Halloween Candy - Milky Way

Finally, Milky Way candy bars, and the whole bag.

Halloween Candy - Mars Bars Again

Family pack for the holiday.

Halloween Candy - Chiclets

Halloween Candy - Life Savers

A rare 1940's ad for Life Savers as a conversation starter at the masquerade ball. Mini Life Saver rolls were a standard in our Halloween hauls, kind of chum left until the last.

Halloween Candy - Chuckles

One of my favorites, Chuckles. I still get them from vending machines whenever I have a chance.

Halloween Candy - 5th Avenue

I don't know if I've ever had a 5th Avenue bar, probably have and just don't remember. Wasn't a common find in the Halloween bag, that's for sure.

Halloween Candy - Marshmallow Treats

If Post can get into the cereal's for Halloween business, so can Kellogg's. In 1951 they came out with this celebrity endorsement of 9-Minute Marshmallow crispy squares for trick or treaters. Not sure how you're supposed to put those in your bag, but I can say I've never gotten one for Halloween - ever.

Halloween Candy - Post Cereals?

Yeah, I'm trying to imagine the house that handed out corn flakes to trick or treaters. I'm guessing they had a lot of soaped windows and toilet paper in their trees. No wonder they're covering their faces in the ad.

Halloween Candy - Kraft Candy

I never had Kraft Fudgies, but I do remember their caramels. The main thing I remember was that the cellophane used to wrap them was nearly impossible to remove. Never got them for Halloween though, I actually always assumed they were more for cooking.

Halloween Candy - Roxbury Candies

Bargains from the killer clown at Roxbury Candies. Look into my dead lights...

Halloween Candy - Baby Ruth and Butterfinger

1961 Curtis Candy ad for Baby Ruth and Butterfinger, apparently Curtiss was stuck in the fifties with Suzy Homemaker and her wasp-waist. Interesting how we think of eras as defined, well ordered things when they actually bleed into each other.

Halloween Candy - Mounds

Mounds made with real coconut from the Philippines and bitter sweet chocolate. Peter Paul was founded in 1919 and their first candy bar was the Konabar, another combination of chocolate and coconut. Eventually they renamed their bar the Mounds Bar and thus was born the last bar left in my Halloween bag.

Halloween Candy - Chicken Bones

Sometimes you've got to read the margins to get the good stuff. Chicken Bones apparently were invented by Canadian candy maker Frank Sparhawk back in 1885, they are chocolate-filled cinnamon sticks. Apparently back in the fourties, Flavour tried to make inroads in the US market including an ad campaign in Life Magazine. I can't say how it went, just that when I first saw the ad I immediately thought of Chick-o-Sticks.

The Funnies - The Family Skeleton (1915)

Host: Oh, certainly the family skeleton has to be allowed to perpetuate itself.

Life Magazine, September 1915

Halloween Candy - Switzer's Licorice

Switzer is still in business today. I've always had a thing for licorice, not that red vine crap, the real, hard-core, black licorice. The flavor of ouzo and sambuca, not that fake red berry-sugar whatever. Hey, a guy's got to have standards even if they're warped ones.

Halloween Candy - Baby Ruth Again

1942 Baby Ruth ad promoting the wonders of dextrose and complete with a war bond ad. The company's twitchy little mascot, N. R. G., must have gotten the boot sometime during the decade - or maybe he was caught in the draft, Either way, I don't find him showing up in many Curtiss ads.

Halloween Candy - Tootsie Roll

Another of what I like to call "confessional" ads, just you and the kid discussing grown-ups and their desire to steal your chocolatey, luscious tootsie rolls. I don't think a kid's ever uttered those words before. Hey, but they're rich in dextrose food energy!

Halloween Candy - Stacy's Marshmallows

Technically marshmallows aren't a candy, but I couldn't resist the 20's deco ad. O.T. Stacy was part of a marshmallow boom in Rochester NY back in the teens and the company presisted until the Great Depression took the air out of its stocks and its products. I did some digging and the one thing I was able to find on O.T. Stacy as a little lawsuit for violating FDA standards by adulterating their products with silica. Not exactly the kind of trick you want in your treat bag.

Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue

From the 1894 book Cuba Illustrated Ed. with the Biography and Portrait of Christopher Columbus, an image of the three Caravels which brought the explorer to Cuba. My own heritage has left me with mixed feelings about Columbus Day. It's probably the reason I find the song Let that be a Lesson to You by Louis Armstrong so appealing.

Halloween Candy - Limelights and Malted Milk Suckers

A recent renewal of interest in 'vintage' candies has brought the Mary Jane back from the grave, but there was a time when the Chas. N. Miller Company had a full line of candies including the Limelight and the Miller's Malted Milk Sucker. I'm not sure what happened to these two lost gems of the confectioner's world, but it'd be interesting to see them return.

Halloween Candy - The Wilbur Sweet Chocolate Bar

Sometimes all the hours of combing old periodicals pays off in an unexpected way. I present to you, the Wilbur sweet milk chocolate bar. Ah, language, you are a fickle and changeable lady!

In 1927, five years after this ad aired in Confectioner's Journal, the H. O. Wilbur company merged with Suchard Candy to become the Wilbur-Suchard Chocolate Company Inc. Nope, not making it up, I swear.

Though eventually gobbled up by the faceless Cargill conglomeration, Wilbur still is in operation today.

National War Garden Commission - Over the Top

Another clipping from James Lantos' Halloween book, this time a World War I visit to the Victory Garden. Charles Lathrop Pack came up with the idea of the Victory Garden in March of 1917 as a way to increase food production without increasing the amount of US acreage committed to the purpose of agriculture. He joined forces with the General Federation of Women's Clubs and the idea was publicized through newspapers and propaganda posters such as the one shown above. Figures are sketchy, but the estimated food value of crops raised in War Gardens in 1917 was 350 million dollars and 525 million in 1918. I think this poster is the first time I've seen a turnip take a bullet for the cause of freedom.

Halloween Candy - Hershey Kisses

1922 ad for Hershey's Kisses, a candy that's come to be more associated with Christmas than the Halloween season. Still, they're always one of my favorites, who wouldn't love something from a place called Chocolate Town?

Monster Mash Monday - The Skeleton Rag (1912)

Ah, another one of my favorites (if only because I share a middle and surname with the lyricist). The Skeleton Rag was written by Percy Wenrich, words by Edward Madden, featured in a 1914 Edison Kinetograph (motion picture) entitled Curing the Cook along with another ghost-themed rag entitled The Haunting Rag. It'd described as a comedy in which a wayward cook is taught the dangers of  drink after being visited by spooks and specters. Like many silent pictures of the early 'teens, the plot sounds more than a little thin. Still, this is the era when, as Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond said, "We didn't need sound, we had faces!"

Edward Madden grew up in New York City and wrote for vaudeville before moving on to the Broadway stage where he helped create scores for Rogers Brothers in Panama, the Mimic World, the Girl and the Wizard, He Came from Milwaukee, La Belle Paree, and Little Boy Blue. His songs made it through to the 1950's where they featured in films such as Turn Back the Clock, Babes in Arms, Tin Pan Alley, Bullets for O'Hara, Birth of the Blues, Ship Ahoy, On Moonlight, and By the Light of the Silvery Moon. He died in Hollywood, CA on March 11, 1952.

I thought that I touched on Percy Wenrich in this blog before, but going back over the archives I don't find anything, so here's giving the old boy his due. Wenrich came out of the ragtime hotbed of Joplin, MO, arriving in New York City around 1907 where he worked as a Tin Pan Alley composer. He inked a number of famous rags including The Smiler, Peaches and Cream, Crab Apples, and Put on your Old Gray Bonnet. In 1911 he married vaudeville performer Dolly Connolly and with Madden as his lyricist, wrote Red Rose Rag for his sweetheart. Coincidentally he also died on March 17,1952, just six days after his partner.

I found an American Quartet recording of the Skeleton Rag in the Library of Congress' National Jukebox. So, for your enjoyment, here's a scratchy 78!

The Funnies - Crystal Gazing (1920)

Crystal Gazing

Life Magazine, January 1920

Halloween Candy - Necco Wafers

Not quite sure what Necco has to do with the flood, but this 1922 ad would have you believe it was an important part of the ark's cargo.

Halloween Candy - Jujyfruits

I'd argue with describing Jujyfruits as 'tender', maybe rubbery or tenacious, but not tender. Interesting that they also describe them as "on counters everywhere". Literally everywhere, as in spilled and scattered? As in someone dumped them out after breaking a molar?

Halloween Candy - Mars Bars

A nut sundae. As far as I can tell, there really isn't any such thing as a "nut sundae". There are caramel nut sundaes and chocolate nut sundaes, but no plain old nut sundaes. No matter, what strikes me more is how much slang has changed over the years...

Halloween Candy - Fleers Dubble Bubble

The first of many Fleers Dubble Bubble ads, this one extolling the ability of gum to strengthen teeth. Yes, exercise those teeth muscles.

Thirsty Thursday - Cascade Pure Whisky (1917)

In 1818 George Dickel immigrated from Germany, eventually finding himself in Nashville Tennessee where, by 1860, he opened a whiskey wholesaling company. Dickel bought barrels of whiskey from local producers, bottled it, and sold it on to the public.

The Cascade Hollow region of Tennessee had been a noted site for the production of whiskey since the 1870's and it's from this region that Cascade Pure Whisky draws its name. The "Mellow as Moonlight" tagline comes from the purported practice of cooling mash at night.

Personally, I just liked the panther image used in the ad. I've heard stories of the days when panthers roamed the Kentucky hills and probably the woodlands of southern Indiana. A different time, I guess.

Drawing Down the Moon

Not sure I really know what's going on in this Victorian era Halloween postcard. At first I figured it was "drawing down the moon", but the longer I look the less I'm certain. I guess it'll remain yet another spooky mystery of the season. The image came from James Lantos' book, Halloween. Some interesting images, definitely worth a browse.

Halloween Candy - Baby Ruth and the Dionne Quints

The Dionne Quints were a phenomenon back in the 30's. They were born in 1934 and were the first to survive infancy. They were so popular that they became a tourist draw for Callandar, Ontario and dolls sporting their likeness became a popular novelty.

Even Curtiss Candy cashed in on the craze, running this ad in a 1939 issue of Life Magazine. Rich in dextrose food energy sugar, yum, nothing tastes quite so good on Halloween as quack science for a thinly veiled excuse to eat candy.

Halloween Candy - Brach's

59 types of Halloween candy, of course they're the same types of candy you can buy from Brach's any other time of the year - only in snazzy holiday themed containers...that you won't use when you hand candy out to the kids. Oh well, hey, look at the owl!

Monster Mash Monday - Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein, or Dracula (the Diamonds)

A new thing, Monster Mash Monday when we tune into 1313 on the AM dial for a little spooky entertainment to ease the Monday blues. I'll kick things off with Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein, or Dracula by the Diamonds.

Halloween Candy - Weeny Witch Parties

Your favorite brand of skinless frank. Does anyone really have a favorite brand of skinless frank? Of course now nobody really buys skinned franks - you know, the kind that have that red wrapper that has to be peeled off before you can eat them? Well, in the 50's there apparently was a need to promote skinless franks over the skinned kind - a veritable turf war.

As was common in that era, the manufacturers put out a promotional booklet extolling Halloween parties with skinless franks. They even advertised the booklet in magazines with little cutout masks. I'm trying to imagine wearing a mask cut from the pages of Life Magazine. Still no luck...

The Funnies - The Gentleman's Ghost-Infested House (1920)

Right: The usual representation of an old gentleman in a ghost-infested house -

Left: And what really would have happened.

Life Magazine, January 1, 1920

Pierce-Arrow - Grace (1917)

I thought that I'd featured the Pierce-Arrow in my occasional automotive ad series, but a quick look at my list of tags says no. That proved fortunate, since I just stumbled upon this great Grace ad for the Pierce Arrow.

Pierce was based out of Buffalo New York and operated between 1901 and 1938 when the Grim Reaper of the Great Depression shut the plant's doors for good. Oddly enough, the forerunners for Pierce were better known for manufacturing household goods and birdcages than complex machines or bicycles as was common of early automotive companies. Pierce produced luxury cars for the Jazz Age, big machines that were known for reliability. In fact, the 1907, 100 mile race from NY to Bretton Woods, NH was won by a Pierce Great Arrow and in 1909 William Taft ordered two Pierce-Arrows for use on state occasions.

Pierce's Indiana connection comes in 1928, when Studebaker gained a controlling interest in the company, but that's about all that can be said about the two company's association. They operated separately, sharing dealerships until 1933 when they went separate ways.

The ad shown here is, in a way, typical of Pierce's advertising. It's artistic and, in this case, doesn't even show the car it's promoting. The style resembles Myron Perley's work, but the signature doesn't seem to be a match for Myron's other work. If you have any idea of who inked this lovely piece, please let me know.

Halloween Candy - Dromedary Dates

Okay, there's always that one weirdo on the block who hands out fruit for Halloween. They usually are elderly or have some connection to healthcare and passing out oranges or apples. But dates? Sticky dates that kind of look like poop? Well, apparently Dromedary didn't get the message, because in the 50's they decided to run a Halloween ad.

Halloween Candy - Dubble Bubble

Dubble Bubble is a name from my childhood. The packaging had changed from the days of the 1950's ad. In my time they were end-wrapped in a yellow and red label, not packaged like their rival Bazooka Bubble Gum.

Apparently Dubble Bubble ran a series of these ads, I came across another one featuring the same style of artwork in another magazine of the same era. Actually I like the bowler-style hat and mask. Maybe an idea for my next Halloween costume!

Preparation for the Big Night - Chase and Sanborn Coffee

Chase and Sanborn was a new brand to me, but they're an old American brand. The company came into existence in 1862 and it claims to be the oldest coffee company in the US. They're probably best known for an infamous ad featuring a husband spanking his wife.

In the early 80's Sanborn was bought up by Nabisco and eventually by Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group in 2006. Now it's just another brand you'll find at WalMart.

Halloween Candy - Mars

A key part of any trick-or-treat goody bag, Mars bars.