We presume this is a play on the famous New Yorker cartoon of 1928, in which a child won't eat her broccoli: "I say it's spinach and I say the hell with it." In this case, the subject is toothpaste, not broccoli (the ad is for Pepsodent). While we like the hallucinatory scenario (is one brushing one's teeth with spinach? Has one been served toothpaste for dinner?), the famous zinger to the gag is, "the hell with it," so this comes across as some sort of anti-advertising, since the lingering message is, "The hell with Pepsodent." From Photoplay, 1932.
