Wednesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from around the 1950s, part of their long-running “There’s nothing like it … absolutely nothing” campaign. The setting for this one is a couple making popcorn in their fireplace, fully dressed. I love the man’s smiling-with-a-pipe expression.
Tuesday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1954. This one is also football-themed, with a man at the game, being poured two beers from cans to wash down the hot dogs, already in his hands, as his significant other waits with the blanket and a pennant in the background.
Monday’s ad is for Falstaff cans from, given the pull tabs on the cans, the mid-to-late 1960s. I assume this was a football play on words. It’s a simple, clean ad, almost unusual for that time. I also like the tagline at the bottom of the ad. “Beer after beer, the choicest product of the brewers’ art. Everywhere.”
Friday’s ad is the end of this week’s theme of Acme Beer and illustrator George Petty. These two works of art were most likely used in beer advertising, though exactly when and for which brewery is a mystery. Petty did a number of ads for Acme Beer, so that seems like the best guess, but I really can’t be sure. Still, they’re great, stylized paintings with beer.
Here’s the first one, in which a man and woman clink their beer glasses together in a toast.
And the second, also showing a finely dressed couple at night.
Thursday’s ad is still another one for Acme Beer, this one from their 1930s “Dietetically Non-Fattening” campaign, and this one was also done by famed pin-up artist George Petty. I’ve featured a painting of this ad before, but I recently found how it was used in an actual ad. I love the qualification on its status as a diet drink, which is that it’s “relatively so, compared with other foods.”
Wednesday’s ad is yet another one for Acme Beer, another in the series of “High I.Q. (It Quenches) ads. This one was done by famed pin-up artist George Petty, who did several ads for Acme. In contrast to yesterday’s matronly ad, this one shows an attractive woman, dressed provocatively, resting in the crescent moon high above the world with a glass of beer in her hand. I can’t imagine Miller was very happy about this ad. But I like it just fine, but that’s probably because of my low I.Q.
Tuesday’s ad is another one for Acme Beer, this one from 1946. Showing a high falootin’ dame wearing a mink coat and holding a beer in her gloved hand, I guess that’s Acme’s way of making the beer appear smarter? But apparently I.Q. stands for “It Quenches.”
Monday’s ad is for Acme Beer from 1947. The ad features local San Francisco celebrity John Tyers, a star of the San Francisco Civic Light Opera Company. He agrees, “it’s the finest tasting Acme beer ever brewed,” especially with the “tangy flavor.”
Our 116th Guinness ad shows the intrepid zookeeper in his home surrounded by eight of his zoo animals, as if they live there when the zoo is closed. The seal is serving the zookeeper a Guinness on a tray as he relaxes on a comfy chair, legs up on a turtle. The tagline, “Guinness is welcome in the home” must have been advertising bottled product for sale.
Friday’s ad is the fourth, and final, in our series of ads for Lucky Lager, brewed in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. This ad shows the “age-dated beer” being enjoyed in Alaska. You can tell because he’s wearing a parka and there’s a toem pole in the background. Actually, it says so on the copy, it could have been anywhere in the west, really.
