The Affari Edge Blog

We all know Tang got a big boost in sales from NASA in the 1960’s and 1970’s, but a lesser-known space-inspired product is this wonderfully mysterious stick of stuff known as “Space Food Sticks”.

It was 1968, and with NASA inching closer and closer to landing man on the moon, anything somehow associated with the space program was a hot item. In this case, Pillsbury contracted with NASA to make healthy energy snacks for the astronauts, and this is what they came up with. The sticks were basically Slim-Jim-shaped energy bars with the texture of a Tootsie Roll. Some people absolutely loved the chocolate, caramel, or peanut butter flavoring while one You Tube commenter described it as tasting like “flour and water”. Mmmmm…. yummy!

What’s most interesting about this commercial, other than reminding us that anything associated with the space race would sell back then, is the crude special effects. Since Pillsbury was working with NASA, couldn’t they use NASA footage of a rocket launch or a space walk? What’s the deal with all of the Buck Rogers effects? In the opening shot you can practically see the string holding up the lunar rover. And since when does an astronaut eat his food with his helmet on? What kind of clod does that? And if you don’t believe an astronaut crams these things into his helmet for a snack, then why not believe this kid or football player or working mom? Hey wait a minute… why isn’t the football player eating this with his helmet on?

After showing us a bunch of unhealthy snacks your kids shouldn’t be eating (probably all Pillsbury products) the announcer tells us about the exciting “chewy” snacks as our model snaps one in two like it was a stick from an oak tree. Is this what Pillsbury calls chewy? A snack that goes “snap”? Yikes! No matter what the texture, consistancy, or taste of the space food stick, it was a hit with kids and managed to last a few years.

What’s even more amazing is the space food stick has made a comeback and even has a fanclub following. I guess everyone has their own favorite childhood memories, but this one escapes me. I was actually recently at the Kennedy Space Center gift shop and saw some these and my stomach turned. But to each their own, as I did end up purchasing astronaut ice cream and I know that tastes like flavored styrofoam. I just won’t eat it with a helmet on.

This commercial is a Central Florida legend, and it’s classic(ally bad) in a good way. Unlike other commercials you’ve seen on this website, Allied Discount Tires actually moved a lot of product with a lot of silliness, including this commercial from 1989.

Nowadays when someone is trying to sell you tires, you’re sold on several things: safety, dependability, and price. In the 80’s, it was a lot simpler. As the spokesman, Sam Behr, tells you, he’s the “Tires Ain’t Pretty” guy. That is the preface to our story here.

In 1977, an Orlando man named Stanley Hanin tried to make lemonade out of the lemons life threw at him when his failure of a motorcycle shop was converted into a tire store. After struggling to get off the ground, Behr helped him financially in two ways: he lent him money, and he became the voice and the face of Allied Discount Tires. Throughout the 80’s, legend has it, Behr and Hanin would have a couple of drinks and then turn a camera on to Behr where he would come up with some crazy ideas for a commercial. One local commercial after another was made, and a pseudo-legend was born when Behr one day blurted out on camera, “Tires ain’t pretty!” With that one line, Allied became a hit in Central Florida because the commercial was brutally honest. Tires ain’t pretty, but you need them.

Even though having Behr as a pitch man was making the business money, as time went on the commercials just got goofy (although not as goofy as Chuck Curcio got at Allied’s biggest competitor, Tire Kingdom). This commercial came at the end of the line for Allied with Hanin in charge (he sold the company in 1989), and Behr starts off with his brutal honesty. After a couple of martinis, it’s hard to sell tires. Tires don’t taste good, smell good, or make you look good, hence the reason why tires ain’t pretty. Then Behr goes off on one of his legendary, spontaneous rants.

You can’t have a tire taste test. Oh really? I’d like to see you try to have one! In a day and age where anyone can be famous on YouTube, I’m sure somebody would love to chew on some tread for 15 minutes of fame. Then Behr lets us know the guy installing the tire doesn’t get thanked. He has something here… other than the “thanks” you mutter under your breath after dropping $300 on a set of tires, when was the last time you hugged your mechanic for putting some tires on your car? But he comes back to Earth to remind us we need tires, and Allied is the place to buy them cheap. Then he lays down his most famous line ever, “YOU COME TO ALLIED DISCOUNT TAAAAAARRRRRRRSSSS!!!”

The cheese factor in these spots is high, but they were funny and like I said before they actually worked. Some worked too well, like Behr’s imitation of Oral Roberts in a 1987 ad claiming he had to sell 80,000 tires or he would die. Behr is now retired in Orlando, and he even had a daughter participate in season three of “The Apprentice”. Hanin is also retired, and has an estranged daughter who it turns out was a world famous spy for Mossad. Who knew all of this could start with a tire store?

So the next time you get tires on your car, don’t forget to chew on the rubber first, hug your mechanic for putting them on, and remember that “taaarrrrsss ain’t pretty”!

Time to jump back to the energy crisis of the late 70’s, and here to talk about your carburator in black is the Man in Black! Hello… I’m Johnny Cash!

I’d like to say this commercial went to the ad agency that was the lowest bidder, but even when Cash wasn’t at the top of the charts in the late 70’s like he often was in the 60’s, I don’t think he was a cheap hire for this spot which makes the cameo appearance a rather odd choice to say the least.

We start with the Man in Black sauntering out of nowhere to a gas station in the middle of nowhere. The man refueling his Griswold Family Truckster seems stunned to see Cash just standing there in the middle of the station, but he knows Cash means business. As soon as Cash chucks the bottle of STP gas treatment at him, the man complies and throws it right into his gas tank! Whether or not he actually believed it would help his mileage, or if he dumped it into his tank because he was afraid Cash would drink it before the day was through, is another issue for another time.

For a world-reknowned country star like Cash, he sure knows a lot about the inside of a car’s engine… even if he hasn’t filled up his own gas tank in 15 or 20 years. But the “everywhere man” shows us he’s an every day man by even closing the stranger’s gas tank cover. How nice! Now he can collect a tip from the stranger! I should try this every now and then. I think people would be more willing to give me a couple of bucks for my work instead of the oil companies with gas prices soaring.

Cash also shows us he’s a 1978 man, when he proudly tells us STP gas treatment is “easy to use” while acknowledging the woman filling up her tank behind him. That’s the way to set back the women’s liberation movement! Once you put that STP in the gas tank, go home and make me a sammich you stupid stupid woman!

So now we get to the denouement of the entire commercial, the big reason why Cash was hired in the first place. Sell the product Johnny! And he does, by saying, “STP gas treatment. It really helps… so try it.” That’s it? Try it? I guess this commercial did go to the lowest bidder… for advertising copy. The agency spent so much money garnering Cash’s services (and that gem of a jingle at the end) it had nothing left over when it came to actually writing dialogue for the client.

Somehow this commercial ended up on the cutting room floor during the production of “Walk the Line”. That’s a shame because I know Joaquin Phoenix spent days practicing the line; “It really helps… so try it!”

Everyone loves puppies. But how many people love yanking newborn puppies out of their mother’s womb? Thanks to HASBRO, now you can join in the fun!

I guess in 1991, when this spot was made, the folks at HASBRO were looking to jazz up their toys a bit. Anyone can make a stuffed animal, but only HASBRO makes the animal you can safely un-stuff! And exactly what is Puppy Surprise stuffed with? Pocket change she shouldn’t have eaten? A bad batch of ALPO? A tapeworm the size of your living room couch? No, good old Puppy Surprise is stuffed with baby puppies because she’s been whoring around again.

This product was obviously marketed towards young girls, and I can see why since raising a small child to adulthood is part of a woman’s life. But puppies pulled right from the mother’s gut? WHAT?!? I understand baby dolls that wet themselves or need feeding as educational and I suppose fun for young girls to play with while unknowingly training themselves for motherhood, but how many kids are around for a live birthing of a dog? And even if they were around, wouldn’t they be horrified to know newborn puppies don’t come out all plush with ribbons on their heads? There’s a lot of sticky goo on those cute little puppies when they first hit the ground.

Maybe the whole motherhood thing wasn’t the point of the product… it was just training kids to take care of puppies early on. Okay, I get it, every kid gets a chance to raise and take care of a puppy or kitty until it dies many many many years later. But I can tell you firsthand pulling babies from its mother just isn’t fun or appealing. For me it came in high school when we were dissecting dogfish (ironically) in marine biology class. Cutting open a dead fish and looking at its insides– no problem. Having my teacher feel around inside the fish and pull out four or five fully-formed babies like he was God and Doug Henning’s love child– lunch was not eaten that day. And how many kids were mauled by their neighbor’s dog because they were squeezing the dog’s stomach trying to guess how many babies were inside? I smell a lawsuit here!

If the idea of having your daughter stick her hand up the uterus of a stuffed animal so she could pull out the babies isn’t disturbing enough, the fact HASBRO had the gall to randomly insert various numbers of puppies into the mother is just cruel. So you go out and spend $20 on this toy, and your daughter is unhappy because it only produces three puppies. Do you go out and spend $20 more in the hopes she hits the jackpot and gets five? How many stuffed dogs and their puppies were left abandoned because girls pulled a Veruca Salt and wanted more right now?

So HASBRO has done the amazing, making animal birth as cute and cuddly as a teddy bear. If only the kids saw the “Puppy Surprise’s One Night Stand” toy explaining how those little puppies got in there in the first place, abstinence would be all the rage!

Some commercials need no grand introduction…

Really now, who came up with this? And what marital problems was he experiencing at the time? I can only imagine what the creative meeting for this product was like.

Mego CEO: Okay guys, we have this new game that’s a combination of checkers and pool. What should we call it? Tommy?

Tommy: How about, “Cock Knockers”?

CEO: Not bad… Bill?

Bill: I was thinking something along the idea of, “Scrotum Squasher”.

Jim: Ooh! Ooh! I know!

CEO: Yes Jim?

Jim: BALL BUSTER!

CEO: Brilliant! We need to make 30 million of these games right now!

Finding the funniest part of this commercial is tough, because there are so many moments outside of the name of the product itself. Here are my nominations:

* Little Timmy’s reaction when his kid sister busts his balls. Or the look on his sister’s face as if she were saying, “Up yours!”

* Our announcer saying it’s a “family game”. Well maybe if you’re part of the Manson family. If my family did this I would have been a teenage runaway.

* Dad chasing the kids away from the table when he realizes it’s time for Mom to bust his balls.

* Our announcer very slyly, slowly, almost in a gangster kind of way informing us the point of the game is to “try to bust your opponent’s balls!”

* Our announcer telling us this game is as easy as checkers. Well, I suppose a kick to the groin is easier than checkers… and quicker. I still wouldn’t call it family fun though.

* Dad yelling at Mom for being a ball buster… and Mom giving that wink to the camera as if she were saying, “Your damn right Henry! Now pick up those empty beer cans or I’ll do it again!”

Before you think this is all just a sick joke, realize that this really was an actual board game! And while Mego was promoting Ball Buster, the founder of the company declined a licensing agreement to make action figures of some little movie called Star Wars. Not surprisingly, Mego was out of business by 1983. Can we call George Lucas a ball buster because of that?

I’m sure a game with a similar name is available at adult “toy” stores across America, but make no mistake when it comes to the original source of family fun: Ball Buster!

As a broadcast news junkie, one of my favorite things to do when I have free time is check out vintage TV news promos and newscasts. I know, I’m a big fat dork, but some of these are truly entertaining. Others are classic(ally bad) like this one from 1983 in the bustling metropolis of Grand Forks, North Dakota!

Gee… makes you just want to jump in the car and drive to North Dakota, doesn’t it?

We start with our bright, young reporter proudly announcing there’s good news on WDAZ-TV, channel 8. And that shot is followed up by a shot of… snow! I guess the good news is there appears to only be a couple of inches on the ground, which means that shot of the state capitol in Bismarck must have been recorded in May or early June. After this odd selection of establishing shots, we’re presented with an even odder selection of other shots supposedly from North Dakota. I say supposedly because a doctor answering the phone and an oil pump can be anywhere, but we’re reminded this is North Dakota with a shot of a plane pulling up to a jetway in snow! Keep hitting the snow!

Now up until this point the random shots of people and things doing things was at least set to the beat of the 1983 news music. But the intern putting this together apparently got bored or was forced to rush the job because we’re inundated with more random shots randomly put in to wherever the hell they fit. Telephone operators, surgery in process, a locomotive at a round house… remember, this is good news North Dakota! Typing, dialing the phone, weird green waves, buses driving, and some schlep fiddling around with a piece of paper! More at 6 p.m.!

Then we’re left with an Atari 800 graphic, followed eventually by a voice-over, that at WDAZ news, the difference is people. Well that sounds nice, but where are the people? If your whole positioning statement is your people make the difference in being better than the competition, why did you bombard us with stock footage of buses and typing and trains spinning around in circles? In fact the only person from the news staff we saw was the unidentified guy in the first two seconds of the promo!

Twenty-five years later, WDAZ-TV is still on the air and now they’re calling themselves “Your Home Team”. I’m sure the latest promos for the station feature fuzzy bunnies, a house of cards on a coffee table, and a kid setting ants on fire with a magnifying class to remind folks that, yes indeed, we are your home team!

Pete Rose has done many pathetic, illegal, and downright awful things during and after his glorious baseball career. This commercial, however, may be the worst of them all!

Gambling on the Cincinnati Reds while he was the manager? No big deal…

Making a quick buck off autographed baseballs that said he gambled? Ehh, a man has to pay the bills…

Doing a show tune about aftershave with Mel Sharples from “Alice”? Unacceptable!

When this commercial was released in 1976, the “Big Red Machine” was on its way to its second-consecutive World Series title, and Rose was just nine years away from becoming Major League Baseball’s all-time hits leader. It’s no secret Rose will do pretty much anything for a few hundred dollars, but even this seems far-fetched and unbelievable.

First, Rose has had far more nastier things said of him from a heckler other than, “What’s a man really want in an aftershave?” Yet this intriguing question from actor Vic Tayback not only incenses Rose, he actually calls time out while at bat! You can call Pete a degenerate gambler, a womanizer, or a low-life scum, but don’t you dare call him a perfumed-up sissy boy! And to prove he’s clearly not going to take that abuse from a grown man wearing a powder blue sweater, Rose decides to show how manly he is by going Broadway baby!

There is something very Billy Bean or Brady Anderson-esque about this quartet to say the least. Four men, some wearing tight pants, singing about how a man should smell. Rose, who is a terrible singer if you haven’t figured it out by now, crows loud and clear how one wants to “feel like a man” although one can almost sense his Y chromosome evolving into an X as this commercial laughingly winds its way to the grand finale. All four participants, to the beat of the syllables A-QUA-VEL-VA, proudly display their Aqua Velva in a way that makes Van Halen’s ultra-Caucasian dance number in the music video for “Hot For Teacher” seem like something out of Motown.

I can only wonder how well this commercial worked for the makers of Aqua Velva. Were gangs of men crashing through grocery store doors, leaping and skipping their way to the men’s fragrence aisle singing this song? Were women swooning over their sweet-smelling Aqua Velva men at the Barbara Streisand concert? Did the rest of the Big Red Machine sing this at team parties in front of hookers and mountains of cocaine? One can only wonder. And one can only wonder if Rose got paid well for this commercial, and if he invested it wisely on betting for a Reds sweep over the Yankees in the ‘76 Fall Classic!

Did you ever wonder why they called that toy company, “Wham-O?” Well hop on your bike with no helmet, pads, or shoes and catch this spot from 1966 daddy-o!

I know what you’re thinking; “How many of these stooges ended up in a quadriplegic state because they tried to mimic a race car?” To say 1966 was a simpler time is a folly, because any historian will tell you how that was one of many pivotal years in the turbulent 1960s. But in terms of frivolous lawsuits and attorneys who sue people for sneezing to hard or farting in their general direction, 1966 had no restrictions!

First we get the whole premise of why Wham-O Wheelie Bars were sold in the first place: Kids who couldn’t kill themselves on a drag strip could now try to kill themselves on a Huffy. We’re told that motorcycles do it, cars do it, even trucks do it. Heck, we all do it. But bicycles? They don’t do it. Why? Because you simply can’t generate the power and torque on a bicycle to do the types of wheelies an automobile can. Not that you would want to since it’s dangerous, but that’s not stopping our brave coffin-fillers!

I mean, look at the stupid things these kids (and an adult or two) are doing! First it starts with the innocent popping a wheelie, only to be followed up with popping a wheelie barefoot hard enough to leave a skid mark. God only knows what that kid’s feet look like 42 years later. Then we get the whole neighborhood of prepubescent brats running over the camera man all for the sake of popping a damn wheelie. Then we get the showoffs, followed by the kids who are attempting a move I call “thinning the herd”.

Part of you says, “WOW! That’s cool.” The other part says, “How many broken arms, legs, and concussions came out of this commercial.” Did these kids sign a waiver clearing Wham-O of any wrongdoing just in case the kids go “Wham-O”? And what about the pencil-neck geek popping a wheelie with his kid? Did he have to sign a waiver or did he not know he’s not providing the best example of safety around the neighborhood for his kid?

So we’ve had the dream factor (MAKE A WHEELIE LIKE A BIG BOY’S CAR!) and the wow factor (HERE’S WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE BEFORE YOU END UP IN A MOTORIZED WHEELCHAIR!), now we have the superstar spokesperson factor… 1966 style! That’s not just any little old lady in the car, it’s THE little old lady from Pasadena featured in the song of the same name by Jan & Dean. Thanks to that song, the little old lady (a.k.a. Kathryn Minner) was actually a celebrity at the ripe old age of 74. Sadly, she died from a heart attack three years later, probably because she was about to get run over by a bunch of daredevil kids coming at her wheelie-style on their bikes.

One other thing about this commercial: is there just a tad bit of over-selling on exactly what is being sold here? Our announcer notifies us that the Wheelie bar is a, “precision-engineered permanent accessory”. Well, not exactly. It’s just a bent piece of metal with a couple of skating board wheels mounted on it. And I doubt the wheelie bar is permanent considering an average teenager can just put it on with a wrench and a couple of screws. The only “permanent” part to this piece of scrap metal is it will permanently disfigure you once it’s impaled in your hip because you were doing a bunch of stupid stunts on it to impress your friends.

The Wham-O Wheelie bar! Sold at bike stores and other outlets not concerned about your safety! Ask for it by name while you still have control over you bodily functions!

Not that I want to keep video submissions all in the family, but I have to thank my brother Dave for sending this classic(ally bad) commercial. It’s undated, but I recall seeing it a lot during the Saturday morning cartoons so let’s just call it 1985. And let’s just laugh as elderly people get crushed by three tons of fruit!

The first thought in my mind is whoever runs this hotel or yacht club the elderly people are gathering in is about to get the pants sued off them. Who keeps giant bundles of strawberries, grapes, and watermelons tied (rather poorly) to the ceiling? And what’s the deal with this Minnie Pearl wannabe? Was the idea of having some pumped up Miracle-Gro Frankenstein candy fall on people targeted towards hicks as a good time? Well, in a way that describes the WWE, but I digress.

Our good friend Minnie has a trick up her sleeve, as she’s apparently the only one in the building who knows “Bonkers bonks you out”. But the joke is on her after she gets a kick watching three people get squished by tumbling produce. You’d think she’d know better, chewing that disgusting little morsel of fructose corn syrup would only give her trouble. But noooooooo… wacky little Minnie has to give in to her Bonkers obsession only to get crushed by a giant Watermelon in an elevator. I now believe this commercial is solely responsible for America’s Funniest Home Videos, the revival of Gallagher in the late 1980’s, and frivolous lawsuits as lawyers all across America suddenly realized people could be killed by a wayward pomegranate.

As corny as this commercial is, I have to admit it was a decent campaign suckering many people into believing you actually got a giant-sized burst of fruit flavor in these things. And the campaign worked because Bonkers were quite popular in the late 1980’s. But the sad truth of Bonkers is revealed in this commercial when Minnie holds up a Bonkers nugget while the graphic “artificially flavored” reminds us that most cubed, soft and chewy candies strangely aren’t really natural. Come to think of it, that Bonkers candy we get a close-up of looks an awful lot like something from the video game Q-Bert.

Bonkers, like its elderly victims seen here, died a slow death through the 1990’s finally hitting the dirt in 1997. A new but different version of Bonkers reappeared in 2002, but like the Spice Girls reunion didn’t live up to the hype as it is now discontinued and only available through wholesale candy distributors. But at least we have the memories of old people getting crushed by massive quantities of fruit, and if that isn’t satisfying in a very sick way I just don’t know what is.

LIKE! OH MY GOD! IT’S THE NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK!

In 1990 every popular music act had a 1-900 number to stock its fan club. Before the days of the Internet and cell phone ring tones, this was the way bands (or rather their management) made a ton of dough on the side of concert ticket sales, album sales, and other public appearances. Nearly 20 years later the idea of paying two dollars for the first minute, and 45 cents for each additional minute of listening to a recording from the New Kids on the Block is laughable. But it was NKOTB so I can only imagine how much money was raked in off this scam.

I don’t even have to give you play-by-play of this commercial to figure out how classic(ally bad) it really is. Watching five privileged Boston-area teenagers acting like they’re street tough is just plain comical. Yet it was their shtick and they played it well, answering band creator Maurice Starr’s need to counter his popular New Edition with a white version of the band. Despite the over-the-top and goofy performance done here in someone’s living room, allegedly more than 100,000 calls were made PER WEEK to this phone number! Hey, at least United Cerebral Palsy got a nice cut from that.

I couldn’t tell you which member of the band is which, all I know is Donnie Wahlberg looks extremely silly with his giant “peace” medallion and puffy trucker hat askew. From him, going clockwise, we have some guy wearing baggy Boston Celtics sweats, a guy wearing something straight from the Calvin Klein catalog, a guy jumping on the Chicago Bulls bandwagon like most of America did in 1990, and a guy going for the totally 80’s look of wearing a dress shirt open with a white tee shirt under it. After watching this commercial, you can now see why “grunge music” was hailed as a Godsend just a couple of years later.

Although Wahlberg is the sorest of sore thumbs in this collection, he’s the one who had the most success after the band split up starring in several hit movies and one of my favorite and most underrated TV shows of all time, Boomtown. Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, and Danny Wood clung on to the music scene releasing one somewhat-forgettable solo album after another. Johnathan Knight wised up and got out of the business, although with today’s housing market I’m sure he’s rethinking his decision to get into real estate.

The time of teen boy bands (pre-Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC) is long gone, and so are these phony 1-900 deals that are now left up to porn… err… “singles hot lines”. But apparently the New Kids on the Block aren’t over. People magazine recently announced the band is getting back together, which of course means a new album, tour, and TV show is surely in the works. In a time of American Gladiators part II, and another Rambo sequel, it appears the lowest common denominator of the general public is getting served again.