Your Doctor Wants You to Smoke

Taking the Mickey
Beware, O athletic gods, what you endorse. The Commerce Comet, as he was known, was only one of several sports heroes to endorse cigarettes when these ads appeared in 1957 (left) and 1953. Today tobacco companies claim to spend most of their ad dollars persuading established smokers to make like Mickey and switch brands. And the only major sport endorsed by tobacco products is auto-racing, possibly because cigarette smoke really helps cut the exhaust fumes.

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