#now that I think of it the Calvin and Hobbes propeller beanie bit was probably based on catalogs like this

[hug-your-face]

Stuff like this existed and you could buy it mail-order from the Johnson Smith Catalog.

It was a thick, pulp-paper pamphlet with each page absolutely crammed with products. Sometimes single pages of the catalog would be printed in the back pages of comic books.

Each product was described in about as much detail as the Skeletons Fucking cassette above, and the actual product was usually of the same quality. For example:

U-Control 7-Foot Life-Size GHOST. USE indoors and outdoors. Acts life-like. You control in secret. Ready to operate. Rises, falls, floats, spooky effects, darts, dances. Includes: inflatable head and white shroud "body" (about 7-ft overall) with near invisible 50-ft control line. Includes detailed instructions.

My dudes, I got one of these. It was a white balloon, a 12 ft x 12 ft white plastic sheet, and a length of fishing line. The detailed instructions were basically "put the sheet over the balloon, tie the line to it, chuck the whole thing over a tree limb, and pull on the string to make it dance."

And 80% of the hundreds of goodies inside this catalog were just like that. Not all of them: There were also a couple of gadgets, like the "10-in-1 Optical Device", or the "Electrostatic Generator," that did seem pretty rad to a tiny kid. But most of them set expectations far higher than the actual thing would deliver.

And honestly that was part of the fun. "Oh I can't wait to hear what Johnson Smith Skeleton Romance Cassette is gonna sound like!" The price was always just low enough that more than likely you'd shake your head and wonder why the grown-ups failed to make things as awesome as you could IMAGINE them. And then you'd order yet another crazy gottam thing, KNOWING that THIS one was gonna be just sick.

No need to sell your shitpost goods out of your car and then flee. Just like shitpost blogs have thousands of followers, the Johnson Smith Company was a legit going concern that GOT REPEAT CUSTOMERS by selling its shitpost products until they closed their doors in 2019.

I'm pretty sure that in the 70s you could have made some sort of a career out of being good at shitposting. Getting yourself a cassette tape recorder and just recording shit like "Sounds of Two Skeletons Fucking" and then sell them in some makeshift booth in the weird side of town, and the people won't know what the hell they're buying before they do and get home, put it on their cassette player and it's just a loud sound of clattering.

Half the people feel like they got scammed and vow that they're going to find and strangle the damn conman selling this garbage, and the other half laugh from the sheer absurdity and say that they'll gotta go back to that Songs That Make You Say "What The Fuck" booth again tomorrow to see what the other bizarre tapes would be. Neither of them will ever find me again. I have already packed up all my shit in my 1962 Chrysler Valiant and driven off, already in the next town over, never to be seen again.