It's a good thing that cartoonists sometimes got to sign their advertisment work, because I long ago waved the white flag trying to spot the art on many of these ads. Between Harry Haenigsen, Dik Browne, Gill Fox and the other cartooning luminaries who seemed to be able to nimbly ape just about any style, I'm lost.
Here we have a 1943 ad for Duz Detergent, and it's boldly signed by Harry Haenigsen. If it hadn't been signed, Haenigsen would not have been my first guess. Frankly, Adolph Schus might have come to mind first. So thank you to the good folks at Duz who let Harry bask in the limelight.
Although this ad seems like it would have been part of a series, this is the only installment of Mr. E.Z. Duzzit I've been able to find. I checked over on Ger Apeldoorn's blog, The Fabulous Fifties, because he is a real devotee of these comic strip ads, and it seems I've actually managed to find one he doesn't have over there!
PS: Here's hoping that all is well with Ger. He hasn't posted in about three months. You out there, buddy? UPDATE: Ger says he's just fine, but busy with other projects right now.
Admittedly slightly off-topic, but this ad reminded me of a funny Fred Allen radio skit I heard years ago. Fred and Portland played a "realistic" morning show hosts--grumpy, half asleep, and bickering. They were sponsored by Little Panther Spot Remover and DUZNT.
ReplyDelete"Other soaps brag about all the things that they do. Well, DUZNT duzn't do anything!"
October 27, 1946 Fred Allen Show. He was, for this skit, opposite Tallulah Bankhead, not Portland Hoffa. It's an absolutely brutal takedown of "Tex and Jinx," a morning show on NBC's local New York station, hosted by Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenberg, which had a lot of advertiser plugs in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vznctFrOUes
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