Happy Halloween! Playthings Advertisement for Alice Costumes by Ben Cooper

Happy Halloween to all, and Happy Birthday to me!  Tis the season for costumes, and in 1951 the king of costumes was Ben Cooper.  Wouldn't you know it, they made costumes based on Alice, and were pushing them hard months before the film was released, and even more months before Halloween.

This ad comes from the greatest of all toy industry magazines Playthings, and features bright red printing for the Alice in Wonderland masquerade costumes to be released by Ben Cooper.  It's just too bad there isn't any art of Alice and company in this ad, but there is a stock image of Donald, so that's something.

This ad was published in the March issue of Playthings, the Toy Fair issue.  As with all other Playthings issues from the 1930s through the mid/late 1950s, it features a Disney cover, and this cover features Mickey dancing about with the Mad Hatter and March Hare, welcoming all to the 1951 Toy Fair.  This particular issue is chock full of Alice stuff, but those pages are for other posts.  Save some candy for me!

Hasbro Nurse Kit

Last, and certainly not least, is the most bizarre of all, the Alice in Wonderland Nurse Kit.  Alice is ready to do her civic duty all decked out in Red Cross regalia (well, at least with a hat and new pinafore). 

Again we see very standard nurse kit fare, all from Hasbro's OTS kits.  My favorite is the *ahem* hot water bottle.  I don't know about you, but I'm not about to let my 7 year old use that thing on me!  Of the three kits, this has the strangest closure of all, just a single snap.  How weird is that?  And I dig the faux blue alligator box.

This toy eluded me for years, and I began to wonder if it even existed!  All I had to go on was an ad from an issue of Playthings Magazine from July 1951.  Since that issue was coincident with the release of the film, I felt fairly confident that the toys depicted in it would have been produced, but now I think otherwise.  I think that because the ad lists FOUR playsets, not three. 

The Make Up kit (item 1915), the Sewing kit (item 1545) , and the Nurse bag (?!) (item 1765) are all pictured, but the Nurse kit (item 1735) is only mentioned in a text blurb.

I don't think the Nurse bag was produced.  It seems odd that there would be two nursing playsets made, and it was three times as expensive as the Nurse kit.  It may have been made, but I've never seen one, and who knows how well that plastic material would have held up after all these years.  Still, fun to think about it and if it was made, I'm sure it will turn up someday!