No souping-up needed. Selectric typewriters could use either fixed or proportional pitch balls. Compared to high quality photo typesetting, using a Selectric for typesetting would be a very cheap but low quality option.
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As much as like debunking, the words visible āon the other sideā might have been ink transfer from something else (like a newpaper clipping) that was stacked on top of it for decades. So itās in reverse and askew silly putty style .
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This whole Selectric proportional times New Roman thing was gone over in great detail ten years ago, when the āBush National Guard memosā surfaced from Dan Rather on 60 Minutes. My brother got involved, as heās the owner of selectric.org, and has a bit of a Selectric museum in his house.
tl;dr Selectrics cannot produce Times New Roman, or anything remotely like it.
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I am not so sure about that. See for example this rather famous ad from a few years later:
ETA: As far as I can tell, the page is dated 1974 and it seems to match the style of this 1974 Lego catalogue well enough.
And a real link, if BBS lets me: Lego Catalogue 1974 | We visited some friends on Friday, andā¦ | Flickr
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The Cosmic Balance swings back & forth.
Totally legit, hereās the german Version with same Font and localized language: http://www.redshift.com/~shifflett/lego/German_catalog_1974/target2.html
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That looks like a staple on the right of the original photo, which would make this the back cover of a booklet. I donāt recall this message āTo Parentsā, but I do recall the existence of such booklets of inspirational photos in boxes of LEGO, and catalogues advertising other sets.
Incidentally, I certainly had Duplo in the mid-70s, and visited Legoland Billund in '78.
Heh. And I had that moonshot set shown in KarlSās last post. 
Edit: Note the staple in Walt74ās photo too!
So now someone does the same X-ray trick on the German version to see whatās on the other sideā¦ the first few words seem to tie up.
the wording of that ad is very similar in tone and style to the insert in question. it doesnāt seem to be out of the realm of possibility.
we need a new word that means ātrue on the internet but not irlā
i nominate: snopengeist
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The whole Catalogue is up there, in german it says āDer Tag, an dem das Mittagessen in der KĆ¼che anbrannteā, translation: āThe Day, Lunch burnt in the Kitchenā or so. Fits.
[edit] Link: http://www.redshift.com/~shifflett/lego/German_catalog_1974/
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Thatās all the proof I need.
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Yup, same here. Great find!
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The most heartbreaking thing: In the german Version of this, it says āLego setzt der Phantasie keine Grenzenā, translated āLego sets no limits to Phantasyā. Nowadays, they do more often, than not. And thatās sad.
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Yes, and the āmore human than spaceshipsā and āmore exciting than dolls [sic] housesā pronouncements are amusingly naive - although well-meaning, Iād guess this has been made by someone under 25 who has no awareness of Sociology and gender theory.
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One of you Photoshop wizards needs to get in there and change the text to a warning about wearing shoes when your kid is playing with this stuff.
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A copywriter in 1974 not showing proper awareness of gender theory? Impossible.
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To toy companies
The urge to create fun toys is strong in all toy companies. Big and small.
Itās imagination that counts. Not marketing. You manufacture whatever comes into your head, the way you want it. Construction toys that build anything and open kidsā imaginations. Entertainment licenses just turn your business into a movie souvenir business. Even an officially licensed Lego set based on āThe Lego Movieā (which purported to promote creativity) short circuits itself. The most important thing is put the right material in kidsā hands and LET THEM CREATE whatever appeals to them.
Theyāre still rather behind on that todayā¦
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Iām personally kind of amused by the notion that there is, or was, a single prevailing theory of gender.
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