4-Way Cold Tablets

[Espee]

This product name seems to have struck some people's funny bones. Over the years, I've heard several gags on old radio shows.
I don't recall any being particularly funny.. therefore, I can only quote the one I heard yesterday, from Life With Luigi, in the late 1940s.
There's a fundraising campaign for a children's recreation center, and everyone is pitching in except Pasquali.
"That Pasquali is such a miser, when he has a cold, he only takes one way of the Four-Way cold tablet!"

 

[Espee]

"My Friend Irma" radio series, 1949 or 1950:
Irma's split with her boyfriend Al, and he's despondent. He sends her a note, threatening to throw himself under the wheels of a subway train... from the top of the Empire State Building. On the way down, he'll stab himself several times, fatally... and take poison.
If that doesn't do the trick, he's prepared "to do something desperate."
IRMA: "Wow, he's figured out more angles than a 4-Way Cold Tablet!"

 

[Espee]

November 1949: Phil Harris has an opportunity to move from radio to TV, but he wonders if Betty Grable would make a better co-star than his wife, Alice Faye. Why?
PHIL: She's very photogenic.
ALICE: Well I'M very photogenic!
PHIL: And she's got a lot of personality.
ALICE: I'VE got just as much personality.
PHIL: Yeah, but SHE'S still in pictures...
ALICE: EHH, YEH FADDAH TAKES FOUR-WAY COLD TABLETS!