Classic(ally Bad) TV Commercials: Goody Two Shoes Drink Milk!
It was 1983, and MTV was sweeping the nation. So how do we get more kids to drink milk? Why, by doing a parody of a popular music video, of course! It’s advertising milk, but this is all cheese.
The National Dairy Board, as well as other national and state milk boards, has come up with some great ad campaigns over the last 20 years oh so. “Milk, it does the body good” and “Got milk?” are two of the best campaigns ever made for a product we all need but don’t necessarily like. Before those gems though came this turd, an idea that I can probably pinpoint exactly how it came to be thanks to all of my years in the broadcasting business.
As I mentioned earlier, MTV was gaining in popularity as music videos captivated a mostly young audience of soon-to-be wealthy 18 to 34-year-olds. Even though milk is force-fed to students at every level of public schooling here in the United States, once you get to about the 7th or 8th grade it’s just not cool to drink that stuff. In the late 1980’s, the “Milk, it does the body good” campaign emphasized milk’s ability to build strong and healthy bones. Basically, girls would like you if you drank your milk because they’d think you’re hot. Before getting down to science though, the National Dairy Board tried to be cool. That’s the biggest mistake any advertiser can make.
This was clearly the brainchild of some uptight white guy who was 42 or 43-years-old at the time. He saw his kids were watching MTV, and probably an Adam Ant video, and while they were singing and dancing to the video the light bulb went off in his head. “HEY!”, he thought. “If my kids are singing and dancing to ‘Goody Two Shoes’, then they will drink their milk if we do a jingle that sounds like this song!” Uptight white guy tells his co-workers and decision makers at the National Dairy Board, who are even more white and uptight, and they buy into the deal. So a commercial is born!
And what a commercial it was, with some Fonzie-like (again, totally out of touch with pop culture in 1983) kid leading the dancing troupe of geeks and spazzes in the lunch line into a full Broadway performance about milk. The 1980’s were already an awkward, fashion-challenged decade for kids. Having them kick up their high heels probably didn’t help their self-esteem (unless they wanted to join New Order in the first place). Having the Fonz do the ultra-“Fame” head jerk at the end pushes this spot way over the top, and more than likely had kids thinking “Yeah… like I’m really gonna drink that stuff now!”.
So the next time you’re at the lunch counter getting your burger and fries, make sure you do a little song and dance when you ask for milk! Then you can do an encore number about ordering a banana split to the tune of “Stand and Deliver”.
