The Fabuleous Fifties

Slick Sam

Wednesday Additional Ad Day.

As promised, here are all my old and new scans and NewsArchive captures of the Sam Spade Ad series for Wildroot Haircream (also the sponsor of the radio show on CBS).

The first few were drawn by an unknown artist, the rest are supposed to be by Lou Fine. I believe they are actually on his resume, so I ma assuming that attribution is correct. However, I find the resemblence between this style and the one of the Philip Morris ads I showed yesterday remarkable. There is also a great resemblence to the Steel! information booklet I will be showing tomorrow (which can't possibly be by Fine).

As far as I can see, there were new Sam Spade ads ever month from 1947 (maybe even earlier) to somwhere in 1950. The last two years the series was on NBC, which helps me date one of the unknowns. The ad serie may have run until late 1950, when it was replaced by a similar series called Charlie Wild, because of problems with the Sam Spade Show. I have shown what seems to be all five 1951 episodes of the Charlie Wild ads last year (follow the tag) and explained the situation there. This means there could be as many as 36 seperate ads, of which I am showing 24 here (most of which in color). If anyone has any others or any of the Charlie Wild ads in color, I'd love to ad them here.

As for comparing the art styles of these and the stuff I showed yesterday, I ask you particulary to have a look at the lions and the bullfighting episodes. The Philip Morris ads show similar situations in a similar style, but different enough for it not to be a swipe or a case of using the same photo reference material.

Jan 12 1947:


March 9 1947:


May 25 1947:


Date unknown 1947:


Date Unknown 1947:


Date unknown 1947:


Aug 17 1947:


Jan 11 1948:


March 1948:


May 1948:


August 1948:


Date unknown 1948:


Feb 8 1949:


March 20 1949:


Date unknown 1949 (but before September):


Oct 1949:


Dec 1949:


Jan 1950:


Feb 1950


March 19 1950:


June 1950:


Sept 23 1950:


Date unknown 1950:


Additionally I have a couple of reworked ads from DC comics. It is impossible to place these in any sort of timeline. Most of them are the same as the ones above, but there are a couple of impressie new ones as well.