Say what you will about the current age of advertising, what with all the celebrity sell-outs and general ickiness and our inability to get particular jingles out of our heads. But at least our ads aren’t filled with utterly disturbing images that will haunt your very dreams tonight.

My guitar-ninjaing friend Trace thoughtfully introduced me to this list of 15 Creepy Vintage Ads and so I feel the need to share a few of them with you. If only so we can be disturbed together. You know how it’s always better to watch a horror film in a packed-out theater rather than alone on your couch under a blanket? Think of this the same way.

Behold some creepy vintage ads:

Daddy? Where does sausage come from?
Well, honey, think of a happy pig.
Like Wilbur?
Yes, just like Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web, but holding a really sharp sword with his hoof.
How can he hold a sword with a hoof?
That doesn’t matter. What matters is that the pig is using the sword to divide himself into these little piggy slices by cutting through his stomach, kind of like Mommy does when she cuts up a cucumber, only instead of cucumber slices it’s a bloody stack of pig pieces. Apparently that’s how you got sausage back in the old days. Now…who’s ready for breakfast?

Nothing says “peace on Earth, goodwill to men” like a square dad, a happy mom, and a family of three boys inspecting their new weaponry. A few months later, the same family celebrated Easter with a cage match between little Johnny and middle-child Pete.

A scene from a Hathaway dress shirt photo shoot:

Creative Director: This shot isn’t working. We’ve got a handsome man in a dress shirt. That’s not interesting. How can we make this interesting?

Assistant Creative Director: What if we replaced the conference room background with, I don’t know, a cage at the zoo?

Creative Director: I love it! And instead of a cup of coffee, he can be holding a baby tiger!

(Silence.)

Prop Guy: Um…I’m not sure I can find a baby tiger on such short notice. Let me make some calls.

(A pirate appears.)

Pirate: Arrrgh, ye mateys. Avast! Shiver me timbers! Fo’c’s’le, etc.

Creative Director (to Prop Guy): While you’re asking about the tiger, go ahead and order me up an eyepatch, too. What we need is a handsome man, with an eyepatch, at the zoo, holding a baby tiger. If that doesn’t sell stripey dress shirts, then I’m a sword-wielding pig!

I don’t know about you, but if I’m ever at a beach, at night, in the vicinity of a toddler who just got crushed by a giant teacup that fell from the sky during some kind of fantastic rainstorm…well, I’m going to ask for Pears’ Soap.

My understanding of the French language is limited, but according to the French-English dictionary I just visited, Chocolat Poulain is French for “giant terrifying clown.” And goutez et comparez is French for “drinking your blood from a teacup, the same teacup which he might drop on your toddler at the beach, at night.”

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Sweet dreams, everyone. More of these at Retro Comedy.