Reduce Those Spots

During the late Golden Age, a series of ads appeared in various comic books from war, western, romance, funny animals, and teenage comedies for vending the amazing new weight loss product, the Spot Reducer. Created by Spot Reducer Co., this was basically one of the first mass produced electric massagers to come out, least until Japan invented the first massage chairs in the mid-50s. This is a scheme that has been circulating for decades where massagers are supposed to help lose weight, when in reality they only help increase blood circulation and somewhat tone some muscles, a scheme which has been used in everything from belts to a full-on gun duping lazy burns into thinking it's some kind of miracle device that magically burns fat away. Among its claims is that it was approved in a lab by non-scientific investors and it helps cures muscle aches when it only slightly suppresses the pain, but for what would be at least $150 by today's market then $9.99 is asking quite a bit for a comic book ad when they normally promote kids' products that aren't more than a dime each. The design for this contraption is freakish looking enough where it seems they glued a toilet plunger cup onto a miniature clothes iron. Even though this ad was put in various comic book titles, it was mainly focused on women which meant that there was someone in the comics publisher sales team that truly believed that most of their readers were overweight adult ladies instead of your average fun-seeking school kids. This means that you can expect to see ads for arthritis cream in issues of Super Duck and Popular Teen-Agers.