Thursday’s ad is entitled Dad Takes On All Comers, and the illustration was done in 1954 by Douglass Crockwell. It’s #96 in a series entitled “Home Life in America,” also known as the Beer Belongs series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation ran from 1945 to 1956. In this ad, a backyard croquet match is taking place during a barbecue. And apparently Dad is a ringer. He stands smugly, while a young woman (his daughter?) is about to take her turn, and Mom is telling someone to shut up, perhaps trying to effect a loss for her husband. But she also has a tray of beer, which may help.
Gal’s croquet posture is WRONG – you stand perpindicular to the ball only when yours is touching another – put a foot atop yours to hold it in place & send the foe’s ball off course. Normal posture is to have the mallet between your legs, swing axis thru the spreadeagle. The artist got it all wrong – even the ball positions are goofy. I played the game a lot as a pre-teen.