HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2015 - Vintage Halloween magazine ad's and memories from our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario

Halloween is almost here....then Christmas....geez, it seems like I just put our tree away.
     For you Americans, us Canadians have already had our Thanksgiving turkey, and after Halloween there's nothing to look forward to until Christmas.  Enjoy Halloween with your kids and show them this post so they can see what our old Halloween days were like.
Sooooo........meet my new friend on TV "Draculac".  He is a 1950 Cadillac that you don't want to meet Halloween night....
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Just seeing this old portable TV reminded me of our old DuMont blond wood black and white TV.

Some Halloween shows we saw back in the day.  Actually The Addams Family and The Munsters were regular series....and not just shown at Halloween.

The Munsters were my favourite, because they had George Barris' wild custom car creations, the Munster Coach and Drag-u-la.....and of course we built those models back in the day.  They are still available on the market.

Here's a picture of myself taken by my friend Dennis when we were at George Barris' shop in Los Angeles last year.  Met George of course...more pictures of him and the Batmobile on another post.
     Here's an old Halloween TV week cover from the 1960's telling us more of what we watched then.
Halloween was used to advertise more than just candy in the day...Check out this great Texaco PT anti-freeze ad telling us to get prepared for WINTER....brrrrrrrrr.

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A 50 year old Halloween tradition, UNICEF in Canada came to an end in 2006.  The orange box change collections were more costly than they were worth, as coin counting etc. for this program became too labor intensive, and in later years we here in Canada stopped the production of the copper penny.  The decision has been very critical, as kids felt good about what they were doing.  Apparently the UNICEF program still continues in the United States.  

So, in the day Casper the friendly ghost advertised for UNICEF as seen with this comic cover.

If you were ever lucky enough to get a bottle of soda pop in your halloween bag, it was probably the best treasure of the night.....so Coca Cola didn't waste any time advertising the fact. 

 ........Here's some Halloween Treat advertisements from back in the middle of the 20th Century....be sure to click on all the pictures for enlargements......

This old Wrigley's Spearmint Gum ad was from the early 1920s, and was a very popular advertisement that you might see in a Streetcar.

Then there were other companies that used Halloween for commercial use such as Jello and Heinz

Remember buying Halloween Horror sound on vinyl records?...I think I still have one or two around the house.

Lets go to YOUTUBE and see if we can find some sound effects......click on the arrow.....

I know its a long post....I hope you are enjoying it though...........

The next ads that used Halloween for commercial use were of course Booze and Cigarettes.

This Old Gold US cigarette ad is pretty bizarre...........

A couple of old Kresge five and dime ads, mainly for costumes....love the prices, and those Peanut Clusters don't look very appetizing in black and white.

Finally a great old "Abbott and Costello meets Frankenstein" film poster and the lobby card as well....scroll down to view the original trailer for this movie.

Hope you enjoyed our 2015 Halloween post.....keep checking back and head into HR&J's archives for hundreds of great stories and photos.

Ken Coghlan's Cadillac....the Body Shop.....and Kam Motors #34, all from our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario.

No...this isn't a misprint. The brochure page below says the 1960 Cadillac Sixty Two Sedan...who knows why...who cares! This is what Ken Coghlan's Cadillac would have looked like in 1960 or at least before the damage that you will see in the following photos.
In Ken's own words: "In 1967, I was driving the Caddy on Phyllis St., crossing Empress Ave., and was hit by a dump truck.  The truck pushed me into a telephone pole on the corner in front of the store that used to be there and actually broke the telephone pole.  You can see where the pole went behind the driver's side tire.  I went out the door and two ladies in the store helped me, but I don't remember too much from that moment.  I do remember however, looking at the car and thinking that it had some damage."

Click on all the photos once or twice for enlargements.

Seeing these photos that Ken sent me, I could hardly believe that he walked away from the accident.  Thanks to Ken for sending these for us to post......Don't go away....There is MORE!  The next picture is a now shot of where Ken's accident occurred on the corner of Empress Ave. and Phyllis St.  Ken is a former resident of Port Arthur.

The next step with accidents such as this, is where to have it repaired.  Ken didn't tell me if and where the Caddy was repaired, but if it was, it probably would have been one of the two next body shops.  The first black and white is Port Arthur Motors used car lot and Body Repair shop(this building still exists today), and the next one is my father, John Cano's alma mater Kam Motors which was on Leith Street in Fort William.  Let's consider that it was actually repaired at Kam Motors.......well, for a better storyline anyway....thanks for being patient. ☺

  Yes, now here is my dad managing the Kam Motors Body Shop in 1967 in his typical Homburg Hat...and look at that....There is a brand new 1967 Oldsmobile Tornado behind him with some damage somewhere.   The bumper sticker below was issued in 1965 commemorating Kam's 50th Anniversary.

On the right is about a 1950 ad on a brochure showing how Kam Motors looked at the time and advertising Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and of course Cadillac.  

Below is a post card Kam would mail out back in 1939 showing how they could make your car NEW again.

A now picture - "DIAMOND TAXI"

The following pictures were all taken when my father was managing the body shop at Kam Motors for Hubert Badanai Sr. back in the early 1950's.

John Cano and Joe Canzi

In this picture - all we know are John Cano, Mike Tront, Dan Ozero(with goggles), Peter Petrick, and Joe Canzi.  I remember hanging around Kam after school at 10 to 13 years old in the mid to late '50's and all these guys were so good to me....I still remember most of them....and all are now gone to the big body shop in the sky....                 ☺

Well...what do you think came next.....a body shop was supposed to repair cars, not wreck them...

 I remember when Kam Motors body and paint shop were working on their first stock car....I was 10 years old.  The 1938 Chevy Coupe almost looked as nice as the one in this picture when they started modifying it.  It was late summer 1954 and no one had any idea yet that there would be a Chevrolet with a V8 on the horizon in 1955.

..........and this is what they did to it!  My father did all the body work, Canary(Onorio) Trevisan painted it, Archie Fowler did the mechanical work, and Bill Chepil drove it on and off for about 4 summers total....and oh yes, they wrecked a few of these before it was all over.  Don't forget to click on each pic to enlarge them.

The Main Drivers of the #34, 1938 Chevrolet were Bill Chepil and Canary Trevisan.  The following picture was taken at Russ Wanzuks museum only a few years before these two icons of the paint and body world of the day Mr. Mascarin and Mr. Canary(Onorio) Trevisan passed on.

The final addition to this post is this great write-up(from Barry Kettering's personal scrap book) that was in the Fort William Times Journal in 1957.  It also mentions Sammy Myronuk filling in for Canary because he was in the hospital and Sam also ended up in the hospital after this race day.  Sammy went on to race more races with his own cars, but sadly the lack lustre 1938 Chevy Coupe's days came to an end...It seems there was more bad luck than good luck, and the V8 Fords and V8 Chevrolets were leaving the old 6 cylinder Chevrolets behind in the dust.

Many thanks to Ken Coghlan for the Caddy photos, also to Archie Fowler for some of the #34 photos, to Rene Kettering for allowing me to copy Barry's scrapbook a few years ago.

I dedicate this post to my father John Cano for the great car years together and for all he taught me....I miss him very much.  Please return for more HR&J photos and stories of our city during the Hot Rod and Jalopy generation.