Can anyone recommend a movie or tv show or book that demonstrates how deeply fucking WEIRD the past was?
Usually, the past is basically just like today, but with funny clothes.
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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Vintage and Retro Ads, Promos, Fliers, Etc.
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The Madmen TV show was great at depicting the society. For example, I remember one episode where after having a picnic, the familly throws all the trash in the nature and go back into the car.
yeah, they used to feed the grizzly bears scraps at yellowstone to bleachers filled with tourists
Nice article about it : https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/yellowstone-geysers-trash-garbage
They use to throw soap and do laundry in Yellowstone.
Watcher used to have a series called "Puppet History" that celebrated that past weirdness with puppets, paper cutouts on sticks and original song, all performed by one host. Pretty impressive, best ep was "The Affair of the Necklace", in which the diamond necklace at the center of the royal scam is played by a puppet.
The illustration is bizarre, is he straddling the woman's right leg? The first respectability?
Yeah, he’s actually forcing it on her.
The original illustration the graphic is taken from shows a man administering laughing gas to his “scolding wife.”
The Abstract says:
A man forcing a bag of laughing gas on a woman sitting in a chair
Ah, respectability.
I am impressed you found something like that!
That caricature is ... wild! Looks like that was made in 1830, and this exhibition flyer in 1845. Imma bet the illustration was repurposed for this flyer without knowledge or permission. Especially since the 1830 illustration was from London, and the 1845 flyer seems to be from NY.
I wasn’t even looking for it, I was just curious about laughing gas and I ran right into it! It was very surprising.
It’s also funny to think that it looks so bad in the 1845 one because it’s not a very good reproduction of the printing hardware (printing block or whatever), too.
Thanks for the sauce!
Bizarre for sure. I can't understand the face area of it.
Also it's a woman shown, but the fill text says the gas will be administered only to gentlemen of first respectability.
Well, ladies are so vulnerable to fits of hysteria and fallen womb.
It looks like it's from an entirely different kind of music hall. My word!
The &c. &c. is very interesting. I just watched a video about the history of symbols and the ampersand is the letters ET, which is the latin word for 'and'. So &c is an abbreviation for 'et'cetera.
Edit: Added video link
Probably no one will attempt to fight.