I got this year's Johnson Smith Christmas Catalog last week.

[MineralMan]

I paged through it, and it brought back memories of much larger catalogs from that company that I used to pore over as a pre-adolescent boy in California. Today, as then, the catalog focuses on the desires and needs of males, almost exclusively, and plays on boys' and men's insecurities, etc.

What's different today are the products offered. While whoopee cushions and virility items are still in there, along with silly things that never quite lived up to their advertising hype, you can no longer buy a live alligator, as you could back in the 50s. You also can't buy an assortment of cheap pistols that used to take up some pages in the vintage catalogs. You can, however, buy a 3-D virtual reality video drone to peek into people's apartment windows, or a high-powered pair of binoculars to do the same job. Binoculars were in the 50s catalog, but virtual reality drones were not even a concept back then. Peeping into other people's privacy, however, is still a feature of the available products.

Back in my early days, Johnson Smith didn't sell penis enlargement devices as it does today, but it did sell firearms, which perhaps gave some people the illusion of the same thing. I don't know. Oddly enough, the only sex toys in this year's catalog target men. There are no toys for women, which sort of proves my point about the all-male focus of the company.

Anyhow, I've been looking to see if I could find a vintage copy of one of the 400+ page Johnson Smith catalogs from the 50s. It looks like my search will be either in vain or cost too much for my nostalgia budget. I understand, because those old catalogs were printed on horribly cheap paper, which will have oxidized and crumbled by now, unless stored meticulously. I did, however, find an affordable DVD version, made up of scans of all those pages. I ordered it and will, once again, page through the book to see if it still has the same powerful attraction as it did when I was a pre-teen boy.

I wonder what Donald Trump coveted from that same catalog in his day?

Who else remembers the Johnson Smith Catalogs from their youth?

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Never heard of Johnson Smith before today...

I did have a little store in my home growing up. It had cap guns, slingshots, pea shooters, full sized dried pea shooters and ammo. It had plastics dinosaurs, soldiers, dice, and on and on.

No sex toys though, lol.

We also had the Woolworths, candy, more toys, a pets section and a cafe in the back corner.

The Woolworths was the home to LPs and 8 tracks too....before we got all big city and got a K mart and a Walmart.

[Brother Buzz]

2. Never hear of it. This deprived California kid had to settle for the comic book ads for my portal...

into the realm of absurd, weird, and naughty.

[Docreed2003]

4. Pretty sure the comic ads were the same company

At least in the back of Marvel Comics from the 70’s

[MineralMan]

8. Had you ordered any of those comic book items, you'd

have gotten your very own Johnson Smith catalog.

[Brother Buzz]

14. We did place an order, but we used my buddies address

Those X-Ray/3-D glasses may have been a scam, but the stink bomb was the real deal!

I kid you not, my buddy and I emptied our grammar school for a fire drill when we were in fifth grade. We were the milk delivery boys, and we sprinkled the foil packet stink bomb granules through all the hallways during our morning milk delivery. The reported 'gas leak' turned out the fire department. Man, that was a red-letter day!

[MineralMan]

15. Aha! A fellow prankster.

Did you get caught?

[Brother Buzz]

16. Nope, but they had their suspisions

The fire captain grilled us, asking if we messed with gas stove in the kitchen where the milk was stored, "Nope, we didn't touch the range".

Honestly, we were shaking in our boots!

[MineralMan]

17. I only got caught when it would serve to enhance my reputation,

but not lead to any real consequences. There were a few times like that, but not many.

As I moved into high school, my pranks became more and more complicated and difficult to carry out. None were harmful, in any way, just dramatically comical for my fellow students.

One where I did get caught, intentionally, involved the school's 7 AM flag-raising ceremony. Each morning, one of the band's trumpet players would play the bugle call, "To the Colors," as the flag was raised. Except this one time. I enlisted the help of a couple of trombone players in the band. We practiced our performance for a week after school until we had everything down to perfection.

Then, we told the trumpet player of the day to take a hike, took the school's three sousaphones out of the band room and played a perfect rendition of the bugle call, two octaves lower than normal and much, much louder.

After being summoned to the Principal's office, I explained calmly to that nice man that the Sousaphone was simply a very large bugle, by nature, and that no disrespect was intended at all, sir. I added that we had rehearsed carefully to make sure that we performed the music perfectly. He had no reasonable argument to offer and sent us away without punishment. However, he did inform the band director that no further performances on the Sousaphone would be appropriate.

We achieved our goal of raising our reputations among our fellow students, some of whom still laugh and retell that story at class reunions every time they are held. It was a high point in our pranking. They knew better than the Principal did what we were up to that morning.

[Docreed2003]

3. Still disappointed my 3-D glasses were a scam!!!

Not surprised that they’re catered to dumb dudes through “penis enlargement” and sex toy scams!

[MineralMan]

6. I never fell for those 3D glasses.

I did order a few things, always with disappointing results, though.

A Rocket Radio was one of them. It did work, but poorly. I think it's still somewhere in a box at my parents' house.

[CentralMass]

11. I had a version thst was built in a pen. The trick was yhag you needed

A good "earth ground" like a cold water pipe and a long wire atenna of sorts unless you were very close to an AM radio station.

[MineralMan]

13. Yeah. I have one of those pen radios somewhere, too.

I also remember building my first crystal set in Cub Scouts.

[MineralMan]

5. Direct to your door, via the US Post Office:

[CentralMass]

7. I remember the old Johnsom Smith calendar well.

It was loaded with all sorts of cool novelty, scientific and gag items. I remember buying small camera's and other items from it when I was a kid.. I bought this one item that had two small metal spheres attached with a tube between their centers with a neon bulb protruding out one of them. While holding the non bulb end if you rubbed your feet across the carpet on a winters day and the touched the sphere of the bulbed end to a door knob the static electricty being discgarged would light up the bulb. I was a little was guy so I also bought the squrting disappearig ink pen etc.. i had this pen radio that was a crystal radion on a pen. You clipped on lead to a ground and the other to a wire attena and listend with a earphone. It actually worked. I could pick ip local Central Mass am radio stations like WTAG etc..

[MineralMan]

9. Cool stuff. Cheap, too.

[CentralMass]

12. Yes, it was great.I had a paper route as young kid and would order things.

[Hoyt]

10. Don't remember that catalog, but I do remember those kind of ads in comic books, etc.

[Kirk Lover]

18. Looks like it could of been full of tRUMP products.