Crazy Comic Ads – Free Burgers, Bikes, and Candy Bars!

Today’s entry comes to us from Spider Woman (Vol 1.) #4, cover dated July 1978, which even for an old man such as myself, is before my time (but not by much).

I don’t know why I collect this series either.

From what I’ve been told (i.e. read on Wikipedia and seen on The Wonder Years), the 70’s were a pretty loose time, even in July of 1978, a full year before the infamous Disco Demolition Night. I can only assume that the swinging excesses of a decade of drugs and disco lead to parents who simply were too strung out to notice what their kids were doing, let alone care (Red Forman?). I mean, how else to you explain this?

 
Apparently, this ad ran back in the time before after school specials. In fact, a quick IMDB search shows this was a full 4 years before the Very Special Episode of Diff’rent Strokes where the boys are molested by the Maytag repair man. Think I’m kidding. I’m not, that really happened. If fact, it’s even been spoofed on Family Guy.

 
So this ad would have had to have been running in a time before kids were taught about “Stranger Danger”, and that strangers bearing gifts like this are not to be trusted. This pretty much sounds like the quintessential embodiment of a pedophile. Some dude in bell bottoms with a bitchin’ afro and a 70’s porno stache, driving around in a VW Bus pulls up, and just so happens to have a extra bike, a bag of burgers and some candy bars he doesn’t need, if only you’ll climb into the back of his van to get them, he’d be happy to share. And that my friends, is the story of why no one ever saw little miss Becky Gunderson again. The only thing it’s missing is an adorable puppy.

I’m sure this contest was created as a front for some type of crazy 70’s pedophile Illuminati group. You have to remember, they didn’t have the internet back then. Everything was done by snail mail. Back in those days, there wasn’t the ease of access that came with millions of 5th graders (and younger) having public Facebook and myYearbook profiles when they probably shouldn’t. You couldn’t just hang out in a Yahoo chat room called ‘D@ught3rs s33k1ng d@dd13s!!1!!’. Back then you needed to actually go out in public and be friends with people who had kids or have a job, like I dunno, a football coach (awww, too soon?) where you had contact with them. But now, thanks to this contest, some Nabisco executive had access to a database of at least 600,000 children who wanted free bikes, burgers, and candy bars, and their full names and addresses.  I’m sure no one would ever do something nefarious with that type of information.

***While the point of this website is to at least attempt to be funny most of the time, I recognize that pedophilia and childhood sex abuse is certainly not a laughing matter, and would never make light of any victim of abuse. We would encourage you to read these terrible statistics about sexual abuse and visit the website for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to learn more about what you can do to help victims and prevent further abuse.

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook