It's the All New Mobile Footnote Check Station!

Here's something I've seen many times without laughing that suddenly amuses the hell out of me:



I don't know if it's the obvious oldness of the thing labeled "all new," or if it's the idea that putting books on a wheeled cart was ever exciting enough to warrant a painted label trumpeting it's newness and mobility. Or is it that I have a vague memory of a time when the expression "check station" would seem very strikingly modern? Or is it poignancy of the variations in the typeface, the way it begs us to really feel how new "new" is and how mobile "mobile" is? Is it the crazy redundancy of the little check in a box at the end? Is there something funny about the idea of law students feeling really, really urgent about getting footnotes checked? Or is it the way -- despite the label -- it's quite obviously not a footnote check station at all?

ADDED: Or was it always meant to be funny, in some lost 1970s hippie way?