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favorite commercials, past and present

S

skippercollector

What commercials have you liked?
My current favorites are the ones for Quilted Northern, with the knickknacks and abandoned toys in the bathroom. They made me laugh out loud the first time I saw them!
As a Barbie collector, there was a Walmart ad perhaps five years ago that also made me roll with laughter. The family bought a doll, a doll house, some duct tape and a new phone. A couple days later the father went looking for his phone. His daughter had taped it to the wall of Barbie's house, turned on the phone so that a video came up, and it looked like Barbie was watching TV.
About 10 years ago an ebay commercial made me cry. It was the one about the boy whose toy boat was pulled away in the ocean, and someone in Japan found it years later and put it on ebay for sale. The expression on the grown man's face when he saw HIS boat should have won an Oscar.
Why is that the ads that you really, really like don't get much air time?
 
Favorite old commercial: A YouTube link is too easy, so here goes...

"A Poem To My Converse All-Star Basketball Shoes.
You're the greatest, and that's no jive. You're standard equipment on the B Street Five.
When I fly though the air, doin' my famous slam dunk, I'll be flyin' first class, and that ain't no bunk.
My shoes will be wearing the Converse name till they bronze my feet for the Hall Of Fame.
Converse All-Stars...Limousines for the feet."

Favorite recent ads--the SafeAuto ads with Norm MacDonald, because Norm MacDonald is never not funny.
 
Favorite old commercials.....most of the old cigarette ads and this is coming from someone who hates cigarettes. They were just so well done. Just today at Walgreens I saw a man with a black eye and I couldn't help but think "..Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch.". Its nice to see them on YouTube though I can do without the lung cancer comments just like with the old soda ads and diabetes..OK we get it !!

Favorite ads from the present...don't have any but a few years ago I did catch an ad for a country music radio station in Virginia that was kinda cute. Shot in animation form of a man and woman having a picnic only to give each other a toast using long neck bottles of beer. I wish I could remember the name of the radio station. Think it was Harrisonburg's "Country KCY" but I am not sure.
 
Here in Los Angeles, there were some I liked:

1. Adee Plumbing and Heating. It aired in the early to mid 1990s. I'm sure many Angelenos here remember the end of the ad: "Adee do, that's who!" I remember the entire commercial to this day, word for word, but this post is getting long enough already. Still in business because I saw an Adee Do! van drive past my work just a couple weeks ago.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E10tTozjxmA

2. Bally Total Fitness (not sure if local to L.A. or a national company, has since been acquired by 24-Hour Fitness). It aired after the holiday season in the late 1990s to early 2000s, IIRC. I couldn't find a YouTube video of it so bear with me on this one. It features various people shaking presents and saying, one after the other, "Ten extra pounds!" "A big butt!" "A double chin?" "Wow! A spare tire with love handles!"

3. Survival Insurance Brokerage, from early to mid 1990s: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aSjD3dfJ7rY&autoplay=1
Sidenote: This company is no longer in business, as per this Los Angeles Times article dated June 18, 1999: http://articles.latimes.com/1999/jun/18/business/fi-47694

4. Cal Worthington Ford commercials telling viewers to "Go see Cal," and featuring various animals named Spot. Too many to post videos of here, but again, many Angelenos on here may well remember those ads, too. Still in business, but with Cal's passing in 2013 at age 92, his grandson now does the commercials.

That's all I can think of for now.
 
The Joe Isuzu ads, the ads with the fast-talking FedEx guy, the first dozen or so AFLAC Duck ads before they ran out of ideas, all but the last few Dos Equis "most interesting man" ads -- those stand out.

There was also one I remember seeing in the late '70s for a breath mint or a chewing gum. I have no recollection of the brand but it featured people demonstrating how fresh their breath was by speaking sentences like "Hhhhave you hhhheard from Hhhhenry Hhhhhughes" while face to face with each other. The ad ended with the announcer urging the viewer to give the product a try with the tagline "Hhhhow about it?" Anyone else remember this one and the product it was selling?

Another one that made me laugh just because the premise was so unbelievable was AT&T's ad in which some poor guy is standing at a pay phone and you hear him say "I was trying to call Phoenix, but I kept getting Fiji." Yeah, right. It's so easy to dial 011-679 when you really mean to dial 1-602. The best part is the bit role played by a supposed Fijian who keeps answering the "misdialed" calls.
 
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My favorites were ads I used to watch in the 70's for Huebner Chevrolet in Carrollton, Ohio.
The owner used to dress in a superhero costume and would fly around saving customers from
lemons and high prices. Exceedingly schlocky low-budget ads! The guy had a big fiberglass
statue of himself in the superhero costume in front of his lot.

I think some of these ads are on YouTube.
 
Some old commercials I really enjoyed:

A 1986 commercial for a brand of Fritos corn chips with the Pointer Sisters.
Any of the Energizer Bunny ads.
Cindy Crawford advertising Pepsi's "Gotta Have It card(remember that?).
A 1977 Datril aspirin ad with John Wayne.
An old 1970's Pepsi ad with Mean Joe Greene on crutches.
 
I can remember some of the game show fee plugs, like for example Shasta for example. The late Jay Stewart got a lot of mileage on that one.
 
CTListener said:
The Joe Isuzu ads, the ads with the fast-talking FedEx guy, the first dozen or so AFLAC Duck ads before they ran out of ideas, all but the last few Dos Equis "most interesting man" ads -- those stand out.

There was also one I remember seeing in the late '70s for a breath mint or a chewing gum. I have no recollection of the brand but it featured people demonstrating how fresh their breath was by speaking sentences like "Hhhhave you hhhheard from Hhhhenry Hhhhhughes" while face to face with each other. The ad ended with the announcer urging the viewer to give the product a try with the tagline "Hhhhow about it?" Anyone else remember this one and the product it was selling?

Another one that made me laugh just because the premise was so unbelievable was AT&T's ad in which some poor guy is standing at a pay phone and you hear him say "I was trying to call Phoenix, but I kept getting Fiji." Yeah, right. It's so easy to dial 011-679 when you really mean to dial 1-602. The best part is the bit role played by a supposed Fijian who keeps answering the "misdialed" calls.
Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECukqY7RaIA
 
"Mama mia! That's-a one-a spicy meatball-a" -- Alka Seltzer, 1965-66
 
"Where's the beef?" - Clara Peller for Wendy's

Almost all the Budweiser commercials over the years - way too many to list.
 
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