From Goggle Balls to Sun Glasses
THE craze for gayly colored sun glasses that swept the country last year and is booming again with even greater fervor as summer comes on again, has revived to full capacity one of the most remarkable and least - known branches of the glass-making industry. Although tens of thousands of the familiar “smoked” and amber glasses, for beach and sporting wear, had been made and sold regularly each year, the new fad sent the demand skyrocketing to millions, while lens glass of half a dozen new tints and colors had to be created almost overnight.
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Look Out for SWINDLERS Who Turn “SCIENTIFIC”
New scientific discoveries — splitting the atom, cosmic rays, etc.—give the scientific swindler new tools to work with in luring dollars from the unwary. Some of the most famous mechanical swindles of today and of a generation ago are described in this article.
by ORVILLE H. KNEEN
PADLOCK your purses and hoard your gold — the “scientific” swindlers are coining! A flood of such schemes is in the making, ready to be released when the next boom gets under way- Even now we can “get in on the ground floor” of such recent scientific advances as television and radio, or rise to the heights of independence in weird aircraft. Promoters’ promises were never more glowing.
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Uncle Sam’s Stamp Factory
By Wayne Whittaker
THE THIN FELLOW you saw in the post office the other day with that worried look might well have been one of the millions of stamp collectors in this country. He has had a harrowing year—1948— trying to keep track of the special stamps that have rolled from the presses in the U. S. Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Washington, D. C.
The last Congress may go down in history as the “Stamp Act” Congress. By congressional authorization, its members sponsored a new stamp on the average of every other week in 1948. Stamp dealers groaned. Stamp collectors groaned. Officials of the bureau groaned loudest of all, but Congress went happily on its way paying tribute to everything from the poultry industry to the Gettysburg Address.
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Fast Ice
The cold facts about the smooth sheet of ice that gives wings to the feet off the skaters in Icecapades, biggest of Ice shows.
BY Margot Patterson and Allan Gould
IF THE millions of people who witness the big ice-travaganzas yearly ever stop to think about the sheet of ice on which the skaters pirouette, it is probably only to wonder idly how the red, white and blue pattern gets inside the ice.
Yet the manufacture and maintenance of that thin sheet of frozen water is more important than the stars of any show. A featured performer could break a leg and the show would continue, but without the ice there could be no performance. So in each of the arenas where an ice revue plays during a season, the ice is pampered and babied, sweated and scraped, barrelled, planed, sprayed—all in all. treated with more care than a connoisseur gives the patina on a treasured antique.
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Interesting quote:
“After being cut, the dough is carried on a canvas belt to the asbestos conveyor of the first oven.”
I wonder how many other food products used to be cooked on asbestos conveyor belts.
Tortillas Meet The Machine Age
By Jack B. Kemmerer
THE INDIANS of Mexico first made tortillas between 2000 and 1000 B.C., when most historians agree that corn originated in Guatemala and southern Mexico.
The ancient method of making tortillas by hand had never changed until recently. Now, the tortilla has met the machine age.
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Excellent exposé about all of the ways slot machines are rigged to screw you.
Machines that Pick Your Pocket - AND MAKE YOU LIKE IT! —Inside Story of the Slot Machine Racket
by WALTER A. RASCHICK
No matter how clever you are, you can’t beat the slot machine racket. If you play the game, you’ll have to reconcile yourself to seeing your nickels flowing away in a steady stream, paying tribute to the engineering brains which have designed these mechanical pick-pockets so efficiently that they can’t fail to keep half or more of the coins fed into them, giving the player nothing in return except the thrill of seeing his money vanish.
“GOSH!” you’ve probably said more than once, as the symbols halted, hesitated, and then swung tantalizingly away from the center row, “I almost got the bells that time. Watch this one” —and out of your pocket and into the slot machine goes another hard-earned nickel.
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I previously posted part two of this series. You can view it here.
Mechanical Secrets of Marionette Shows
by TONY SARG As Told To Alfred Albelli
When watching a marionette show you’ve probably wondered what made the little mechanical actors appear so lifelike. In this unusual article, Tony Sarg, world’s leading puppeteer, takes you behind the scenes and explains the mechanical marvels which create the amazing illusions of reality you behold on the stage.
MEET the most fantastic troupe that ever strutted across the American stage!
These actors play to capacity audiences in the biggest theatres, yet they don’t get a single red cent for their work!
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How Disney Combines Living Actors with His Cartoon Characters
UP GOES another character in the Walt Disney Hall of Fame. Out comes another surprise from the Disney bag of tricks. To be specific, Panchito, a Mexican rooster with as much personality as Donald Duck or Joe Carioca, is making his first appearance; and on the screen with him will be live, three-dimensional actors.
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Heh, apparently a good rule for creating a jingle is to pick a stereotype and exploit it:
“I used the second rule on popular sayings and made an apt comparison based on the proverbial thriftiness of the Scot:
Away the blithe pennies will roll When cold isn’t under control. But, give Leonard a trial; Its bright Master Dial
GUARDS EXPENSE LIKE A SCOT ON THE DOLE.”
Lemme try one:
In travel there is something new
An airline called Jet Blue
Fly on it and you can too
save money like a dirty ….
What’s your stereotyped jingle?
How to Win a Jingle Contest
By Allen Glasser
CAN you write a prize-winning last line for that jingle at the top of the page? You can test your skill as a jingle genius on this limerick. It comes from an actual contest that the A & P Food Stores ran some time ago for their product Nectar Tea. You’ll be surprised to find out just how much you don’t know about composing the pretty little words that snag big money in advertising contests. Beat your brains with the dictionary, chase up rhymes with the biggest thesaurus you can find, then compare your masterpiece with the line that really copped the big cash prize. You’ll find the payoff line printed at the end of this article.
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COLOR MAGIC WITH POLARIZED LIGHT
By E. W. MURTFELDT
BLAZING with brilliant, ever-changing colors that rival the hues of the rainbow, the illuminated face of a giant electric clock is attracting crowds to an exhibit of timepieces at the San Francisco World’s Fair. Visitors, curious to know how this spectacular effect is obtained, are amazed to learn that this gleaming disk of light, sparkling with an intricate, moving pattern of colorful stars and concentric circles, is produced not by any complicated arrangement of colored bulbs, projectors, and revolving niters, but merely by plain white light, and strips of transparent cellulose mending tape sandwiched between two practically colorless disks.
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Beautifully colored article from 1940.
New Boom in Gliders
Thrilling Aerial Sport Gains Wider Popularity Through Knockdown Kits That Enable Anybody To Build His Own Sailplane, Buying All the Materials on a Pay-as-You-Go Plan
By ANDREW R. BOONE
SOARING on wings assembled in back yards and home workshops, hundreds of glider enthusiasts are piloting their own sailplanes. Bought on the installment plan, their ships come in knockdown kits. Piecemeal buying enables boys and men alike to build gliders. As a result, flying without power is sweeping the nation. More than forty meets will be staged this year, from the big national events like the one held annually at Elmira, N. Y., to small sectional competitions on farm lots, desert lakes, and mountain pastures. Two hundred clubs have been formed with 2,000 members. Aside from the kits, would-be soarers need purchase few accessories. Tow rope, a couple of wrenches, air-speed meter, and a sensitive variometer fill the bill. In many towns groups club together, building their own soaring planes and cooperating in flying. At a cost far less than that of a powered plane, their members enjoy the thrills and pleasures of flying. Danger of injury is less, too, for they can land the light craft at comparatively slow speeds.
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How a Fireworks Magician Tames Dynamite
Flaming dynamite and exploding mortars are the chief tools of the fireworks expert. In this vivid, intimate story one of the aces of the fireworks army takes you behind the scenes to reveal, for the first time, the thrills and dangers of his roaring trade.
MILLIONS of Americans thrill yearly to the glittering wheels, flaming rockets and spectacular bombs of the giant fireworks displays; but the men who fire them are the men nobody knows—the world’s most mysterious showmen.
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