Krazy Krax 1954 gag looks like a broken TV screen

On eBay: a decal that makes it look like the TV screen is smashed. "After watching the victim's consternation, you'll agree that Krazy Krax is the perfect T.V. gag." Krazy Krax (via Retro Thing)

[#1 posted by merreborn , October 15, 2008 1:55 PM]

Has anyone ever actually said, "Oh dear! More expense!"

[#2 posted by JoeKickass , October 15, 2008 2:00 PM]

I guess the modern-day equivlent of this 'gag' would be the cracked LCD screen wallpaper:

http://kensingtonvictoria.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/crack-desk.jpg

[#3 posted by Anonymous , October 15, 2008 2:10 PM]

You can actually do this quite convincingly by placing a piece of string tinsel on a CRT TV screen. The static holds it in place and it REALLY looks like a nasty crack in the glass.

[#4 posted by dougrogers , October 15, 2008 2:14 PM]

Love the skeletal kids.

[#5 posted by dougrogers , October 15, 2008 2:16 PM]

JoeKickAss, that wallpaper is perfect for the new Macs...

[#6 posted by TJ S , October 15, 2008 2:20 PM]

Post favorited so I can find that wallpaper in the future. Thanks JoeKickAss.

[#7 posted by zandar , October 15, 2008 2:26 PM]

Wow, an ad with "consternation" in the text. And adjusting the T-V for a "light picture..."

I'm feeling so nostalgic for TVs that required adjustment and widespread literacy right now.

[#8 posted by nanuq , October 15, 2008 2:39 PM]

Whoopee cushions never go out of style.

[#9 posted by trueblue2 , October 15, 2008 2:39 PM]

#1: Word.

[#10 posted by Stefan Jones , October 15, 2008 2:51 PM]

I recall the Johnson Smith catalog selling these.

For all I know they still do.

[#11 posted by Anonymous , October 15, 2008 2:53 PM]

in 1954, when TVs slowly reached adaption and were pretty expensive, this little stunt might have gotten the prankster into a lot of spanking before he would have them agree to any statement about the gag's quality.

[#12 posted by Takuan , October 15, 2008 2:56 PM]

I wonder how many violent beatings over "More Expense!"?

[#13 posted by jere7my , October 15, 2008 3:02 PM]

On Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends videotape, there was a clip of an old movie which became progressively more smeared and distorted as it played. If you timed your motions with a damp cloth just right, you could trick a non-tech-savvy person into thinking you were accidentally "smearing the phosphors" or somesuch as you cleaned their TV with a special new "magnetically activated" cleaning solution.

Seems a bit far-fetched, yes, but it sure worked on my mom.

[#14 posted by Gary61 , October 15, 2008 3:05 PM]

If you want people to think your TV is broken, all ya gotta do is 'tune in' any one of those damned 'reality shows'.
They make me puke on my TV screen - voila!

[#15 posted by phlavor , October 15, 2008 3:16 PM]

I'm going to say "Oh dear! More expense!" all the freaking time now.

[#16 posted by OM , October 15, 2008 3:21 PM]

...This wouldn't be quite as effective on an LCD screen. Blow a bullet hole in one, and it actually *bleeds*!

[#17 posted by winkybb , October 15, 2008 4:28 PM]

A girl I know dropped a Laptop and the broken screen did in-fact "bleed" - but only in a couple of spots making big black wedges between the radial cracks. The rest of the screen unbelievably just kept working and she actually continued to use it for a week or so until the replacement arrived. When I first saw it, I assumed that it was a gag screensaver or something like that. It took her quite a while to convince me that it was actually broken.

"Oh dear! More expense!" is similar only in meaning to her actual words, I believe.

[#18 posted by insert , October 15, 2008 4:28 PM]

"Oh dear! More expense!"

The Engrish of the 1950s?

[#19 posted by anthony , October 15, 2008 4:34 PM]

#12 As a prankster in this situation you are betting it all on that sense of relief to kick in...

[#20 posted by Lauren O , October 15, 2008 5:25 PM]

So...um...can you take the thing off after your prank is done?

[#21 posted by ibdense , October 15, 2008 5:42 PM]

No wonder I wasn't overly successful as a copywriter ... I could never have come up with a line like "handkerchief or etc.,".

And to make things worse, in my last sentence I have no idea if the period should have gone inside or outside the closing quote mark... .,."? This is getting sillier and sillier.

[#22 posted by sonny p fontaine , October 15, 2008 6:01 PM]

oh noes, the radiation will leak out all over the cutpile carpet.

[#23 posted by Johnny Cat , October 15, 2008 9:27 PM]

Expenses are funny! What a gag, guys!

[#24 posted by Roger Mexico , October 15, 2008 10:01 PM]

I submit to you that if we allow these insidious krax to form on our television sets and cause "more expense!" then we have clearly let the Reds win.

Throw in your chips now, Comrade. Eisenhower can't save you if you have static cling krax on your T.V.

[#25 posted by Jake0748 , October 15, 2008 10:13 PM]

What kind of a mug would fall for a gag like that?

Oh Dear!

[#26 posted by anthony , October 16, 2008 3:33 AM]

Thank goodness that doggie-doo on the carpet turned out to be a plastic replica; the fly in the ice cube, too. Time to cut somebody's allowance.

[#27 posted by Ned613 , October 16, 2008 7:22 AM]

In '54 the T.V. was a recent innovation in consumer electronics and implosion of the CRT was a common problem. The nearly high formal english prose in the directions is very quaint. How many people who play practical jokes use words like "After watching the victim's consternation, you'll agree..."? It reads like the Gettysburg Address compared to some of the mangled english in the ephemera that accompanies today's packaged goods.

[#28 posted by Bodhipaksa , October 16, 2008 9:41 AM]

I remember a more home-spun version of this from a comic-book in my youth, which involved drawing fake cracks on a mirror with the sharp edge of a thin sliver of soap. To my callow eye it was mightily convincing, although I doubt my parents were fooled for a moment.