Ads that linger forever
Amanda B Reckondwyth
Mystery Worship Editor
The very best ads linger in memory forever, even (in some cases) after the product advertised is long gone.
Who can forget?
What ads will you never forget?
Who can forget?
- OJ Simpson falling out of the sky into the driver's seat of a convertible, while "Let Hertz put you in the driver's seat" plays in the background?
- "Mikey likes it" as a testimonial for a certain breakfast cereal? (Giving rise to rumors about poor Mikey's untimely demise.)
- "I'd walk a mile for a Camel" as a testimonial for a certain cigarette?
- "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!" pushing a certain remedy for acid indigestion?
What ads will you never forget?
Comments
The chimps advertising PG tips teabags.
The radioactive glowing kid on his way to school after eating Ready-Brek for breakfast.
The delivery boy pushing his bike up the hill advertising Hovis bread.
The ones that stick are the songs, apologies for the earworms:
Nuts whole hazelnuts, Cadbury's take them and cover them in chocolate
Just one Cornetto
Everyone's a fruit and nut case, which I hadn't realised was Frank Muir
Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener, that is what I'd truly like to be!
I have a friend in Northern Ireland who streams, and sometimes I join her. We sing a lot of these ad jingles during her streams (and other silly things) which seems to amuse her viewers!
The Queensway Big Q sale must end soon.
#Barrats, Barrats, come to Barrats, Barrats liquormart, yeah#
#Come to Vogue Interiors for furniture superior, Vogue cash and carry, furniturely yours#
Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet
"Western Airlines, the OHn-ly way to fly!" Debonair bird relaxing on top of an airliner.
"Where's the beef?!" Wendy's burger commercial. Very tiny, very irate old lady peers under a hamburger bun at a practically non-existent patty.
"Parts is parts." Another Wendy's commercial where someone questions what goes into a processed chicken sandwich.
Yup! I remember them all (no matter how hard I try to forget them). Reel bread! Reel bu'er!
After her moment of fame, she had a bit part or two in some decidedly B movies, including "The Stuff", about a dessert resembling vanilla ice cream that engulfed and smothered anyone who tried to eat it. She's sitting in a restaurant with an old gent who asks her, "Enjoying the meal?" to which she replies, "Where's the Stuff?"
Darllenwr and I were talking about this when he was loading the washing machine the other morning - no, he doesn’t drink CBL!
And all together now: “The Esso sign means happy motoring! Call at the Esso sign!”
Didn't you have a tiger in your tank?
I was a gullible enough child that I thought it was terrible that companies were allowed to market such an addictive substance.
The ‘shake and vac to get the freshness back’.
Are you sure that was OJ Simpson? My research suggests the ad was in 1963, when OJ would have been 16 years old.
The Hovis ad - the one with a lad peddling up a cobbled street
Cadbury's fruit and nut case
Didn't you have a tiger in your tank?
[/quote]
I remember going into the bathroom at a party and seeing that they had placed a fake stuffed tiger tail hanging off from under the lid of the toilet tank.
Wotsits
Nik Naks
Double Decker
I can't claim the same excuse for Lynda Bellingham's Oxo adverts!
Happy motoring starts at the Esso sign,
It starts at the Esso sign.
And who can forget (sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne):
Shell Oil acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind, Lee?
You know that at your Shell dealer
You are treated very kind-ly!
or
Oh, we're the Texaco men,
Tonight we might be showmen,
But tomorrow we'll be servicing your car!
That was later, past the threshold for formative childhood experiences. There used to be one for a local bakery with a happy family chanting "Kennedy's bread - good to eat! Kennedy's bread family treat!" To which we children would add lines like "Kennedy's bread - smells like feet!"
"You truly wafted here from Paradise."
"No! Luton Airport!"
When I was a kid, we had a local bakery called Selwood's. The school chant was, sadly:
"Selwood's Bread
Makes you Dead!"
A. Squirrel shit!
A To keep his nuts jungle fresh.
My best is Popamatic Trouble, which we recite periodically. Right before singing the Slinky advert.
There was a cola beverage named Super Coola. The jingle went:
Mommy, mommy, mommy
Won't you buy me Super Coola
And those other super soft drinks
They're in cap top cans.
No return and no deposit,
No more empties in the closet.
Get me Super Coola
In those cap top cans.
Now, in Italian, cula is a rather naughty part of the human anatomy. I understand the same word exists in other languages too. A common slur for us ethnic Italian kids to hurl at one another was Festa mi cula (roughly, venerate my ass).
Consulate menthol cigarettes - Cool as a mountain stream.
Herding cats!
"1001 cleans a big, big carpet
for less than half-a-crown".
(Later amended to "50p" - didn't sound half as good!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrHNpvX_tvQ
The Milky Bar Kid is outer space
He isn't a member of the human race
He spends his time crashing motor cars
And stuffing his face with MILKY BARS
Said classmate is now a playwright (though sadly we're not in touch) so early creativity clearly indicated.
1. Citibank was originally called First National City Bank. The ad jingle consisted simply of an instrumental flourish with the words "First National City" sung. Toward the time of the name change, the jingle went:
First National City Bank,
City Bank,
The only bank your family ever needs.
Later, voices were added to the background singing "Citibank" over and over again.
2. Chevron gasoline was originally called Calso. At the time of the name change, the ad consisted of two cartoon characters talking to each other. One said, "Calso stations are now Chevron stations." The other replied, "Hmm. I wonder what they're gonna do with all the old Calso signs."
Shortly after that, I was traveling somewhere by train and happened to look out the window as the train passed a scrap yard. There in the scrap yard, in a neat pile, was a heap of . . . you guessed it . . . old Calso signs!
Or the kid's version:
You'll wonder where your toenails went, when you wash your feet with Pepsodent.
- An early TV advert for Shippam's Paste where the voice mispronounced Shippam's and then corrected himself.
- One from when my children were small and used to join in a song which started "We are happy cows".
- More recently I agree with @Sparrow on the radioactive glowing kid on his way to school after eating Ready-Brek for breakfast.
- Also the Tiger in your tank and 'the Esso sign means Happy Motoring'.
My father hated those ads. "Mummy why are your handth tho thoft?" Etc.
His version continued
...can be soft as your kids
And you've got
Very soft kids