Flashback : Dallas

A Miscellany: History, Ads, Pop Culture

Category: Humor

June 19, 2014

Keep Oak Cliff Kinky — 1923

thumb-sucking_dmn_111823

by Paula Bosse

I’m not sure what more I can offer, except to say that in today’s money — with inflation taken into account — that little $3 bondage device for a child’s thumb would run you a cool 40 bucks in 2014. (Updated: in 2024, make that $55!)

I picture Mrs. J. C. Thompson assembling the inventory herself, at the kitchen table in her little frame house on Melba Street in Oak Cliff, the Victrola playing in the other room, having a chirpy one-sided conversation with the imaginary “Dr. Thompson.” I wonder if she sold any?

To quote the Messrs. Python: “Guaranteed to break the ice at parties!”

***

Sources & Notes

Ad from The Dallas Morning News, Nov. 18, 1923. I’m not sure there was a follow-up.

Whither Mrs. J. C. Thompson, OC entrepreneur?

*

Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

1 Comment
May 18, 2014

The Texas Fire Extinguisher Co. and Hitler — 1942

tx-fire-extinguisher-coTexas Fire Extinguisher Co., across from Fair Park

by Paula Bosse

For a place that sells fire extinguishers and tractor equipment, this is a wonderfully comforting image. Hardly even looks like Dallas. The Texas Fire Extinguisher Company — operated for several decades by the Hancock family — was located at the corner of Parry and Second Avenue, across from Fair Park. While checking to see the exact address of this business (which, by the way, was 929 Second Ave.), I came across a 1942 article mentioning it and Hitler.

According to a Dallas Morning News blurblet, the Hancock company owner had placed a want-ad for a painter and paperhanger and received an odd response on a postcard:

Gentlemen: I wish to apply for the job as a paperhanger. Am hunting bears at present, but am about out of ammunition. Anyway, I am a better paperhanger than I am a bear hunter. –Adolph Hitler, Berlin, Germany. (P.S. Please rush answer as this job is playing out and may have to move soon.)

Humor doesn’t always translate successfully across the generations. But, hey, that was weird.

texas-fire-extinguisher-co_texas-fireman_june-1951_portal1951 ad, “Fyr-Fyter, Wet Water”

***

Sources & Notes

Postcard (cropped) from the Boston Public Library Tichnor Brothers Postcard Collection on Flickr, here.

Quote from Dallas Morning News article “Reply to Want Ad Indicates Hitler Wants a New Job” (DMN, Nov. 6, 1942).

Ad from Texas Fireman magazine, June 1951, via Portal to Texas History.

*

Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

3 Comments
May 11, 2014

Chas. Ott: One-Stop Shopping for Bicycles and Dynamite

ad-charles-ott-dynamite_smu-19161916 ad

by Paula Bosse

Aside from maybe an ad for a popular off-campus soda shop or one of those bland, dutiful business card ads for an insurance company, I’m not sure that there’s necessarily a specific type of advertisement I expect to see in the pages of a college yearbook. But if I were quizzed on types of ads I wouldn’t expect to see in the pages of a college yearbook, it would probably include an ad for dynamite and ammo. But in 1916, SMU’s inaugural yearbook committee was proudly testing the limits of advertising propriety!

Charles Ott was kind of a big deal in the world of, first, gunsmithing, and second, locksmithing. Born in Germany, he came to Dallas in 1873 and opened a gun shop on Elm Street in 1876. According to The Encyclopedia of Texas, at the time of his death (c. 1921?), he was “the oldest gunsmith in the State of Texas.” That’s an impressive accomplishment. As seen from the ad above, a successful businessman not only knows his craft, but he knows how to diversify. (A nice bio of Mr. Ott can be found here.) Below, a photo of the interior of his shop, sometime in the early 20th century:

chas-ott_interior_cook-coll_degolyer_smu

*

If you’re in business selling ammunition and gunpowder and fireworks and dynamite, you probably need to secure them in a place safe from the reach of the fires that seemed to hit Dallas constantly in the 19th century. ‘Cause if you don’t, you run the risk of something like this happening (north side of Elm, between Griffin and Akard):

ott-fire_dmn_052696Dallas Morning News, May 26, 1896

My favorite part of the story, though, was this on-the-spot artist’s depiction of the “conflagration.” You can practically feel the smoke burning your eyes.

ott-fire_pic_dmn_052696

***

Sources & Notes

Top ad from, yes, the 1915-16 SMU Rotunda.

Bio of Charles Ott linked above from Davis & Grobe’s Encyclopedia of Texas (Dallas: Texas Development Bureau, 1922). If you sped-read past it above, you can find it here.

Excerpt and drawing of the explosive Elm St. fire from The Dallas Morning News, May 26, 1896.

Photo of the interior of the Ott store from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Libraries, SMU Libraries, Southern Methodist University; more info on this photo is here.

*

Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

 

5 Comments
April 4, 2014

“If You Don’t Come to Dallas, the Laugh Will Be On You!”

dallas_postcard_hee-haw

by Paula Bosse

“Hee! Haw! Hee! Haw!” Sa-LUTE!

***

Click to get the donkey bigger, y’all.

*

Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

Leave a comment
April 1, 2014

U.S. Revenue Cutter “Carrie Nation” Successfully Navigates the Trinity In Valiant Effort to Keep Dallas Dry! — 1931

april-fools_dmn_010131_carrie-nation
The ship’s arrival, passing under the streetcar viaduct…

by Paula Bosse

I spent a couple of hours looking through the archives of The Dallas Morning News this morning, hoping to find a nice juicy April Fools’ prank from the past. Everything was fairly run-of-mill. Until I came across this. THIS is great. I don’t know who wrote the story, but there is, at least, acknowledgement for the wonderfully weird photo above — the photo credit reads: “Perpetrated by C. J. Kaho, News Staff Photographer.”

Below is the accompanying story about the United States Revenue Cutter Carrie Nation and the news of its journey up a surprisingly navigable Trinity River in order to anchor itself beneath the Commerce Street viaduct and make sure that the rum-runners in the Gulf don’t gain a foothold in bone-dry Prohibition-era Dallas. The photo and report appeared in the pages of The Dallas Morning News on April 1, 1931, beneath the headline “Lots of Dallas People Failed to See This.”

Unwilling to let such an important story fade away — and with a few more good lines left to get into print — this appeared the next day, on April 2, 1931: “Navigation Assured!”

Then some killjoy editor probably insisted on this, which also appeared on April 2, 1931:

**

Rev. J. B. Cranfill was a Baptist leader and a noted Prohibitionist. I love the line “Dr. J. B. Cranfill was so overcome with joy that he wept copious tears, taking care to shed them into the canal, so as to increase its depth.”

And I laughed out loud at the “where the West begins” dig at Fort Worth.

But, seriously, that photo is great. The little streetcar chugging over the viaduct is just the perfect garnish.

Read about the famed, notorious Bonehead Club of Dallas in a 1991 Texas Monthly article by Helen Thompson, here. Thank you, Boneheads!

*

Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

1 Comment
March 17, 2014

Protected: Never Tell an Irate Irishman That He Can’t Paint a Green Stripe Down Main Street — 1960

This content is password-protected. To view it, please enter the password below.

Enter your password to view comments.
March 12, 2014

So This Cowboy Goes Into a Psychiatrist’s Office…

cowboy-therapy-cartoon_sat-evening-post_kaz

by Paula Bosse

Well, bless his heart.

***

Cartoon by Kaz from The Saturday Evening Post.

Leave a comment
February 11, 2014

Ned Riddle: Dallas Artist and Creator of “Mr. Tweedy”

ned_riddle_texan-in-nyc_joe-cooper-bk
The Texan Visits New York City … “New York CITY?!”

by Paula Bosse

A few years ago, I came across the cartoon above in Joe E. Cooper’s chili bible, With or Without Beans, and I was delighted to see that the cartoonist was Ned Riddle, who, though having begun his career as a staff artist for the Dallas Morning News, is known primarily for his syndicated comic panel “Mr. Tweedy,” which I loved as a kid.

A couple of interesting tidbits about Mr. Riddle, who was a Dallas resident until his death in 2003: during WWII, he served on a submarine with the unspeakably perfect name, the USS Piranha, and — unlikely as it seems — while studying art at Washington University in St. Louis, he apparently studied under the great Expressionist artist Max Beckmann.

I loved “Mr. Tweedy” — the look of it, the simple one-panel jokes, and the fact that (as I recall) the somewhat optimistic-though-beleaguered Mr. Tweedy rarely actually spoke. Sort of Mr. Bean-like. I also knew that the cartoonist was from Dallas, and I was always trying to spot any sort of hidden homage to the city (as far as I know that never happened, but it SHOULD have!). “Mr. Tweedy” began in 1954 and ended in 1988. That’s a good run.

Here are a few Mr. Tweedy panels.

tweedy-21959

*

tweedy31959

*

tweedy_panel_1105691969

**

And some photos of Ned Riddle at his drawing board over the years.

tweedy1

*

ned_riddle_drawing_board_flickr

*

tweedy_last-panel_ned-riddle_101588Oct. 15, 1988, the final panel….

***

Sources & Notes

“The Texan Visits New York” cartoon appeared in With or Without Beans, An Informal Biography of Chili by Joe E. Cooper (Dallas: William S. Henson, Inc., 1952). Find (pricey) out-of-print copies for sale here.

First two “Mr. Tweedy” panels from Mr. Tweedy by Ned Riddle (NY: Fleet Publishing Corporation, 1960; reprinted in 1977). 

Later photo of Ned Riddle found on Flickr here.

*

Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

8 Comments