Four Color Promises slowing down...

I have posted over 200 comic book adverts from my personal collection over this past year and a half. I'm pretty much done. I will post ads as I find them but not on a regular basis. Thanks for visiting the site and check back from time to time to see if there are any new ads. Cheers!

Road Rockets- Fire away at the Forces of Evil!

What's the ad for?

Road Rockets - Rapid Fire Target Game
Year
1981

Spotted in...

 

The Scoop

I wonder what the back story of the Road Rocket Universe is. It looks like cars are projected at Bad Guys who represent the Forces of Evil but why? What did these bad guys do? How much force does the evil wield. Check out that kids face. He's pissed! 

I wish I could find out more information on this "game". I couldn't find any info on the internet but when I did a Google image search I found was this...which I felt compelled to share. What a cute photo.

Spider-Man backpack!

What's the ad for?

Dorman's Cheese
Year
1986

Spotted in...

The Scoop

 It's cool that they gave you the choice of how many UPC symbols to include. Doesn't seem like much a deal though. I did a bit of searching on the internet to see if I could come up with some photos of the actual backpack. All I found was people selling the actual ad?!? At a price-point of $7.99? Do people actually buy and collect just the ads? This is a dollar book if that. Couldn't they just buy the comic and clip out the old ad?

132 Roman Soldiers

What's the ad for?

132 Roman Soldiers. Two complete armies!
Year
1981

Spotted in...

The Scoop

This ad was featured prominently in back of comic books from the 60s to the early 80's. The art was by Russ Heath. Below is what Heath had to say about the ad in an interview featured at wtv-zone.com

A lot of people didn't know I did them because they didn't want them signed.  I did have a small "RH" on the lower left hand corner of the Revolutionary soldiers and I don't remember about the Roman soldiers.   Then they would blame me, I'd never seen the damned things, because they're like a bas relief or whatever they call it.  They're not fully formed, not three dimensional.  It would be flat things that were shaped a little and the kids felt gypped and they figured that it was my fault.

A lot of kids were disappointed with these toy soldiers. I guess it's another four color promise that never lived up to it's expectations.

Sponsered by Jolly Ranchers

What's the ad for?

Watermelon Jolly Ranchers
Year
1987

Spotted in...

The Scoop

Unlike Stu Thomsen, these guys could only get sponsored by a candy company. Nah, just kidding. Seeing these ads reminds me how popular BMX was in the eighties. I mean, they even made a movies centered on BMX riding. They were pretty rad...

Old man on a little bike

What's the ad for?

Huffy BMX bicycles
Year
1985

Spotted in...

The Scoop

 Okay, when I first saw this ad recently my first thought was, "ha, an old man with a mustache on a little bike." The man in question is Stu Thomsen and he would have only been in his late twenties when this photo was taken, so not so old. The call him the Babe Ruth of BMX racing, he is a legend. Check out the trailer below for a doc made about Stompin Stu...

Gone Fishing...

I'm leaving the country to travel for a few weeks. I will not be updating the site while I'm gone. In the meantime, check out the archives. There are over 200 ads to look at.

Cheers

Marvel's Super Slurpee Fun Game

What's the ad for?

7-11's Super Slurpee Fun Game
Year
1981

Spotted in...

The Scoop

To celebrate the near start of summer I thought I would share this Marvel Slurpee ad/contest. Your chance to win thousands of dollars in cash. I like the instructions on how to play...

"With the edge of a coin, gently scratch-ff the gold squares on the front of your game card."

Like that needs explaining? Then again, this was 1981. Perhaps the concept of scratch-and-win was new. When I was a kid in junior high (Calgary, 1989/90), Hostess potato chips ran a contest featuring a scratch-and-win Nintendo Power Pad. Every card was a winner; you just had to scratch the correct squares to get matching symbols. Someone in my school came up with the idea of carefully placing pieces of Scotch Tape onto the squares and then slowly pealing the tape off. A thin layer of the silver scratching material would come off with the tape. Now if you held the Power Pad game card up to the light, you could make out all the symbols hidden underneath. Most cards won you a free bag of chips or a bottle of pop but soon kids started showing up with wearing Nintendo swag (T-shirts and hats). It was a good run for us and I'm sure we all gained a few potato chip pounds but when your young it didn't matter, we were outside riding our bicycles and playing street hockey all the time anyway.

Then in the fall a new contest started. In each bag of potato chips was another scratch-and-win game card, this time featuring NHL teams. Same concept, this time match the team logos and win something. Every card was a potential winner. We tried the same trick again but it didn't work. The game cards were now made of thicker paper. There was no way you were going to see through these ones. I wonder how much money Hostess lost because someone decided to "save" costs on thinner paper.

I find it hard to believe that it was only the population my junior high whom were doing this. Did anyone else remember doing this? There were even rumors of a local kid ratting us out by telling Hostess what we were doing, which in turn lead to the thicker paper being used for the next contest. Supposedly he received boxes of free chips and stuff. In retrospect I don't think that was the case but you never know.