1.) Is it just me, or does the cowboy star look uncannily like George W. Bush?
2.) Who, come to think, is also a fake cowboy.
3.) In the Golden Days of Hollywood, “pen” was a codeword for “heroin.”
4.) In 1948, $2.25 was “America’s best value” for a pen? I can get a perfectly good pen now for $2.25; maybe not a fancy one, like the Fineline presumably is, but then again, since when do fancy pens advertise on the back of comic books?
5.) So effectively the actual story here is “how Chuck’s crazy good luck got him in the movies.”
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I just did a little research on inflation, and apparently that $2.25 translates to about $20 today, assuming your 1948 publication date is accurate. That’s one damn expensive pen.
$20 for a fountain pen is actually either extremely reasonable or the pen is extremely shitty.
I gave Jeff McCarthy a pen once, and I’m neither on Broadway nor playing a cartoon frog TV channel mascot. GYP.
Its the pencil that would be around 16 dollars now that gets me. That pencil better have magic freaking powers…
The Red Skull didn’t need no stinkin’ pen to get noticed.
er. doesn’t chuck look like conan o brien?
The prices are about in line with what you’ll pay for the cheapest Cross pen and pencil set at Staples:
http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?CatIds=&webid=12071&affixedcode=WW
…though if you really want a distinctive metal ballpoint, your money’s probably better spent on one of Fisher’s bullet-style Space Pens.
I actually had a set of both the Fineline pen and pencil! My grandma found them at a yard sale and thought, “Hey, Fishcakes likes writing. I’ll give it to her.” The pen didn’t work, but the pencil was pretty nice.