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HAHN: Burma Shave signs part of Americana |
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Monday, 19 January 2009 |
My father was always a cautious driver. Never — at least during my lifetime — did he have a wreck. He never even got a dent in any car we owned.
This seems a bit unbelievable when you consider that in his carefree single years, he once owned the race car that Gaston Chevrolet later killed himself in. He even drove it in races in the “brickyard” where the Indy 500 is held, though he never drove in the Indy 500.
When he married and I was born, he became a most cautious driver. Dad was a careful driver; he never exceeded the speed limit. His usual speed was between 30 and 45 mph.
The first family car was a little coupe roadster with a rumble seat. I loved to ride back there, and I got to often because there wasn’t room for me in the front.
Before I was too old, though, we got a 1936 Chevrolet sedan that we kept through World Ward II. During the time we had that car, we made two trips out West to visit his family in Utah and Wyoming, and we made numerous moves from one state to another. While the relatively slow pace we traveled made the trip long, it allowed for enjoying the scenery.
One of my favorite driving pastimes was watching for Burma Shave signs. You gentle readers who grew up after 1963 have had a deprived childhood because the signs were removed after that.
Burma Shave signs were advertising gimmicks promoting Burma Shave, a brushless shaving cream. It was marketed by the Burma-Vita Co. and was at first a concoction made from ingredients “from the Malay Peninsula and Burma.” I don’t know exactly what those exotic ingredients were, but truth in advertising back then was not a high priority among advertisers.
At first, Burma Shave signs appeared in sets of six signs, but soon were cut to five. The signs were placed about 100 yards apart along the main roads of this country in every state except New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Massachusetts. The first three states did not warrant the traffic that the company desired; Massachusetts had a high level of land rental fees and there were too many trees along its roads for good visibility.
The signs were all in capital block letters. The last sign was “Burma Shave,” and it was printed in script and underlined as it appeared on the can.
The company used a two-color scheme for the signs. Most were either yellow with black lettering or red with white. South Dakota got white with blue letters because that state had an ordinance restricting the use of red on road signs to official warning notices.
The first sign is thought to have been put up in 1926 and the last in 1963, but I am told you can see some today if you travel what is left of Route 66, though none were placed there originally. The early signs simply extolled the virtues of the product, but soon creativity surfaced and the signs took on some humor and verses became popular:
Does your husband Misbehave
Grunt and grumble
Rant and rave
Shoot the brute some
Burma Shave
That appeared in the early 1930s. Later, the company began to use traffic advice in their verses:
Trains don’t wander
All over the map
’Cause Nobody sits
in the engineer’s lap
Burma Shave
And this one:
Brother Speeder
Let’s Rehearse
All together
“Good Morning
Nurse”
Burma Shave
It is interesting to note that the company’s two founders died in automobile accidents.
Approximately 600 verses were used during the years of advertising. The company started with a few, adding at first three or four new verses a year. The company added more later, and in 1930, a prosperous year, nineteen were placed along the roads.
Free offer! Free offer!
Rip a fender off your car
Mail it in
For a half-pound jar
Burma Shave
This verse resulted in the company receiving a number of automobile fenders from fans who took the company at its word. The company honored its offer and sent the fans the shaving cream.
Another verse offered a free trip to Mars for 900 empty jars of the shave cream. Of course, someone took the company up on it. The company, not to be outdone, found a town with a similar name in Germany and sent the customer there.
After World War II, life got a bit more hectic. Gas was no longer rationed and cars were built to go faster. The freeway system speeded up traffic. So, in 1963 the original owners sold the company to Phillip Morris, which decided to cease the popular sign campaign.
Interestingly, in the final episode of “M*A*S*H,” there is a shot of Hawkeye in a jeep passing a Burma Shave sign on his way to camp.
If you are interested in more of these cute verses, amazon.com has copies of the book “The Verse by the Side of the Road.” New copies are about $15, but you can purchase used books for a penny plus postage.
I will always love those little signs, though.
While their advice
I didn’t heed
Still I learned
To write and read
Burma Shave
(With apologies to Burma Shave.)
Alma Joyce Hahn taught English in the Benton schools for more than 30 years. Her column appears each Monday.
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