(Editor’s Note: We hope you enjoy this repost of a classic Retroland article)
If you were a regular reader of comic books in the 60s and 70s, you probably couldn’t help but notice the recurring ad that offered you your very own kid-sized Polaris nuclear submarine – all for the low price of about seven bucks. Perhaps the pictures above will bring you back in time.
Big enough to hold two kids? Real periscope? Rockets and torpedoes that actually fire? Needless to say, I begged my parents for one of these things. But $7 was a lot of money back then and, suffice to say, I never got my own personal Red October. Still, images of this mythical sub haunted me for years. Although I always had a hunch that it was too good to be true, it wasn’t until my jaded teen years that I finally put the dream on the back burner. Until recently, that is, when I decided to re-open the investigation, to seek out the truth. And although my findings are admittedly bittersweet, I can now have some closure – the sub mystery has been solved.
Over at www.cracked.com, I found an archived article called “12 Comic Book Ads That Taught Us To Be Cynical.” And smack dab at the top of the browser, was my long-lost submergible friend (which also just so happened to top the list). After reading this thoroughly entertaining article, I did a little more searching and found a picture of my own Holy Grail. The mystery had finally been solved – it’s a cardboard box.
What are your own stories of buyer’s remorse when it came to ordering from the back of a comic book? Perhaps you purchased a thing or two from the king of comic book advertisers, the Johnson-Smith Company in your day? Share your memories in our comments section about the cool things you received in the mail, and/or the disappointment of finding out that those Sea Monkeys really didn’t exhibit much of a social life, and that the Kryptonite you ordered was a really a rock that had been spray-painted green. And ESPECIALLY if you were the proud owner of a Polaris Nuclear Submarine!
Hi,
I have been looking for someone who has one of these still intact, maybe never even out of the box and i’ll tell you why.
For 22 years now i have been listening to this story my dad tell about this submarine that wish he always had. He always says his one regret as a child is that he never order this submarine. So i thought if i could ever find it i would buy it for him set it up under the tree at Christmas and make that regret go away.
This submarine is hard to find so if anyone could give me an idea on where to look, other than eBay (i already looked) i would be so happy!
Thanks!
Too cool! I wanted one of these so badly….
Man I and I think at least one of my brothers wanted this so badly. I used to dream about exploring some lakes in Maine we would visit. My child mine could not imagine it not being a working sub. Seven bucks what a bargain!;) This is one of those things I had not thought of for awhile and as an adult the truth makes perfect sense!;)
Thanks for posting this. I too remember dreaming of this sub to use in the pond at my best friends house. I saved all my pennies but alas, I couldn’t convince my parents to give me real cash for my 700 pennies so I never got it and always wondered what it really was. I saw a recent article on comic book X-ray glasses that got me again on the hunt to find out what it was. Now I’m glad I spent all those hard earned pennies on candy…so was my dentist.
Say, you got a nice article. Awesome.
Thanks-a-mundo for the post.Thanks Again. Great.
I still want one of these!!!!!
my friend and i actually convinced our parents (or stole it out of their purse or something) and sent away for it only to receive a letter months later saying it wasn’t available at this time. thank you for this picture! like you, it’s something i can finally have closure on altho i’d love to own it one day.
Not sure why, but I was thinking about this Submarine today; and after a quick search, up comes your site! I actually did have one of these. I also remember thinking about how cool it would be to take it to the lake and wander around in my own personal sub. I remember having discussions with my parents about what I would do with it. They finally agreed to buy me one. I remember how excited I was when it arrived, but also the brief disappointment that it wasn’t a real usable submarine. It was, however, a fun project to assemble with my dad, and I did enjoy it for quite some time. I can still remember the inside of it, it was quite spacious! (for a kid) The family dog came to hate those torpedo launchers, as I would wait for him to walk by before firing one off! I have to admit, it was pretty cool, even for a fancy cardboard mock-up. Not sure whatever happened to it, but I imagine I wore it out, as I remember having the torpedo launchers out of it for some time afterwards. It would be a fun project to recreate these, maybe out of something a bit sturdier, and make them adult size. I would play in it once again!