’ dawn…
3. It’s Dad who carries bundles. And it’s Dad who has to pay,
4. Let’s give Dad the FINEST! for his pipe on FATHER’S DAY!

 

For this third installment of vintage billboard photos, I have a gallery of roadside advertisements for local news broadcasts. Just about all of these date from the 1970s and ’80s, and include ads for news broadcasts as well as local weather and sports teams.

All images courtesy Duke University’s Digital Collections site. Click for a larger version.

In Billboard Time Capsule, we journey through an old issue of Billboard to see what the most popular and advertised albums of the day were. Not through charts, but rather through advertisements. In each capsule you’ll see ads for classic songs and albums, both promoting new recordings and trumpeting ones that had already gained traction.

Enjoy!

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For those who dig Spotify playlists, here is one that contains about half of these songs. I suspect the rest are either not permitted or may have just been lost to the mists of time…

It’s been a looong time since my last new car ad gallery — just over three years in fact since my 1970 Dodge post. For the return of this series, let’s fast forward one decade to the dawn of the ’80s and the lineup for GM’s Pontiac make.

The theme for these ads was a pretty clever twist on the MPG initialism. In this case it stood for:

• More Pontiac to the Gallon
• More Pontiac Excitement to the Gallon
• More Pontiac Excitement for the Great Ones

The only model I wasn’t able to find a good print ad for is the Sunbird, so if anyone can help me out please let me know.

(To see other car lineup advertisement galleries, click here. Got a request for other years and makes? Let me know in the Comments section.)

1980 Pontiac Compacts

1980 Pontiac Mid-Sizes

1980 Pontiac Full-Sizes

1980 Pontiac Station Wagon

1980 Pontiac Muscles

From 1959 through 1962, Kool-Aid (and its parent company, General Foods) ran a print ad campaign to showcase its various flavors. Each ad had the same setup — a family member (usually mom) had to leave the house for a while, wrote a note for those left behind, and mixed a pitcher of delicious Kool-Aid.

Visually, it was a very attractive campaign. And judging by the fact that it lasted for several years I’m guessing it was pretty successful too.

Now of course I’m joking about the absentee mom thing, but it does seem odd that several of these ads feature notes from a missing parent. As a latchkey kid myself, I know all about that.

Anyway, enjoy the ads! There are 17 of them in case you’re counting.

For more great slideshows, click here.

To celebrate Pi Day, here’s a 1958 ad for Jell-O Chiffon Pie. Get it???

Look up “All American” in the dictionary and you’ll probably find this image, as seen on a beautiful Howard Johnson’s ad from a 1955 issue of Life magazine. Click on the image for the full-size version on Flickr.

This ad has it all pretty much. The cars, the iconic orange HoJo roof, the happy patrons all dressed to the nines. Don’t you want to go there right now???

Let’s get a closeup of that gorgeous artwork, shall we? (also on Flickr)

For National Donut Day (or National Doughnut Day if you please), here’s a pair of lovely vintage donut ads.

Up first is a lovely Mayflower Downyflake specimen from 1939, tying their donuts to that year’s World’s Fair in New York.

And the second treat — because who can eat just one? — is this Mister Donut print ad from 1966.

I wonder if that coupon is still any good?

The Space Age motif on this 1956 print ad for Puffin Biscuits — “So light they almost fly!” — is subtle but still hard to miss. And it’s worth a look:

I can’t tell what I like more about the design of this ad, the little boy in the vintage 1950s space helmet for the little biscuit with wings at the bottom.