The Affari Edge Blog

Old people are cute. Let’s face it, unless they’re wasting away in a urine-smelling nursing home somewhere, old people are just plain charming. Even old people falling off a globe into the anus of America– Cleveland, Ohio.

Ahhh… there’s nothing like old-fashioned, do-it-yourself, aired between midnight and 5 a.m. commercials. You just don’t see too many of them nowadays, and that may be a good thing. But in 1979, this was the standard local commercial, even for a large market such as Cleveland.

May I introduce to you C. Miller, and old man who’s on top of the world. Well, it looks like he’s actually on top of a globe purchased at Zayre’s, but he probably also thinks he’s made of cheese so let’s just humor the man. Why is he on top of the world? Because in 1979 he was number one in the greater Cleveland area. Now this statement causes some problems. What is he number one in? Sales of Chevrolets? Sales of cars in general? Sales of ANYTHING in general? Also, this may be the only time the words “greater” and “Cleveland” have been used in the same sentence. While this sentence may cause us problems, it really causes C. Miller problems as he slips off his snug perch on Quebec. I hope he doesn’t break his hip!

What started as a charming commercial now falls into the category of incredibly goofy. C. Miller clumsily falls (or is he trying to fly?) past the vast Cleveland skyline. All one building of the Cleveland skyline that is. Suffice to say if “dreary” is your favorite color, Cleveland is the place to be. At least C. Miller has the calmness while he’s falling to clarify his earlier statement of what he was number one in. If my claim to fame was selling the most Chevrolets in Cleveland, I’d probably jump off a tall building too. Or maybe buy a nicer suit.

After a mighty “thud” portrayed only slightly better than William Shatner throwing himself around the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise during a Klingon attack in the original Star Trek, C. Miller proudly sings we can see the USA in a C. Miller Chevrolet. With a stiff point to his chest, and a Muppet-like blown kiss, we’re suddenly brought down by the reality that C. Miller probably just crapped his Depends following that harrowing fall from the globe. And before you chastise me for picking on an old man, check out this commercial from 1976 and agree with me that C. Miller lost his sanity way way way before he fell off a cheap globe.

As kooky as this commercial was, C. Miller did sell a lot of cars. He begs the question of which was more entertaining; watching the Cuyahoga River burn or watching this old man fall through Cleveland only to end up on his feet? One thing’s for sure, seeing this old man fall all by his lonesome sparked somebody to create those legendary Life-Alert commercials.

Toys of the 1950s and 1960s were so much simpler then toys of today, and that’s good because those old toys really cultivated the creativity of a young mind during play time. Even with these memories of great toys of the past, this toy is a bit on the cheap and silly side.

The first 15 seconds of the spot is your typical 1960s toy commercial– a clunky battery-powered toy rolls into the screen amidst a mist of dry ice. Like most toys of the time, the key to beating the nasty monster was to shoot it. Is there any wonder why America has so many NRA members? But I digress…

The commercial takes a turn for the odd here when we find out you don’t just shoot at King Zor, you shoot for his tail. Now scientifically this makes no sense. Sure, an attack on the tail will hurt King Zor but it will hardly kill him. Shouldn’t you take him out at the head? What about the neck? Or how about deflating those tires he cruises in on? Shooting him in that giant round target on his tail just makes it look like a bad carnival game. Batteries may not be included, but I have a hunch the cuddly teddy bear you win for hitting the target with three pitches doesn’t come included either. Then things get even wackier…

When you hit the tail target, King Zur launches a marble from his secret marble magazine in his back! Who says God doesn’t make all creatures with a purpose? Now shooting the tail target makes even less sense since you won’t hurt him much and you’ll probably lose an eye from that marble he’s chucking at you. Now King Zur apparently is more than a clunky mechanical dinosaur, he’s a fighting machine! How brilliant! Or is he?

King Zur is smart enough to shoot marbles at his opponents, but avoiding that giant mountain? King Zur has to stick out his tongue, think about it for a few seconds, then reverse course? So much for intelligent design. I mean, WHAT THE HELL ARE HIS EYES FOR? The announcer is right, there’s never been a fighting dinosaur like King Zor. That is unless someone at Jurassic Park mixed up the dinosaur and Mr. Magoo DNA in a blender.

Not surprisingly, the kitschy King Zor lives on in goofy t-shirts and toy collector clubs. A fairly good-conditioned one, with the original box, sells for $1,500 on E-Bay! This only shows the fondness we have for vintage toys… and the need to pay way too much money for a marble-shooting dim-witted dinosaur. Even if there hasn’t been a dinosaur like him before or after 1962!

I know a lot has changed since 1984. And as this commercial will show you, a WHOLE LOT has changed in how diet soft drinks taste and how people get hooked up.

Hmmm… maybe I was doing it all wrong back in my dating life before I got married. Back then I would talk to women on the phone or online, meet them for dinner or drinks somewhere, and if things went well over the next few weeks we would become “an item”. I would use my charm, my knowledge, my sense of humor, my good looks, and a bunch of money on dinner, drinks, movies, etc., all for a piece of tail… err… a relationship. Who knew I could have just bought a 50-cent can of Diet Pepsi and made my life so much easier?

Who really picks up somebody because of a tasty can of diet soda? I’ve heard all sorts of interesting stories as to how people have met one another, but a can of soda? And it’s not like these two lovebirds just bumped into each other and spilled their soda on each other. This chick is getting all hot and bothered over this lunkhead drinking a Diet Pepsi. If that was how it was in real life, a 20-ounce bottle would have her calling out from work the next day. A 6-pack would induce a coma. A 12-pack would make Peter North wonder how you do it.

Just the idea of a woman fawning over a man because he drinks Diet Pepsi is crazy enough, but do you remember how crappy diet soda tasted back in 1984? Diet colas are fairly decent tasting now, and that’s the only soda I’ll ever drink if I HAVE to have a soda. All those carbs and corn syrup globs just aren’t preferable to my taste any more. But back in the 80’s I’d rather have drunk a 6-pack of sugary sweet regular Pepsi over that diet crap any day. Mostly because of NutraSweet, the artificial sugar of its day, tasted like pencil shavings. Unlike NutraSweet though, pencil shavings have yet to be linked to cancer so go ahead and carve up a number-two Ticonderoga over my soft drink, garcon!

So kids, you don’t need to stick a can of Diet Pepsi down your pants to impress the girls. You just have to walk around with one in your hand. They’ll jump on you so quickly, you’ll have to make sure you’ve brought the proper protection.

You know the price of food is climbing today. But did you know food is a major investment? And how do you protect any major investment? With plastic wrap and aluminum foil!

Now the woman who is purchasing all of these items seems to be a sensible woman. So why does she seem so shocked at how much it costs to buy some groceries? And why does she think plastic wrap or foil will save her food “investment” forever? Has she ever heard of Tupperware? Or maybe she should stop buying EVERYTHING wrapped in plastic!

Which brings us to her food selection. What is the deal with all of these fruits and vegetables? Granted, in 1983 there weren’t nearly as many processed frozen foods like there are today, but I think this woman eats nothing but salad and fruit cups. Perhaps that’s why she’s a little loopy when she sees the price adding up and she runs off to the tin foil pile. A lack of protein has made her a little weak in the brain! Put back the tomatoes and have a steak, woman!

Then comes the whole “investment” angle of this. Our voiceover guy is trying to get us to save money buy saving our food. Yet he says Reynolds products cost only a penny more per foot than “bargain” wraps. Well smart guy, that adds up! That box of aluminum foil is 25 feet long, and the plastic wrap is 100 feet long. That’s $1.25 or roughly a gallon of gas back then (which was very expensive as the world was coming down from an energy crisis). So where’s the wise investment? Why not buy non-perishables instead of stocking up on the entire produce department like this woman is?

When it comes down to it, foil and polastic wrap are simply that– foil and wrap. It’s not an investment saver, it just keeps that leftover hamburger meat safe to eat for a couple more days. Unless you’re going to wrap your house in plastic wrap or tin foil, you’re not protecting an investment. Then again if you wrap your house with plastic wrap or tin foil, you probably don’t get out much in the first place. Your house is probably still stacked with canned foods from your Y2K bunker.

Normally I have some witty lead-in to every Classic(ally Bad) blog, but I think this one speaks for itself.

I chose this commercial because it’s Father’s Day weekend. While the “average” Father’s Day gifts include ties, dress shirts, socks, and underwear, as boring as those gifts are at least they are useful. As for this magnetic wrist band… I don’t know.

The general idea is when dad has to fix something, he can assume the role of Superman. Always there with his tools, he just can’t use them properly without these magnetic wrist bands. So the next time he gets called, dad has his special wrist bands on so he can put them to good use! He hangs a hammer on his wrist! YAY! Nevermind the toilet is still broken and spilling water all over the place, at least dad can wow us with a hammer hanging off his wrist! Is this how Kreskin got started?

And what good does having a hammer on your wrist do anyways? It’s kind of hard to hammer something in when the hammer is just hanging off your wrist. And not every tool you use is metallic or magnetic, so how many injuries and foul-ups have been caused by some numbskull trying to hang something that wasn’t metallic off his wrist? Now this “super dad” is looking more and more like Monty Python’s “Bicycle Repair Man” sketch.

But you can get one 2-for-1 this weekend only! Now you can hang a hammer and a screwdriver on BOTH wrists! Or maybe you can get wacky and cram four wrenches on both wrists! The possibilities are endless! Try doing that with your gift necktie!

On the heels of one of the worst testimonial commercials, featuring a couple of nobodies selling color TVs, we’ll take a look at a legitimate star selling a (then) not-so-legitimate product.

The year was 1993, and “Sir” Charles Barkley was at the peak of his career and his commercial sellability. And at first, this commercial is actually very clever. In 1993, basketball shoes were all the rage and during the previous three or four years Americans were bombarded with commercials from Nike, Reebok, L.A. Gear, Adidas, and many other brands. So the, “here’s another shoe commercial…” line is pretty ingenious. The ensuing, “Oh this is new…” line is also good. Then we see the product– a Hyundai.

Nowadays Hyundais are actually decent, affordable cars. But up until five or six years ago, Hyundai was producing one undependable turd after another… and they had been doing so for almost 20 years. We’re instantly reminded about this as the voice-over (identified on You Tube as Jeff Goldblum) spouts off all the good things about the car. Written in small letters at the bottom of the screen; “ABS, CD, leather optional on GLS models”. So you not only had to ask for these bells and whistles, you had to ask for them on the GLS model!

Then comes the funniest line; “More room than a Lexus.” Really now… when you’re shopping for a car, when does the final decision come down to a Hyundai or a Lexus? When does somebody shopping for a Lexus, or a Lexus-style car, put the nearby Hyundai dealer on the list of places to shop? And since when does somebody in the market for a Hyundai think, “I should check out that Lexus dealer, where the much better cars sell for five times as this piece of crap!”

Then we reach out to our for the star power, Barkley’s cute thuggery we all came to respect and molded the current NBA after. The funny thing is Barkley would need a shoe horn to squeeze into an actual ‘93 Hyundai Sonata. Barkley was 6-foot-6 and 252 pounds! According to Edmunds, the Sonata had a front leg room of 42.4 inches while also having head room of 38.5 inches. Add that up, that’s 80.9 inches or just under 6 feet, 9 inches of space. I hope Sir Charles doesn’t drive over any speed bumps or pot holes.

While it seems laughable at the idea of Barkley driving around town in a Hyundai Sonata, based on reports of his recent gambling debts he may be doing just that today. So I suppose this may be one of the best testimonials for a product, as pathetic as that product may be.

And no Charles, I don’t have a problem with that!

Testimonials are very helpful in selling items, especially if it’s a celebrity testimonial. Having a bonafide star say, “Buy this product.” often nets results for the advertiser. But what if you have a not-so-bonafide star selling an item? In fact, what if you have really boring everyday people selling an item? Then you get this train wreck!

My first thought when I saw this was, “Dick Reese has a challenge here!” Mr. Reese is the ultimate example of why everyday people shouldn’t sell something on TV. This commercial is a close second. If you’re still interested in purchasing that RCA TV after listening to the somnabulant TV repair man, then you’re a stronger person than I am. I don’t care if the guy has been fixing TV sets for 23 years, and I don’t care how sharp he thinks the picture is, how did the advertising agency pick this guy to represent how good the TV was? When the announcer notes, “That was one TV expert…” you have to wonder what happened to the others? How did the droning curmudgeon with the tiny tie and the big hair become the RCA spokesman?

We can only guess that answer because very few people are willing to step up and say they’re proud owners of an RCA. In fact, our “experts” have been reduced to a cheesey graphic. Engineers, producers, cameramen, have been boiled down into a hard-to-read color bar with “RCA” popping up next to their trade. Our announcer invites us to, “think about it”. I did, and I’m not buying this whole expert hooey! But wait! We have another expert! What well-known TV or movie star is this?

Why, it’s Lou Horwitz! You know, Lou Horwitz! You don’t know who Lou Horwitz is? He’s not just any Lou Horwitz, he’s TV Cameraman Lou Horwitz! And the colors on that RCA just reach out and grab his eye! Much like his polyester jump suit makes me want to grab my eyes and pull them out!

If it isn’t RCA, it isn’t XL-100. And if it isn’t Ken Michelbach or Lou Horwitz, it isn’t a classic(ally bad) TV commercial!

It’s Christmas in June! No, it’s not a Crazy Eddie sales stunt… it’s a trip across the pond to jolly old England in 1958. It’s never too early to get that Christmas shopping started, and thankfully we have a second-hand Santa giving us those yuletide ideas in the summertime!

Well I can’t agree more with the high-pitched singers and our young Santa with the taped-on beard. If I want to give happiness, I don’t give money, or a new house, or a Christmas bonus to my employees. No, I give vacuum cleaners, polishers, and spinarinses… whatever the hell those are.

At the very least this shows us how post-war Britain was rebuilding with the standard comforts of home. But it also shows us the very different home scene in 1958, where the housewife was supposed to be happy with her shiny new Hoover steam iron. Is it any wonder why the British Invasion of music started, followed closely behind by the “Swinging London” way of life in the 1960’s? Happiness was a freaking appliance!

And our poor man’s Santa reminds us that Hoover happiness last for years. Imagine that… you not only get the happiness of getting a stinking floor buffer as a Christmas gift, you get the happiness of lugging that thing around the house for years! Everytime you buff those scuff marks off the linoleum, be happy! And why shouldn’t you be happy? After all, the jolly old man taking notes at the appliance yard sale with the giant pencil you had in the 3rd grade says so. Enough said!

When happiness comes from a Hoover, life has simply gone from “suck” to “blow”.

It’s 1990, not long ago when you think about it. There was no Internet, cell phones were the size of bricks, and your cable company gave you just 48 channels. It’s amazing how technology has changed in those 18 years, and it’s even more amazing that a “portable” computer at that time was the size of the New York City Yellow Pages. The computers also had just as much memory as those phone books… as did the people that used them!

Today, the Mac vs. PC war is represented by those humorous ads featuring the cool and artsy Mac guy and the stiff and clumsy PC guy. In 1990 though, the difference between the two was slim. Apple had dominated the home computer market in the 1980’s, but when the 1990’s rolled around the PC (i.e. Windows) computers were becoming more popular. Looking to take the lead in the business community, a market IBM had held for decades, Apple tried to make their 25-pound portable computer cooler than the competition’s. That’s where the coolness of Apple died.

Of course the size and ability of a portable computer then compared to computers now is laughable. It’s hard to believe people would pay thousands of dollars for these things, but it was new technology then and I’m sure 18 years from now people will chuckle when they look at our laptops and iPhones from today. But once you get past the technology gap, the true message of the commercial is revealed. The portable Mac of 1990 was designed precisely for stupid people. The successful business man who could speak seven languages somehow isn’t successful with his PC laptop. How he got this far is beyond me. The woman toying around with the portable Mac readily admits she’s an idiot, and I’m guessing she’s playing around with her computer simply because it has pictures and stacks of coins on the display. I have a hunch she designed that solitaire game people play when they’re bored.

It is because of this sales angle Mac suffered greatly in the 90’s while the PC market (especially Windows-based computers) took off. Computers were becoming more and more necessary in the 90’s, and Windows made PC’s look very business-like while also being fun and easy to use. Basically, PC’s were the mechanical pencils of the computer world while Macs became the box of crayons. Let’s not forget the big breakthrough with the Mac in the late 90’s was you could get one in your favorite color. Since Steve Jobs was able to build up from that ho-hum announcement to once again dominate the computer market for tech-savvy people, I’m wondering if he can walk on water.

In 1990 he couldn’t, and neither could the confused young lady at the airport in this commercial. She could stack coins and make pictures on her computer, and at that point in time that was amazing enough.

Of course I mean the early years, as McDonald’s didn’t get around to really selling salads until a few years ago. In 1963, McDonald’s had to sell itself to kids, and what better way than with a creepy clown!

It’s hard to say the first Ronald McDonald commercial is “classic(ally bad)”, but it is. Ronald McDonald has become a global icon in the 45 years he’s existed, but like any other icon the first few years of his existence were rough at best. What has become a very polished icon started as the brainchild of TV weather man Willard Scott. Before Scott himself became famous for his appearances on NBC’s Today Show, he was a disc jockey in the Washington D.C. area. Asked to come up with a kid-friendly character to help sell hamburgers to young’ ens, Scott based his character on Bozo the Clown, whom he also played the role of on a Washington-area TV station. What evolved was a creative, yet odd character.

The Ronald McDonald we see here reminds me of the “creepy clown factor” referred to in the background of a current E-Trade commercial. I know 1963 was a much simpler time in television production, but how many trash cans did Scott dig through to come up with this costume? The red and yellow-striped uniform makes sense because he is a clown. But the TV dinner tray on his head? And a dinner tray wrapped around his belt? And a paper cup on his nose? Come on now… this clown has suddenly turned himself into a masquerading homeless guy.

The “magical tray” was no big deal, simply because it’s old-fashioned special effects. But the most disturbing part of Ronald’s getup is how he has fun… by pulling his own finger several times. Now our masquerading homeless guy has turned into every family’s overweight drunk uncle playing with the kids. He even dances like that uncle when “Cha-Cha Slide” comes on the radio, further embarrassing the family members. “Oh there goes Uncle Milton again, making an ass out of himself! When will he ever grow up?”

Ronald is all nice and clean and perfect nowadays thanks to corporate oversight. It’s amazing how he has changed so much, and it’s even more amazing to see the old Ronald didn’t somehow end up running the bumper cars at local county fairs.