This post is part of an ongoing series called 66 Fridays, which explores the wonders of old Route 66. Click on the preceding “66 Fridays” link to view all posts in the series, or visit the initial overview post here.
Some years back I lamented missing the era of the Burma Shave ad, but on Route 66, I finally got my chance to see what it must have been like. These signs are replicas rather than originals, and some of them are more than a little ho-made…
…but it doesn’t matter. The effect, I imagine, is the same. Like the Meramec Caverns signs, the Burma Shave ads permeated American road trip culture from the mid-1920s through the mid-60s, providing lots of inexpensive exposure for the company and roadside fun for travelers as they “sang along” with the five- or six-sign rhyming slogans. Even the Tailor and I found ourselves reciting the limerick-like slogans aloud as we drove by.
It just seems fitting that we’d find the quintessential billboards on the quintessential road trip. If you’re going to have any Burma Shave remnants out there along the roadside, they just belong on the Mother Road.
