Repair Junk From At Home?

While the fast-growing business of radio and television was on the rise in the 1950s, this particular comic book ad was sent out into the wild pond of mail order to see what hungry fish might bite. J.E. Smith was billed as being an expert in the field of radio-television for 40 years, which is very odd since television had only been around for a shorter time at this point in history. The National Radio Institute offered to teach people how to get a gig in radio and/or TV repair when you send away for a pair of free booklets that includes a sample lesson along with a copy of How To Be A Success In Radio-Television. Not exactly a bad deal for free kindling that might possibly lead to a career as a tech jockey for all the emerging TV sets which were honestly a much rarer thing to have at the time, even for the staggering pay of $10 a week. If you were to take J.E. Smith at his word, he would train you by sending you busted up electronic parts to try to repair on yourself at home while attempting to make heads or tails of the convoluted instructions they tag along, leaving you with about as much clue as following an IKEA assembly manual. The biggest flaw in this plan is that they made this ad hoping to ensnare some hungry gullible veterans into their money-making scheme. Not only were they probably scamming vets out of their meager post-war funds to invest postage money in having these parts and instructions mailed to them, but their ad campaign tried to glamourize the simple job of TV repair by referring to them as "Men Of Action".