What Happened To The Good Old Fashioned Commercials On Television?

[vchimpanzee]

One thing mostly missing these days is car dealers - the old fashioned ads with the dealer standing on the lot and walking past his cars, giving viewers the prices, equipment, etc. Cal Worthingon was the big guy of course, but there were many others...Ralph Williams, Chick Lambert, Nick Shamus ("Se habla Espanol at Giant Felix Chevrolet...") For the most part, the dealers are gone, and the few ads you see use footage provided by the manufacturers.

I know Charlotte has these two cute girls advertising for Randy Marion. I figure they're relatives. One was already an adult and then a young girl joined her. Now, they're still doing the ads but the younger one is a teenager.

 

[crainbebo]

I miss the old national, and local commercials of the 1980s and early 90s. Cheesy jingles and they REALLY talked about the product! Now today the plot of commercials usually has nothing to do with the company or product its advertising.

-crainbebo

 

[Markxxx]

Where's the beef????

 

[crainbebo]

Where's the beef????

Yes, that too. And that Big Red jingle, the car ads, etc. It was SO much better than Flo or the Gecko!

-crainbebo

 

[landtuna]

Yes, that too. And that Big Red jingle, the car ads, etc. It was SO much better than Flo or the Gecko!

And that's just what the kids of today will be saying about today's commercials in 30-40 years.

Personally, I don't know why the Gecko or Flo get so much hate other than the obvious fact that the commercials run almost constantly. Both seem to be in good rotation so the viewer isn't hammered with the same one time after time but they do run too much.

Having spent time in the UK I do get the Gecko. And being a child of the 50's I also recognize Flo. I don't like the "cowboy" guy they've got in some of those commercials but I think the "No más pantalones" is hysterical. My jaded humor I guess. ;D

 

[vchimpanzee]

There are at least half a dozen car dealers in the Charlotte, NC area doing old-fashioned commercials.

One has a man, a woman and a dog. Another has a dog and no people on screen that I'm aware of, but it's still a local commercial and not one of these national ones.

 

[Donald G]

Yes, that too. And that Big Red jingle, the car ads, etc. It was SO much better than Flo or the Gecko!

And that's just what the kids of today will be saying about today's commercials in 30-40 years.

You're probably right. I'll confess to enjoying some of the Geico Gecko commercials and some of the early Flo from Progressive ads.

On the other hand, I one picked up one of those public domain compilations of old commercials on DVD and shared them with my adolescent Media Arts student daughter. She enjoyed many of them and lamented the loss of advertising jingles from modern ads. As a feminist though, she found herself fascinated and appalled, if not infuriated, by the 1960's Folger's coffee ads with the husbands invariably emotionally abusing their wives over the poor quality of their coffee. Those commercials became fodder for an essay on the changing nature of gender relationships in the last 40 years.