I did buy my first album from TV. K-tel's Best of CCR. Totally crappy quality.

To this day when something pops up on TV my family says "No Dad!"

...Pickwick would also release albums of well-known acts, and their quality...from the artwork to the pressings of the albums themselves, was exceedingly poor.

RCA had the Camden label, which was their "budget" division, and that usually meant RCA acts on albums that were 20 minutes long.

Even then, you got what you paid for, usually less.

The CCR album had an 3 second delayed echo on one song.

I wanted the Sea Monkeys and the X-ray glasses and especially this thing:



To my great disappointment Mom said that stuff was fake.

It was a black-and-white magazine (although it had color covers) run by Forrest J. Ackerman, one of the most famous curators of the old monster movies (primarily the Universal Frankenstein / Wolfman / Dracula movies from the 30s and 40s, but others as well). He passed away a while back but his house ( which he called the "AckerMansion" ) was a full-blown museum of old horror flicks that he opened up to the public for tours.

They had an ad in one of their issues for a "Monster Makeup Kit," which showed a couple of scary old monsters and assured you that you would be JUST AS SCARY if you ordered it.

So I talked my parents into it.

What came was a padded envelope with a couple of irregularly shaped, ripped pieces of latex and a couple of bottles of adhesive which may or may not have been "safe" to put on a kid's face.

That ended up being the last thing I ever ordered from a comic / magazine.

I bet you pictured yourself as the neighborhood Jack Pierce.

I loved that magazine. "Creepy" and "Eerie", too.

If you're feeling nostalgic, this link should work for you:

https://archive.org/details/warrenpublishing

Mostly Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, but they also have the 1965, 1966 and 1970 Famous Monsters Yearbooks.

You can read them online...all kinds of fun.

I think you've just knocked upwards of 50 years off my state of mind. Thank you, Miles!

They do not have the complete runs in Archive Editions, but they get to about 20 issues before bankruptcy of Creepy and Eerie. I completed reading through their entire archive a couple of months ago. Very enjoyable to bring back those childhood memories. It is amazing which stories I actually remembered (I do admit I had read some about 10 years ago as well so which memory?).

I had electronic copies of most of the Skywald's as well. That is a future project (Psycho and Scream). They are every bit as good as Warren, and just offbeat enough to be better in some ways.

I have been on a 70s comic book reading kick lately. Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night, Jack Kirby New Gods and associated titles. My library may be able to get the recently archive edition of the Jack Kirby Kamandi issues. I have them in a box downstairs, I hate to break them out and read them (they are the first series I ever collected). I have gotten rid of a bunch of more valuable comics and gave away the non-valuable ones to the Children's wing of a hospital, I am holding onto my Kamandis.

I was mesmerized by the images of the families of these creatures and was disappointed when I learned they were brine shrimp....

But the excitement and anticipation was quite cool....while it lasted....

It was brine shrimp I think.

It never showed up.

I think Mitch McConnell keeps one in the front pocket of his trousers. It goes off "accidentally" to give him that creepy, shit-eating grin.

with the Johnson Smith Catalog in my youth

Electric heated Socks. Complete with battery pack(2 D cell Batteries)that clipped onto your belt. BTW,they were Wool socks with wires woven into the fabric. I think the darn things worked a few minutes until the Batteries pooped out. But what the heck,that was 1949 or 1950.

...to see things he probably shouldn't be seeing. I think I gave a pair as a gag gift 20 years or so go. They worked like you'd expect...as an adult.

The eyeholes were just covered with red thread if I remember correctly. Big disappointment.

I also remember ordering a joybuzzer and being disappointed at how bulky it was. I had a mini spy telescope "disguised" as a giant pen that no kid would carry around in real life, but it was fun to use.

I also sold Olympic Cards, which were advertised on the back of comic books. You would earn prizes from number of boxes of cards you sold. I earned a Garfield phone, a regular telescope, and a few other things.

TlalocW

My brother and I tried selling those things. I think mom and dad may have bought a few boxes to help us out. I don't remember what he redeemed his for but I went for a bugle. Imagine, a ten year old walking around the neighborhood making a nuisance of himself with that thing. As I remember, it "disappeared".

....she bought a chameleon because the ad said it came with a leash. Of course, she expected a dog to come in the mail.

The poor lizard was completely dessicated when she opened the box.

Scarred her for life.

When I was older, I moved on to Spencer Gifts. I have no idea how I got the Spencer Gifts catalog. Of course, we weren't allowed to order from them either. But it was fun to look and imagine that stuff.

ETA: Spencer Gifts still sells fart spray and most of their old gags, but I no longer see the used toilet paper.

And the kids or their parents would flush them down the toilet... and they'd grow in the sewers/ Urban legend, maybe?

They were tiny little plastic figures. I remember my mom had ordered some cushions for couch and love seat about the same time. When those came in (in large boxes) my buddy and I thought it was the plastic soldiers and we had dreams of how big they were, and how much fun it would be to play with them. Needless to say I was a dog in my friend's eyes when we opened those and saw they were the cushions. We were less than impressed with the soldiers finally came. I also caught it from my mom for opening her box.

I was so excited and then so disappointed and embarrassed when they came

were wafer thin. Of course, the ads never showed them from the side.

Do you think this was the beginning of millions of kids who grew up to cheat consumers?

dates back to first time a defective hand axe was traded for a load of shell fish (ie a million years ago). It is in our genes.

Mom said no. I DID get the magician’s kit from King Vitamin cereal though!

I think that's how I got my Johnson Smith Catalog. Now, that was a treasure mine. My favorite disappointment was the "Learn to throw your voice, with a device". I think I still have it around.

I thought I'd look to see if Johnson Smith was still was around. Turns out they are. They have an on-line presence and you can order a catalog of some of their stuff. I did. It took about 6 weeks to get it free and it isn't remotely like the famous one of the past.

Loved "Creepy" mag and the others, including all the Monster mags, too.

The "ventrillo", which I didn't even try because I was afraid I might swallow it.
"X-ray specs", which didn't work but you could wear them and tell other people they worked.
"Joy buzzer", which was actually a nice piece of mechanical engineering.

I pored over the Johnson-Smith catalog.

Why order sea monkeys when we could walk to the lake next door and catch turtles and snakes and fish? After my sister got a microscope we even looked at the tiny things that lived in that lake water. The book about how to a ventriloquist - we could check out a book from the library and learn how to do that and loads of other "magic" tricks.

The "Hercules wrist band" I could have made at summer Arts & Crafts class if I didn't have better things to make (one summer I braided a bridle for my horse from leather). MY Dad showed us how to make our own "Magic Rocks" with the chemistry set my sister had gotten for Christmas.

When you had smart parents, great resources, and older sisters that teach you a lot, most of those gimmicks looked hookey even in the overblown ads!