Today, if you're under 35, you may not know what I'm talking about. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
Advertising, like pun-making, is human ingenuity of a kind we all love to hate. When it's good, it creates folklore. It helps us define ourselves. God help us if we can't ignore advertising. But it would be a grave error to ignore it utterly.
Each summer before WW-II my family made a great automobile journey through the American West. The car ground its way through Laramie, Kanab, Bozeman, and Santa Rosa. Endless empty 2-lane highways marched through Nebraska, climbed the Colorado mountains, and offered sleep in a 2-dollar, one-room cottage with a stove and a detached privy.
Those roads held one delight we never forgot. Every hour or so we'd pass a string of six red signs, each with a few words of doggerel.
SHIVER MY TIMBERS,
SAID CAPTAIN MACK,
WE'RE TEN KNOTS OUT,
BUT WE'RE TURNING BACK,
I FORGOT MY,
BURMA-SHAVE.
Burma-Shave signs were as surely the mark of the American landscape as windmills, barns and purple mountains in the distance. They delighted us from 1927 'til 1963. Then Burma-Shave sold out to Phillip Morris, and their good-humored verve left us.
It was all the work of the Odell family in Minneapolis. Grandpa Odell was a lawyer. He sold liniment on the side -- said he'd got it from a sea captain. Maybe he did. Sea captains once trafficked in nostrums from exotic lands. Then Odell's son, Clinton, formed a company and got serious about selling liniment.
Clinton put his two sons, Leonard and Allan, onto the idea of creating a brushless shaving cream. They worked with a company chemist and stirred up some 300 recipes. Finally they made one that really worked. They took it to market.
That was 1925. By 1927, they'd put out their first set of signs. They didn't have the rhythm at first. This one said,
SHAVE THE MODERN WAY,
NO BRUSH, NO LATHER,
NO RUB-IN,
BIG TUBE
35 CENTS
DRUG STORES,
BURMA-SHAVE.
All that changed in the 1930s. The signs developed their kinky humor and surprise endings. Here's one from the history of shaving:
PITY ALL,
THE MIGHTY CAESARS,
THEY PULLED,
EACH WHISKER OUT,
WITH TWEEZERS,
BURMA-SHAVE.
Those playful red signs helped teach kids like me to read. They may've saved lives with their safety messages.
HER CHARIOT,
RACED 80 PER,
THEY HAULED AWAY,
WHAT HAD,
BEN HUR,
BURMA-SHAVE.
At the very least, speeding cars slowed to read them.
Today, most of us do use brushless shaving creams. More than that, those signs really did shape America's sense of self. And those of us over 35 will all smile at this one:
IF YOU,
DON'T KNOW,
WHOSE SIGNS,
THESE ARE,
YOU CAN'T HAVE,
DRIVEN VERY FAR.
...
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work.
(Theme music)
Rowsome, F., Jr., The Verse by the Side of the Road. New York: The Stephen Grene Press/Pelham Books, 1965, 1990.
Some seven hundred Burma-Shave verses are known. Here's a quick sampling in roughly chronological sequence.
| HINKY DINKY PARLEY VOO CHEER UP FACE THE WAR IS THRU BURMA-SHAVE |
SHAVING BRUSH WAS LIKE OLD ROVER WHEN HE DIED HE DIED ALL OVER BURMA-SHAVE |
RUDDY CHEEKS AND FACE OF TAN NEATLY SHAVEN WHAT A MAN BURMA-SHAVE |
| IF YOU THINK SHE LIKES YOUR BRISTLES WALK BARE-FOOTED THROUGH SOME THISTLES BURMA-SHAVE |
ED'S FACE IS ROUGH AND RUGGED ED'S WIFE DOESN'T HUG ED BURMA-SHAVE |
IF HARMONY IS WHAT YOU CRAVE THEN GET A TUBA BURMA-SHAVE |
| THE CREAM ONE HEARS THE MOST OF NOW COMES FROM A JAR NOT FROM A COW BURMA-SHAVE |
SAID JULIET TO ROMEO IF YOU WON'T SHAVE GO HOMEO BURMA-SHAVE |
FROM BAR TO CAR TO GATES AJAR OF BURMA-SHAVE |
| AS YOU DRIVE PLAY THIS GAME CONSTRUCT A JINGLE WITH THIS NAME BURMA-SHAVE |
WITHIN THIS VAIL OF TOIL AND SIN YOUR HEAD GOES BALD BUT NOT YOUR CHIN -- USE BURMA-SHAVE |
BIG MISTAKE MANY MAKE RELY ON HORN INSTEAD OF BRAKE BURMA-SHAVE |
| PROPER DISTANCE TO HIM WAS BUNK THEY PULLED HIM OUT OF SOME GUY'S TRUNK BURMA-SHAVE |
SAID FARMER BROWN WHO'S BALD ON TOP WISH I COULD ROTATE THE CROP BURMA-SHAVE |
THE WOLF IS SHAVED SO NEAT AND TRIM RED RIDING HOOD IS CHASING HIM BURMA-SHAVE |