If you grew up anytime between the, oh, 1920s and 1980s or so, pretty much most of the 20th century, then you probably are familiar with the Johnson Smith Company, if not by name, then visually. That’s because Johnson Smith was one of the main companies that advertised on the back covers of comic books and magazines like Boy’s Life and the Utne Reader, ads that were densely packed little drawings of amazing things like X-ray glasses and pranks that promised big laffs, but were almost all some sort of scam, or at least a letdown.
I remember these pages of ads quite well from my youth; they seemed to be everywhere, and if you wanted fake gum that would injure a friend, whose misery you could then laugh at, or tiny radios or cameras or pens with pictures of ladies with vanishing clothes, then this was your best source.
Of course, I never knew anyone who actually ordered anything from those pages, because even as kids, we weren’t that stupid, or, more accurately, we never had money to waste. Same thing. Anyway, I came across an old catalog from 1951 – I’m not going to bother linking it here, because it’s got more racist and anti-Semitic stuff in there than I would have imagined – and it did have some interesting car-related things.
Like this:
Yes, number 6534, the AUTO SCARE BOMB. This thing sounds absolutely bonkers. You connect this 15¢ piece of crap to a spark plug lead and ground, and when your victim attempts to start their car, there’s…explosions? Smoke? A whistle? what the hell was this thing? It sounds like spark plug-actuated fireworks under your car’s hood?
They say it’s “quite harmless and does not injure the car in any way” but I’ll be honest, I think that just may be bullshit. Smoke and bangs? From something that is noted to be NOT MAILABLE? To hell with that.
This is, of course, about the level of humor that Johnson Smith dealt in: terrify someone, justifiably, with explosions or mild injuries, then it’s guffaws aplenty.
I did try to find some other automotive products and references in their catalog, and there’s a pretty good number of them. This one isn’t strictly automotive, but the context given is:
Ah yes! Throw your voice, get your dad beaten by an angry cop! Hilarious! And I’m sure this method worked incredibly well. I guess cops back then didn’t concern themselves with whether or not mouths synched up with the audible speech they heard? And if that speech was coming from a child?
This is some really top-notch garbage here: the Gastine, a magical pastille you plop in your gas tank and it grants your car better, well, everything: performance, gas mileage, compression – holy crap, right?
It’s funny to see that advertised right above a genuinely rational accessory, a back-up light.
Since we’re already talking taillights, this was also a bit ahead of its time: a flashing brake lamp! These have been proposed multiple times, and have even been implemented in some cars like BMWs for hard braking, emergency stops, where they can command much more attention than conventional brake lamps. Not a bad idea! And in 1951!
A more frivolous taillight add-on are these novelty reflectors, which helpfully inform another driver of your status as a hepcat, or beg pardon for dust, or cajole drivers to either slow down, ride ’em as a cowboy would, come up (sometime), and even suggest nuts to you, fellow driver.
Very useful.
There were plenty of car toys and models, too:
Like these really archaic early Cadillac and a White steam car, or this midget race car with an actual gasoline engine:
The ad claims speeds up to 50 mph – holy crap, really? Even if they’re exaggerating by 100%, that’s still pretty damn fast!
For the top “Remoto-Car” I’m not clear how that one button on the wired remote does all the things it says, but I do like the fact that it has a 1/2000 hp motor is mentioned. The little bump-and-move car is pretty clever, I remember those from when I was a kid. My understanding of driving etiquette comes from watching those cars bang around a cluttered table. [Ed note: I’m 99% certain the remote-control car steers passively when reversed via a caster-like wheel under the car, like so – Pete]
And finally, you could build a real car from these catalogs, and all you need is two bucks and “spare time” and a motorcycle or outboard boat motor and a crapload of parts from old Fords or Chevys. I wonder if anyone actually built one of these from those plans, and if they did, did they take their girl to “go to town” as the ad suggests?
It’s all delightfully half-assed. And, really, Temu and Alibaba and all those sorts of places are the modern form of this kind of cheap, overpromising sort of thing. In a way, I’m glad it still exists. This sort of thing does fill a hole, regardless of how inane or shameful that hole may be. It’s our hole.
The stop lamp flasher made me remember something: if you are a person who has the third high stop lamp on your car set to flash when the brake pedal is applied, I hate you. Usually this setting only seems to be applied to Honda CR-Vs, a car uniquely driven by people who are on their brake pedal every seven seconds.
My dad came of age in the 1950s and early 60s. Back then cherry bombs were serious stuff. There was a single lane cement railroad underpass on a backroad to Danville, IL. Dad and his buddies liked to toss a cherry bomb out the window when driving through because the boom echoed so nicely.
One day, the cherry bomb bounced off the tunnel wall, landed on the chrome trim strip on the side of the car, rolled back and blew a massive dent in the trunk of the family Ford. And that was the afternoon when Dad taught himself bodywork before my grandfather got back from the fields.
“I wonder if anyone actually built one of these from those plans, and if they did, did they take their girl to “go to town” as the ad suggests?”
Ask Toecutter.
It looks like a first gen King Midget. Lots of people built those. Wouldn’t be surprised at all.
“AUTO SCARE BOMB. This thing sounds absolutely bonkers. You connect this 15¢ piece of crap to a spark plug lead and ground, and when your victim attempts to start their car, there’s…explosions? Smoke? A whistle? what the hell was this thing? It sounds like spark plug-actuated fireworks under your car’s hood?”
Yeah, that’s pretty much the “bang” of suck, squeeze, bang and blow. I wonder how often this thing set off the live charge expelled out of the cylinder. Now THAT would be a proper bang.
“Gastine, a magical pastille you plop in your gas tank and it grants your car better, well, everything: performance, gas mileage, compression – holy crap, right”
The fuel shark before there was fuel shark.
I assumed that you didn’t take the spark plug out. My guess is a wire clipped to the spark plug just provides a spark to ignite a traditional firework. Less bonkers, but still.
Yeah but where’s the fun in that?
Given the flammable fluids leaking or oozing from motors of the 1950s variety in my experience, still plenty of ignition sources and plenty of fun. ????
Gotta love cork and paper gaskets.
Okay I’ll be 51 in a couple of months and I will admit to have ordering several things from the Johnson Smith catalog, which I got out of the back of Boy’s Life magazine lol. The fake turd that you laid across the toilet seat? Hilarious and got my little sister hollered at, and me in so much trouble… The little ventriloquist dummy? Cheesy as hell but I learned how to work a ventriloquist dummy. The glow in the dark stars are still on the ceiling in my old room at Mom’s house. I always wanted to build the hovercraft out of vacuum cleaner parts but I never did. To a 10-year-old boy, the Johnson Smith catalog was about the greatest thing ever.
I guess I’m on the older side of the demographic here, but I definitely bought a few things from Johnson Smith. I’d ride my bike to 7-11 and buy a money order for the dollar or two, mail it off then anxiously watch the mailbox. It really was junk though. I remember buying a light bulb that was claimed to be self powering or something and looked like a full size bulb in the catalog. Turned out to be smaller than my thumb and made out of glow in the dark plastic. Good times.
In my college days I pranked one of my class mates ’69 B0SS 302 with one of those fireworks it whistled, put out green smoke and temporarily created a V7 Ford. One pissed off owner and no permanent damage. I sourced it at a local costume and joke shop, had to be in the 1970’s.
My dad was a firework and catalogue nut in the 80s and 90s plus obsessed with pranks. He would acquire the spark plug prank from time to time. My mom got so used to it that when the shit box he had her in muffler fell off dragging behind she didn’t even notice after that because of many other issues getting stranded in his shit boxes she demanded new cars that he never would touch. He probably shouldn’t have told me about putting fish or potatoes in exhausts pipes as a kid because many of adults I didn’t care for ended up with them. He had to good sense to wait to tell me about sugar in gas.
I love that the midcentury text-happy copy writer (weren’t they all?) felt the need to use an entire paragraph to explain who’s who and who’s feeling what way in the picture. As if the picture wasn’t able to do that itself.
The plans for that 2 seat midget are awesome. You just needed to be Frank Kurtis or A. J. Watson to fabricate the parts.