Redartz: Greetings, all! As we, here in 'TV Guided', consider and discuss various aspects of television in our Bronze age, how could we not address those little interruptions of our favorite shows? Yes, commercials- be it broadcast or cable (although our BBC viewing friends might have missed some of these), commercials have been part of the tv landscape since the very beginning. And truthfully, the subject of these minute-long memoranda could fill a blog on it's own. So, for today, we'll consider those particular commercials which have managed to stick in your brain. Even after several decades, some ads still pop instantly to mind, the jingles still ringing in your mind (for better or worse). And that is, doubtlessly, exactly the way they were designed.
Here are a few that my addled brain still can't escape, courtesy of :
Alka Seltzer
Ajax Cleanser
McDonald's
Dr. Pepper
Peter/Paul Candy
I'm certain you all have commercial tunes that still linger in your subconscious. I may have triggered a few here, my apologies if you can't get them out of your head! For revenge, tell us about your advertising 'earworms'...
23 comments:
Sometimes at work I'll use the expression "this isn't Burger King, you can't always have it your way." Younger folks don't get it but it certainly makes the point with older ones, lol.
Oh boy, this could be a Lay's Potato Chip-type topic for me today ("You can't eat just one!").
EXCELLENT selection there, Red-- five immediately-recognizable & beloved commercials.
(Bonus points for those who recognize David-"AmericanWerewolfInLondon"-Naughton in the Dr Pepper commercial---!)
McDonald's had sooooo many memorable jingles and campaigns. The "Twoallbeefpatties, etc-" one hit right when two McDonalds franchises opened at towns close enough to our rural village for people to consider driving to (10 miles or so, say). That particular campaign did NOT last long-- the whole say-it-in-less-than-4-seconds thing, I think, and get a free Big Mac-- 'cause EVERYONE could do it once they'd heard the jingle a couple of times.
But "You Deserve a Break Today" was probably my favorite, as there was a commercial done in Broadway Musical style, showing the staff either opening or closing the store-- and it was an utter hoot.
A personal non-musical favorite? The M&M's commercial featuring the saloon poker game in the old west:
"Dese cards are MARKED-!"
"Dey a MESS!"
"Yeah. . . a CHOCOLATE mess. . ." (Pulls gun)
"Easy fellas! The dirty dealer meant no harm--!"
(Ad copy/ad copy/ad copy)
"Got any t'rees?"
"Go Fish. . . !"
Heh--
HB
HB, when I first saw American Werewolf in London, on a VHS tape in my freshman or sophomore year of high school, I specifically recall coming to the realization that the main character was that guy from the Dr. Pepper commercials (they should have had him wear that vest, khaki pants and red sneakers in at least one scene in the movie...)
Some commercials that are really stuck in my head to this day are the many military recruitment ads that seemed ubiquitous in the early 1980s, at the dawn of the Reagan era. I still remember all of the slogans: The Air Force - A Great Way of Life; The Navy - It's Not Job, It's an Adventure; The Few. The Proud. The Marines; of course, The Army - Be All You Can Be, which was accompanied by that absolutely irritating earworm of a song.
Edo-- we played that song in Marching Band in High School. It wasn't our favorite. Not musically that engaging to play, y'know?
HB
Oh, man, you have my sympathy HB. The band teacher at my high school was pretty cool by comparison: I remember our high school's band playing stuff like Smoke on the Water during half-time at football or basketball games...
Wow! Remembering all of these!
Here's a couple branded into my brain since the seventies;
AlkaSeltzer- "I can't believe he ate the whole thing!"
Prince Spaghetti- "Anthony, Anthony, it's Price Spaghetti Day!"
Many more stuck in that head of mine...
I'm stuck on...
"I'd walk a mile for a Camel " cigarette 50 years later still sticks. Why? I never smoked. The dude with a hole in the bottom of his boot smoking his cig...
HB- Great call on the McDonald's " You deserve a break today" spots. I loved those too. Still can see all those store employees dancing with their mops.
That M&M's ad is classic, too. No wonder we ate so much junk food, the commercials were so blamed effective!
Charlie- oh yeah, those cigarette ads were quite unforgettable. "You can take Salem out of the country, BUT you can't take the country out of Salem".
Oh, and does anyone recall an anti-smoking ad from the early 70's: singing "Get right to the heart of the matter, WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, WHERE THERE'S SMOKE!". Seels like it was from the American Heart Association. Used to spook me out terribly.
And now, instead of doing work, I'm remembering some of those almost forgotten commercial slogans of my early childhood, and the often annoying/cloying tunes that accompanied them:
"Uh oh, Spaghettios!"
"Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat!"
"Stir up the Campbell's, soup is good food!"
"Best country in the country, and country's best beer!" (o.k. that one is pretty regionally specific, it's the slogan for Blitz Beer, brewed in Portland, Oregon - the description for the video says its from the 1960s, it's actually from the mid-1970s, because that ad slogan sung like that was one of the earliest commercials I remember humming to myself as a kid in the 1st and 2nd grades.
And that reminds me of this Rainier Beer ad which has to be seen to be believed.
Yeah, there are a few tag lines from ads that entered the lexicon ("Where's the Beef?"; "Tastes great! Less filling!")
What about the Coke commercial with Mean Joe Greene where he throws the kid his jersey? Probably unknown outside of North America. Or Dinah Shore's "See the USA in your Chevrolet"; or Jim Garner and Mariette Hartley in those camera commercials. Or Brooke Shields ("What comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.")
Coke's HUGE "I'd Like Teach The World To Sing" spot-? Man, that thing (and the full New Seekers song it was based on) was, like, the grand-daddy of "viral" advertising, yeah?
The poor TidyBowl Man, in his little boat in the toilet tank? Geeze-- how many times and ways was that riffed on for comic effect, eh?
Mr. Whiffle (Whipple?) and his really-rather-creepy Charmin-squeezing fetish?
"Parkay" "Butter" "Par-KAY" "BUTTER!" (Brilliantly minimalist and totally effective mini-one-act plays!)
The Close & Play record player commercial was the SAME one for years-- and I loved it 'cause it featured an African-American fellow as its central figure. . . at a time (early/mid 60's) when that was going very much against the play-it-safe advertising norms. (Hmm-- sort of a clever innocuous-commercial-as-protest-statement?)
I'm not sure how regional (Mid-Atlantic) Mattress Discounters is/was-- but their first couple of commercials, with the fellow singing that list of things folks could do on one of their mattresses was kind of lightning-in-a-bottle. The guy singing it has a delightful Broadway lyric baritone voice, and he belts it out so freely and enjoyably. . .
HB (TOO MUCH TELEVISION-- that was me. . . )
Ronco Pocket Fisherman... Ronco Vegematic... Ronco...
I think HB and I watched the same shows and the same commercials, lol! You got all the great jingles, so how 'bout these memorable, yet jingle-free TV ads?
Remember Marathon Bars? Patrick Wayne (the Duke's boy!) as Marathon John? Those were fun and silly. And the Reese's peanut butter cup commercials "You got chocolate in my peanut butter!" "You got peanut butter in my chocolate!" White Cloud toilet paper with the little old lady who had to whisper "toilet paper" because it was so naughty? Boy how times have changed.
"Iron Eyes" Cody's Keep America Beautiful PSA was so memorable.
The Levis commercial "Lee-hee-hee-vis, haw, haw..." used to drive me bonkers.
But the most beloved (albeit quite bonkers) commercial for me was Charles Nelson Reilly as the giant banana in the Bic Banana Ink Crayons commercials. The man was a shameless entertainer, hlh, hlh, hlh!
Quick pickin, fun strummin'
Marshall Brodine(?) the Mr. Magic Hands who pitched the trick cards for years at least inChicago on WGN TV. I met the dude once when I was making a commercial. We had hired Tony the Tiger to be our reader/ voice and Brodine was there too. "They're Greaaat!"
Groove, three of the ones you just cited came to my mind earlier as well! You sure you didn't grow up in rural southwest Michigan??
Cody's Keep America Beautiful PSA is often cited in lists of Best/Most Effective Commercials Ever. There were some very harrowing Safe Driving Campaign spots that had lifelong lasting effect as well. One showed a group of teenagers swiping a car for a joyride, followed by them getting into a horrific accident (rear-ending a car at high speed, going airborne, and landing head-on into an on-coming vehicle). The crash is shown in slo-mo, intercut with quick interior shots of the teens flailing and screaming in the midst of it-- ending with the final impact. This was shown a LOT on weekday mornings. I probably haven't seen it in, what, 45 years? I feel like I could storyboard now, if asked to.
The other didn't hang around as long. In order to persuade people to, indeed, wear the seatbelts that were newly-mandated for cars, it had quick interview clips of people explaining why, no, they weren't going to wear them. At the end of each explanation, the actor ended in what seemed a casual pose or position. Then there was an immediate cut to a photo of what appeared to be the same person in the hospital after a horrendous trauma-- clearly real hospital photos. In one case, the actor was such a dead-ringer for the bandaged victim that it completely put the whole thing over. I suspect this ad was simply too graphic and disturbing even for the folks who fully understood the importance of the subject. And-- they may have been onto something. Again-- I was fascinated by it even as a found it profoundly upsetting.
HB
CH47-- you got to work with Thurl Ravenscroft? Really??? Oh MAN-- that is the COOLEST!
HB
Is that his name? We did the whole thing in a day in late 1994 in Chicago. I am sitting by a grill on a beach at the moment racking my brains out trying hard to remember what Marshall B told us "in confidence." It was pretty juicy and involved famous Chicago TV people. I am termpted to say he played the Wizard on Bozo's circus and I learned a lot... ;)
HB I do recall Tony the. tiger having an uncommon name so must be him, Dude read the lines really well and did the "they're great!" for us, lol! Then we had the never ending debate about which background music to use! Everybody had to have an opinion! Lol!
Alarm... "Time To Make The Donuts"! Every Single TIME!!!
The Fruit of the Loom fruits had a good run.
And this just in, Dunkin Donuts is dropping the donuts and rebranding themselves as just DUNKIN... sacrilege...
(Wild one won't you please come home
You've been away too long, will you
We need you home, we need you near
Come back wild one will you
How can we live without your love
You know that could kill you
How can we carry on
When you are gone my wild one
So you go your way wild one
I'll try and follow
And if you change your mind
I will be waiting here for you tomorrow
For I would beg for you
I would steal and I would borrow
I'd do anything, anything at all
To end this sorrow
Wild one
The gypsies warned of the danger
You can laugh and joke with friends
But don't you ever talk to strangers
Although their offers may be sweet
And I'd bet and I would wager
Away you'll stray and never come back
To those who love and made you).
Edo- that Rainier Beer ad; very strange. One wonders how much beer that actually sold...
Mike W.- "See the USA, in your Chevrolet". Man, I can still hear that. And it still comes to mind, anytime I'm on a road trip.
HB- the Tidy Bowl man and his boat, what a classic. Do you remember the Carol Burnett Show sketch about that ad; Carol closed the lid and flushed. Now that's humor.
Groove- you're not kidding about those toilet paper commercials. It's a far cry from Mr. Whipple and squeezing the Charmin, to today's ads discussing how clean you feel after going...
Charlie- Man, that is cool indeed! Working with Thurl Ravencroft. Also, by the way, the singer of "Mr. Grinch" on the classic Christmas special.
That little guy from the Hawaiian Punch ads confused me. I didn't know that was supposed to be a straw hat on his head. I thought they were horns or something, and that maybe this character was meant to represent Satan. He kinda acted like it.
I had the same problem with the cow on the Elmer's Glue bottle, who I thought was a guy with horns, until my older sister set me straight.
Hey, don't laugh, the Exorcist had just come out!
M.P.
Redartz, Rainier was a really popular and high-selling beer in the Pacific Northwest (the brewery was in Seattle - it's since shut down). Back in the late '70s and up through the mid-1980s, it seemed like Rainier and Portland's Henry Weinhard (the most popular brand made in the Blitz Weinhard brewery mentioned in my first comment) were competing to see who could make the funniest or at least most unusual TV commercials. For example, Rainier had a series of commercials featuring hunters with huge bottle-cap openers trying to bag "Wild Rainiers" (giant beer bottles with legs) in the woods - Mickey Rooney even appeared in one of those; Weinhard, meanwhile, had a bunch of commercials featuring a cop or game warden or something who was posted at Oregon's highway borders to make sure no mass-produced, low-quality beer from other states (mainly California) was trucked into 'Henry Weinhard country' (he even had a signature line: "Where you fellas goin' with all that beer?"). However, one of my favorite Henry Weinhard commercials is this one featuring an old-West chuckwagon. Never fails to bring a smile to my face.
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