Dear Times:

Housewives are conditioned to clipping coupons with such fatuous replies as "Dear Golden Atlas Co.: Yes, I would be thrilled to improve my mind with your new atlas." Last week suburban housewives around New York City were amused by an imaginative spoof of the coupon-clipping craze spread over full-page ads in 21 suburban dailies and 17 weekly newspapers. Author of the spoof: the unspoofy New York Times, which employed big type to trumpet such messages as WOMEN OF DARIEN, LOOK! Purpose of the ads: to build up suburban circulation by playing lightly on the frustrations of the suburban housewife.

The Times offered "nine personalized coupons to express your secret, suburban self." Prepared by Vice President John Bergin of Manhattan's Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, and illustrated by New Yorker Cartoonist Charles Saxon, the coupons joked about everything from Early American furniture to the late-commuting American male, appealed to the strong self-improvement drive of housewives, neatly parodied some of Mrs. Suburbia's best-known cliches. Samples: "Seldom during the day do I talk to anyone over three feet tall. This little world I live in is no place for someone over 21. Since I am over 21 (slightly), send Times." "People think my husband's brilliant. Nobody thinks I'm brilliant. Except me. Send Times." "In college I wrote an A paper debunking Spinoza. Today I write grocery lists. Maybe the Times will start the gears running again."

Though the ad was intended primarily as a conversation piece--along Madison Avenue as well as in the suburbs--neatly clipped coupons promptly began flowing in to the Times.

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