Justice League Ovaltine Ad and T-Shirt - 1967

Now this is a weird little object!

F.O.A.M.er Frank Lee Delano sent me a link to a post on Bat-Blog.com (run by another F.O.A.M.er, Tommy Brookshire) featuring this print ad for a Justice League branded t-shirt made my the fine folks at Ovaltine. All you had to do was send them a dollar(!), and in return you got this handsome shirt:

Okay, "handsome" is not at all appropriate: this thing is hideous! Superman looks like he's seventy years old, Batman looks befuddled, Flash looks like he's not wearing a shirt, Green Lantern has T-Rex arms, and Aquaman appears to be falling to his death. I realize that this was the era when character merchandising was in its infancy, but still--didn't anyone designing this thing have access to some comic book art they could have traced?

Like Tommy, I had never seen this piece before. Also like Tommy, I'm sure I'll never own either the poster or shirt, they're so rare. A lot of the merchandise created to tie in to the 1960s Filmation cartoons ended up lost or incomplete, making mint versions worth a fortune now.

Thanks Tommy and Frank!