We all know that we’ve come a long way. As science, social consciousness and heath awareness develop and improve, so have the reflections of our culture that we see in our advertisements. In this age of skillful, slick, integrated marketing and advertising-as-content, a concept that is surreal in and of itself, we thought we’d take a look at the advertisements of yore, which had to make do with simple paper and ink — not that these boundaries made them any less hallucinatory than the fake Times Square hack. These ads, which range from fever dream to nightmare in their surreality, make us feel weird inside. Did people ever respond to these? Probably. Click through for 15 of the most bizzarely surreal vintage ads we could get our digital paws on, and get ready to look at your grandparents in a whole new light.
