14. Sea monkeys and X-ray vision glasses were available via mail-order
Although they weren’t what would be considered catalogs, comic books in the 1950s and 1960s were famous for advertisements for mail-order products which caught the eye of the readers of Superman, Archie and his friends, and the other denizens of comics. Often they appeared near the center of the book, as a sort of commercial break between stories, and sometimes they were relegated to the back. All sorts of strange and wonderful items could be ordered which couldn’t be found in neighborhood stores. Sea Monkeys, a type of brine shrimp which came to life when hydrated were marketed in the ads as appearing almost human, a trait which they sadly did not exhibit when they came to life once having arrived in the mail.
X-Ray specs were advertised with the male wearer of the glasses discreetly eyeing a passing girl, allegedly able to see through the clothes, or in an image which showed him clearly see the bones of his hand. The opportunity to make oneself more attractive to members of the fairer sex having thus vetted them was provided by the Charles Atlas Dynamic Tension training course often presented on the same page. A Polaris nuclear submarine over seven feet long and able to seat two intrepid submariners cost almost seven bucks was made of cardboard, and which if left outside would dissolve in the rain, not a promising feature for a submarine. A frontier cabin, advertised with a coonskin cap-wearing kid sitting outside a log cabin, proved to be a painted plastic sheet which sort of resembled a cabin should a means be found of holding it up.