Before focus groups, before lawyers combed through every word, and before anybody tested anything, television commercials were made by people who were allowed to try whatever popped into their heads. Some of it worked. A lot of it was just plain wild. The channel Retro Layers counted down ten real commercials from the 1950s, running from strange to completely unhinged, and the results are a reminder of how far advertising has come.

Two of the demonstrations stand out above the rest. Remington shaved a peach to prove its electric shaver was gentle, then shaved the bristles off a hairbrush to prove it was powerful. And Band-Aid stuck a bandage to an egg and lifted the egg right off the table. Here is the whole list, from the bottom up.

Number ten was Pepsodent, with a cartoon girl, a giant smile and a jingle so sticky that people who heard it as kids can still finish it 70 years later. The pitch was that your teeth are yellow and you would be pleasantly surprised when they were not. The ad promised you would wonder where the yellow went.

Parrots, Ballplayers and Fake Clouds

Number nine belonged to Gillette, which sold razor blades with a singing cartoon parrot named Sharpie. He played the drums, he played the bass, and his catchphrase was to look sharp, feel sharp and be sharp. Nobody ever explained what a parrot knows about shaving.

Number eight was Gillette again, this time with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella and Don Zimmer stood around in their uniforms shaving on camera with real razors. In the spot, Reese says a boy has more self-respect when he is clean shaven and tells kids to use a Gillette razor, and the ad closes by naming the Gillette Super Speed Razor.

Number seven was Chevrolet in 1959. The company hired two of the biggest stars on television, Pat Boone and Dinah Shore, put them on a stage full of fake clouds, and had them tell viewers to go see the new Chevrolet on Thursday, October 16th. The gimmick was a supposedly subliminal message flashed too quickly to see. The car barely appears, which makes it a car commercial that is mostly not about the car.

Number six was the Renault Dauphine, a tiny French car that Americans were apparently supposed to buy because a grown man in a business suit roller skated down a sidewalk. Nobody explained the skates. The announcer promised balloons, fast camera work, and a look at how the car corners and climbs.

Number five was Chevrolet again, same year, and this time somebody decided the best way to sell a car was to take every single word out of the commercial and film people reacting to it. A boy makes faces. A woman cannot get a door shut. There is no narrator, no price and no explanation, just vibes, as the channel puts it, 60 years before anybody called them that.

The Spy Movie Armpit Ad

Number four was Mum Deodorant, presented as a spy movie. There is a mysterious woman in a black coat, a detective in a fedora, a dropped envelope and a beaded curtain. The top secret message, when it is finally revealed, is about your armpits. The ad tells viewers the deodorant now contains M-3 to stop odor 24 hours a day, and for security reasons, Mum is the word.

The Peach, the Hairbrush and the Egg

Number three was Remington. The company wanted to prove its electric shaver was gentle, so it shaved a peach. The fuzz comes off, the skin stays perfect, and everybody is very impressed. Then, to prove it was also powerful, the demonstrator shaved the bristles off a hairbrush. In the ad, the announcer says an ordinary garden variety peach and a regimental hairbrush will show that the man-size Remington gives a close, comfortable shave no matter how tender your skin or how tough your beard. As the channel jokes, it is gentle, it is brutal, and it is going on your face.

Number two was Band-Aid against brands X, Y and Z. Each bandage is stuck to an egg. The others let go. The Band-Aid holds on and lifts the egg right off the table. Then the ad drops it in boiling water and then in hot dish water, and it survives both. The announcer pitches the new plastic strip with Superstick as sticking better than any other bandage and says that maybe you do not want to boil eggs this way, but you do want the extra protection. Retro Layers points out that your knee has never once been boiled, but Band-Aid was ready anyway.

Number one involved the United States Air Force. It was a commercial for a Delco dry charge car battery, and to sell it the ad needed an ice storm, a power failure, an Air Force ground control crew in headsets, a radar dish spinning in the fog and a transport plane coming in over frozen mountains. The plane is a C-124, described in the ad as the largest transport plane in the Air Force, and the crew uses ground control approach to guide planes to safety in bad weather. The punch line is that the whole operation depends on the same battery you could buy for your car. The ad says the battery comes bone dry and comes to life only when fluid is added.

Why These Ads Still Stick

Retro Layers closes with a point that rings true. Nobody makes commercials like these anymore. Every ad you see today, the channel says, has been through ten meetings, three focus groups and a lawyer, and it shows. The 1950s spots had none of that, and somehow we still remember them.

The list also shows how much early television advertising leaned on live-style demonstrations. A peach, a hairbrush, an egg and a pot of boiling water did the selling because the products had to prove themselves in front of a camera, and viewers could see for themselves. Add celebrity ballplayers, a cartoon parrot and a roller-skating businessman, and you have a decade of commercials that treated the audience to a show first and a sales pitch second.

So which one was the worst idea? Retro Layers ends by asking viewers to weigh in on that, and on the strangest commercial they remember from when they were kids. The peach, the hairbrush and the egg make strong cases. For many people over 60, though, the real winner may be whichever jingle they are still humming today.

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