What can we learn from vintage fridge ads?

April 12th, 2012

Fridges & Freezers

Tired of waiting for the man with the ice cart to arrive?

If you answered ‘yes’ to this question, what you need is a refrigerator my good friend!

Refrigerators have many advantages:

A convenient alternative to rancid food

Botulism got you down? Salmonella making you sour?

A refrigerator allows you to enjoy such delights as ‘non-rancid ham’ and ‘not curdled milk’ with the added advantage of keeping your vegetables in a presentable condition, as this 1931 Frigidaire ad colourfully demonstrates:

Mmm, not-rotten! Delicious.

Get this party started

Now even the most socially inept hostess can win friends and influence people thanks to the good folks at Kelvinator:

And everyone knows there’s no better way to gear up for a big night at the ball than to get dressed and admire your refrigerator’s lack of visible chilling coils:

Can I get a woop woop?

Prevent your family from starving

Have your babies and feed them too! A refrigerator is the way forward for anyone who enjoys procreating.

Grandparents, this means you, too:

An outlet for your repressed creativity

Of course, being a housewife is the most rewarding and stimulating life choice for any woman.

However, if in the extremely unlikely event that you feel the need to be creative, now you can – through choosing the colour of your fridge!

As long as your innermost yearnings can be expressed through shades of Avocado, Bermuda Pink, Sand Beige, Buttercup Yellow, or Lagoon Blue, you’re set!

Perfect for storing entire hams

We all know how entire legs of ham have a tendency to pile up. The linen cupboard is not a good place for them, and neither is the sewing room. And let’s not even talk about that infamous ham-in-bathtub incident – my goodness, husband was not pleased.

Imagine my delight when I finally realised that I could store all of my hams in the fridge! What a concept.

This lady has at least three that I can see.

“No sweetie, you can’t have dessert until you finish your hams!”

Make your maid’s life easier

The headline from this 1941 Electrolux ad reads ‘Mandy’s giving us another chance since we changed to silence!’ – implying that a noisy refrigerator was nearly the reason for Mandy’s untimely resignation.

“I’m quittn'” says Mandy (in the first frame). “Can’t sleep nights on account of the rumbling of that ol’ refrigerator.”

“I know one that can’t make a noise,” says the husband as he and his wife rush to the shop.

Fortunately they were able to get a (super quiet!) Electrolux fridge and the day ends happily, with Mandy exclaiming “Lor-dy, it sure IS quiet!”

The moral of this story is: buy an Electrolux fridge or your maid will quit. And then you’ll have to cook your own dinner, clean your own house and raise your own children like some kind of chump.

Along similar lines, there’s this ad:

The tagline reads: “And so electricity is made the willing servant.”

For which… we have no words.

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Stay tuned for the next in this series, where we look at retro cooking ads such as this one: