Scanning Around With Gene: How to Achieve Happiness

I’ve always admired happy people. My natural tendency is toward the depressed, and it’s easy for me to see things as troubling, if not downright sad. Lurking behind every cheerful story and wide smile is a tale of darkness and gloom.
But I know this is not healthy and that I need to change my attitude and look on the bright side. So I started taking a daily walk in the local park, eating better, and I’m trying very hard to adopt a new, more optimistic attitude. Instead of walking around with my head down looking at the bird droppings and garbage, I hold my head high and gaze at the fresh air and fluffy clouds. Click on any happy person for a larger version.


But I still feel like something’s missing. Something magical that, hopefully, I can purchase with an ATM card. Surely there must be a product that brings happiness to all. Candy, for example. These people from a 1941 Lifesavers ad certainly look happy. And Lifesavers are cheap.


Yes, candy is a good one for making people happy. It’s hard to eat a delicious chocolate covered cherry (1952) or Tweeety Pop (1956) and not have a smile on your face. But I’m sorry, candy makes you fat and then you get depressed. So candy can’t be the long-term answer.



I could easily be convinced that a box full of new puppies (1955) or a good dog (1947) makes you happy. No question about it. But I can’t have pets where I live right now so that’s out, I’m afraid.


Perhaps something I could eat. Pie, of course, makes people happy (1936), but see my comments on candy. I discovered that “Life’s a Lark When You’ve Got that Spark” (1941) — in this case the “spark” is bran flakes. I tried bran and it didn’t make me happy. (Flaxseed, now, that’s a different story.)


Of course we all know that drinking alcohol makes you happy. It’s famous for it. In fact, according to this ad for beer, a glass of beer and a kiss from the wife are all you need to boost morale during wartime (1942).


Yes, beer, especially if it’s Schlitz (1953), makes you happy. But for all the happiness drinking beer brings, drinking Four Roses scotch (1937) makes you even happier (though you don’t get the ladies). “A highball at nightfall.” Maybe that’s what I’ve been missing?


No, hard alcohol gives me a headache and I only drink beer with Mexican food. There must be something else. Here are some odd choices, but possibly worth a try. The first cheerful couple is from 1942, and they’re happy because they drink Florida orange juice. The second woman has won a new Rambler, and the last cheerful family cooks with infra-red lamps.
However, orange juice gives me a stomachache, they don’t make Ramblers any more, and I don’t cook anything that can’t be heated in the microwave.



Apparently youth and springtime (1952) make you happy, and who could argue with that? But we’ve had a very rainy spring here and I certainly no longer fall into the “youth” category.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I could find a certain soap or other bath product that brings happiness. These two ads (1941 and 1947) from Cashmere Bouquet surely demonstrate that the right soap can, indeed, bring happiness.


And this woman, who uses Palmolive (1942) certainly seems happy, as does the woman below (1942) who uses Ivory soap.


Yes, that must be it. Everybody needs soap. I use soap now. It’s just a matter of finding the right one.
I’m so excited by this realization that I have to finish up this column and run to Safeway right away. All this time and it was staring me right in the face. Soap. The key to happiness. It makes perfect sense. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and it’s hard to be unhappy when you’re next to God.
I only hope I don’t have to try too many before I find just the right one.

Gene Gable has spent a lifetime in publishing, editing and the graphic arts and is currently a technology consultant and writer. He has spoken at events around the world and has written extensively on graphic design, intellectual-property rights, and publishing production in books and for magazines such as Print, U&lc, ID, Macworld, Graphic Exchange, AGI, and The Seybold Report. Gene's interest in graphic design history and letterpress printing resulted in his popular columns "Heavy Metal Madness" and "Scanning Around with Gene" here on CreativePro.com.
  • Anonymous says:

    Gene, Gene, Gene…

    Kirk’s Original Coco CASTILE soap is the way to go! Be happy, be clean! And Happy Memorial Day!

  • Anonymous says:

    Thanks for making me happy today by your inclusion of a photo of my dad’s cousin, Virginia Mayo, in an ad for Walter Middy. They (my dad and Virginia) grew up together in St. Louis, MO. I remember well his stories of being an usher at the light opera where Virginia got her start. Thanks for the memories…and a little burst of happiness today.

  • HawaiiBill says:

    These excellent choices from the past demonstrate the lost art of influencing by the happy result of product use. Now, almost everything is sold for being “new” or “fast” or “slow” rather than for the joy of use can bring. Great work.

  • Anonymous says:

    Good choice. Soap is the yardstick of civilization.

    -Tyler Durden

  • Anonymous says:

    Gene, for a depressed kind of guy that was a very happy piece.

    Well, it made _me_ happy, anyway.

    Cheers,

    – Geoffrey

  • Anonymous says:

    Gene, you passed to quickly over the onions. Every Boy Scout knows that roots from the onion family have soap-like qualities. Or in the 50s they knew.

  • Anonymous says:

    I can just hear a tv version of these ads where the actor would sound unbearably “perky.” (Was it Lou Grant on the MTM show who said he hated perky? I do too.)

  • >