Cheer Up Face/The War is Past/The “H” is Out/of Shave at Last/Burma Shave. If you traveled down any highway, country roadway, or rural pathway during the 1950s, you saw the Burma Shave signs. They were as much a part of your journey as a hot back seat, a scolding from your mom to stop fidgeting, and crying for something to eat. Burma Shave signs and their advertising poetry were all over the country. If you got more than a quarter mile outside a city limit you would see them next to the highway. Roadway advertising helped break up the monotony of a long highway journey. When we kids started crying from the backseat “are we there yet?” or “I have to go to the bathroom!” Mom would encourage us to look at the barns, the trees, the animals, and the ad signs. Before the Interstate system was built travelers had to use county, state, and federal highways that were single and dual lanes to travel to their destinations. The American roadside was a vast gallery of advertising art and an integral part of vacation culture.
Of course Burma Shave weren’t the only national produce signs to be seen on a regular basis. Brylcreem, “A Little Dab’ll Do Ya!” became a legend of roadside advertising even before TV along with White Rain shampoo and Maybelline beauty products. Dr. Pepper started a roadside advertising campaign in 1949 and their ads covered billboards, barn roofs, and the sides of buildings all over the country. Remember the billboard barn and shed sides, and the two sided road signs for Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco that were all over the place. Any direction your eye would wander you would see a worn out, sun faded ad on a billboard for the Marlboro Man. Bardahl car care products were highly visible, along with Bowes Sealfast. I knew the brand name Champion Spark Plugs before I knew what it was that a spark plug did. There were ads for Armstrong Tires (they GRRRRRiip the road), and B. F. Goodrich tires — until I was about seven years old, I thought B. F. Goodrich and Goodyear tires were the same company. ESSO gasoline promised to “Put A Tiger in Your Tank.” Wonder Bread or Rainbow Bread if you were driving in Kentucky, Ohio, or West Virginia were advertised about every two miles or so. Product advertisements were a mainstay of the open road. Route 66 from Chicago to San Bernardino, California was one long avenue of advertising art and it became an American legend.
Product advertising was very important, but it was the roadside ads for tourist attractions that were often the most fun. “See the world’s second biggest hairball!” “See the original Indian cave!” “See the tub where President Millard Fillmore took a bath!” “See the battlefield where two veterans of the Spanish American War stole a chicken!” and in Indiana, “See the outhouse where John Dillinger and Al Capone went to the bathroom. See the original Sears Catalog they used to clean themselves!” The sign always included the phrase “be sure and visit our coffee and souvenir shop.” Jerry’s Restaurants; Big Boy Drive-Ins, Stuckey’s Pecan Shops along with local root-beer and ice cream stands lined the highways and pleaded for the traveler’s dollar. These were the ads that infuriated my mom, because they were asking the traveler to break his journey and worse than that, SPEND MONEY! Mom knew that my sisters were going to start screaming “We want to see the world’s third largest tin foil ball,” or “we want to look at the oldest collection of toe nail clippings in Georgia,” or the ultimate outrage “WE”RE HUNGRY.” Mom was too nervous to eat — speeding cars and having to spend hard-earned money on the frivolous and unnecessary absolutely killed any possible appetite or curiosity she might have had. My dad was a different story, however. A break from a hot and hard drive and a cold drink weren’t always unwelcome to him. My aunt and uncle and my grandfather lived in Covington Kentucky during the 50s, so at least once a summer we found ourselves traveling down US 52 to Cincinnati. It was about a four-and-a-half-hour journey, plus the 40 or so minutes it took to get through Cincy to cross the Ohio River to Covington. Along the way, in the town of West Harrison, Ohio, here was an A&W Root Beer stand right off the highway. West Harrison was just across the Indiana-Ohio border. This was in the days before McDonald’s. My sister and I would start seeing the billboards with the A&W ads about 30 miles away from West Harrison and running about every two miles or so. The closer we came to the town, the more frequent they became. My sis and I would start practicing a little subliminal persuasion, although we didn’t know that was what it was called. My father absolutely loved A&W Root Beer. So we would start whispering in his ear “hamburger,” “root beer,” and “hot dog.” It was no use with Mom but I think now that Dad really thought it was funny, because as often as not he would pull in to the stand. No food was purchased but we did get a frosty mug of root beer. In 1964, when the Interstate bypassed West Harrison, we were heartbroken.
The interstate system changed highway advertising. It became less intimate and more impersonal. It also became more corporate. The smaller mom and pop businesses couldn’t afford to advertise. Many of the old businesses got swallowed up by larger corporations and their brand names disappeared. But in our collective youths they gave us an exciting and eye-catching ride.