Remember BURMA-SHAVE?
Road Sign Advertising
How many of you remember the old BURMA-SHAVE advertising signs along the side of roads back in the 50s and 60s?
[Slow Down, Pa] [Sakes Alive] [Ma Missed] [Signs Four & Five] [BURMA-SHAVE]
If you’ve never heard of BURMA-SHAVE, it was an American brand of brushless shaving cream, famous for its advertising gimmick. It posted humorous rhyming poems on five or six small sequential highway road signs. They ended with an advertisement for BURMA-SHAVE on the last sign.
[Forest Fires Start From Scratch] [Careful] [Where You Throw] [That Match] [BURMA-SHAVE]
While I was growing up, we had a family tradition we held tightly to. When my grandparents retired and moved to Florida, we packed up and piled into our family station wagon the week of July 4 and drove twenty-three hours to visit for a week, or two —-every year.
[Don’t Stick] [Your Elbow] [Out So Far] [It May Go Home]
[In Another Car] [BURMA-SHAVE]
I have buckets of memories from our annual trips. One in particular concerned the actual drive. Our car had no A/C in those days and air blowing in the windows was hot. I was glad we were only awake in the car in the early mornings and late evenings. Dad drove all night while we slept.
[Don’t Lose] [Your Head] [To Gain a Minute] [You Need Your Head]
[Your Brains Are In It] [BURMA-SHAVE]
During the day, we had a motel and Mom and Dad slept while we swam all day in the pool. We had a cooler for cold drinks and sandwiches. They joined us for dinner in the restaurant, and then all of us piled back in the car.
[The Wolf] [Is Shaved] [So Neat & Trim] [Red Riding Hood]
[Now Chases Him] [BURMA-SHAVE]
When we woke the next morning, we stopped for breakfast and we knew we would be at Gramma and Grampa’s sometime after lunch. The trip was a little unorthodox, but it worked for our family.
[Brother Speeders] [Let’s Rehearse] [All Together] [“Good Morning Nurse”]
[BURMA-SHAVE]
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Thank you, Connie Casella, for the restack!
The road signs made a long trip more enjoyable. People would read the billboards and laugh. It was a clever advertising campaign, but did it increase sales? I shaved for the first time around 1960 or 1961. I don't recall my father or I used Burma-Shave. By 1965, I wanted to grow a beard. I haven't shaved properly since 1970, the day I received my discharge from the USAF.