The Affari Edge Blog

Let’s now step waaaay back in time when records (yes, those vinyl discs) were being sold as fun for the entire family! It’s the RCA “Best of ‘57″ collection! Dig this, daddy-o!

So what’s the first thing that strikes you about this commercial? I know, the warbling audio track. Believe it or not that WASN’T in the original commercial… and that’s a VERY good thing for RCA-Victor! Imagine trying to sell your audio inventory when your commercial sounds like the film projector in Mrs. Scarpa’s second-grade class at Seffner Elementary (at least that’s what it sounded like to me).

No, there’s something far more interesting about this commercial. That’s right, it’s in color! In 1957 very few programs or commercials were filmed in color simply because the technology was new, not widespread, and very expensive. The last of those reasons is very evident as the money spent on the color film and post-production drained the rest of the budget for this spot. I mean, what fourth-grade art project is that “house” at the beginning of the spot? And once you get inside it doesn’t get any better. I guess you could call the living room “art nouveau”, but I call it “thrift store living”. Our assembled family, all white like everyone else on TV was back then, is enjoying the light brought to their home with RCA-Victor music. Unfortunately the music didn’t bring any sofas, carpet, paint, pictures, or tables with its light. Instead we have the gang of four sitting on a putting green, staring at the only item of value in the house– a record player. Even dad has been kicked out of his recliner in exchange for a cheap camping chair.

Still, home is where the heart is and the family is all together doing one thing which is just great. But I have a hunch the kids won’t be around long after being force-fed this horrible music. Frankie Carle?!? Lena Horne?!? Harry Belafonte?!? PERRY FREAKIN’ COMO?!? Alright, I admit a little jazz or Latin music from Horne or Belafonte is appropriate for certain settings, but I hardly call it “family entertainment”. The kids must be wondering why dad, too cheap to upgrade from his camping chair, won’t let the kids have a few extra nickels to get the latest from Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, or Chuck Berry. If the giant Como display doesn’t scare anyone under the age of 23 away from the store, digging through the “best of” collection surely will.

And we’re reminded if you have a sparse living room, or a paper mache’ house like our TV family does, you can save with the “45 economy package” which really isn’t saving when you’re paying half the price for about a quarter of the LP. Then again if you’re spending $4 (a hefty sum back in 1957 when minimum wage was $1 per hour… that’s about $26 in today’s standards with the minimum wage about to go up to $6.55 an hour) on a Perry Como album, you’ve probably never balanced a checkbook.

So entertain the family with some long-playing garbage! It’s the “best of ‘57″, and thankfully it didn’t continue into ‘58 or 2008!

Ahhhh… the 80’s were a promising time just full of energy and potential after the dreary 70’s. So what do you say we practice some carpe diem with the power of chewing gum!

The reason why I selected this commercial to blog on is because the company I work for, Affari Edge, just moved to a new building (hence why no new videos have been posted here in almost two weeks). I first searched for videos involving moving like we did, hauling thousands of pounds of crap from location to another. With no luck I found this gem from 1981 advertising Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit. Now this commercial campaign actually was not bad, with a catchy jingle that I recall was used for several years in the 80’s. But I have to put it on this website not just because of the “moving” connection, but also because it’s one of those commercials that simply featured unlikely expectations for the product.

I mean, think about this… have you ever chewed a stick of gum and just decided to go water skiing? Other than caffeine-infused energy gum, has a stick of gum just lifted you up off the couch and thrust you into a round of extreme sports? I didn’t think so! Chances are you’re chewing gum because you’re bored or desperately trying to quit smoking.

Yet here is our fun-loving group of “kids”, all people around 32 or 33 dressed up and acting like they’re 17, parading to the big lake for an afternoon of water skiing. How fun! And it’s all because they were sitting around chewing gum! Then we have the overt sexual appeal of gum. Well actually it’s the overt sexual appeal of boobs, for both men and women. Who knew that chewing Juicy Fruit would give you a giant rack or rock-hard abs like our “kids” show off in slow motion.

Then we have one of our beach bums shoving a piece of gum in his mouth before embarking on a slew of water skiing tricks not seen since the last water ski show at Cypress Gardens. To be honest with you, I don’t know if I’d want to be chewing gum while water skiing. Isn’t that dangerous? Can’t that get stuck in your throat while your flying through the air in the greatest of ease? After choking on your gum, you’d be dragged around the water like Bernie in “Weekend at Bernie’s”. Is that fun for you if you’re the corpse?

Oh, back to the sexual action again as we see a beautiful blond shoving a stick of gum in her mouth, but far more sensually than our beach bum did because this time it’s in slow motion. I’m wondering how many takes that took. I can only imagine the director screaming, “CUT!” over and over again because the gum didn’t arc just right. And as if the name “juicy fruit” didn’t imply a sexual situation in the first place, we’re greeted with a shot of one of our water skiing pal’s crotch as he glides over us. Gee thanks… give me some more of that gum.

As I continue to ice up my sore back and bloody toes from hauling around refrigerators, work tables, and boxes of stuff I didn’t know we had in our office, I’m wondering how much easier our work would have been had we been chewing on some Juicy Fruit. We would just be tossing those heavy appliances and tables around like they were nothing. And if I slowly took my shirt off I would suddenly have a cut body instead of cuts on my beer gut.

Or maybe we should just hire professional movers to do it next time, and I can chew some gum while watching them do the heavy lifting.

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”.

AYE MATEYS! It’s time to go back to a day when a sailor smelled like a sailor, and nerdy men couldn’t get enough of that smell! Let’s view this gender-bending gem from 1971 for Old Spice cologne.

Now this spot really is a throwback compared to cologne commercials of today. Thanks mostly to Calvin Klein in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, cologne and perfume commercials became film noir works of art, often making you wonder what the hell they were advertising as waifs danced and/or pouted while spouting out the name of the product. In 1971, it was simple to advertise for cologne. A man comes home from his work (in this case a sailor comes back from the sea), he of course smells great with his Old Spice so he and his lady friend decide to have a great night on the town. But what’s this? It’s a secret admirer following the couple around!

And he’s not just any secret admirer, he’s a freaking CREEPY secret admirer! For one, he looks an awful lot like Mark David Chapman. Another eerie issue here is the nerdy young stalker clearly has a thing for the sailor and not for the buxom brunette around the sailor’s arm. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, to borrow a line from “Seinfeld”, but I’m not exactly sure this is the best way to sell your product. You’re trying to convince the average man that by putting on this foul-smelling Old Spice, you can pull any talent like our big buff sailor can here. Apparently there’s an inherit danger of also pulling “talent” in the form of a 20-something geek who knows “The Wizard of Oz” by heart and watches it on a small black and white TV in a bedroom filled with stiff tube socks. I think I’ll stick with Jovan Musk, thank you.

The creepiness of our stalker is even creepier given where he is hiding out while watching his favorite stack of man meat… ERR… I mean that beautiful young woman the sailor is escorting around. First, he’s actually at the dock watching this guy get off the boat to meet his woman. Upon further review, a rather awkward young man with an afro and white tee shirt is standing behind our stalker checking HIM out! I’m starting to wonder if The Village People got the band started because of this commercial. Then our stalker goes to a high observation platform to eavesdrop on the couple’s lunch, standing erect when he realizes how big and tall the sailor is. He also stood straight up when he realized how big and tall the sailor was.

After walking dangerously close to the couple throughout Chinatown, our gruff sea salt finally chases the stalker away by throwing a bottle of Old Spice at him. The sailor thinks he’s doing the young man a favor by sharing the scent he uses to attract women with. The nerd is so flattered to have something touched by a seaman, he observes the bottle is somewhat conical in shape and I’m sure he’ll wind up in the emergency room that night after “accidentally” falling on to the bottle causing him to impale his rectum.

And as for the tag line here, is Old Spice really the reason why women have patiently waited for their men to return from the sea? Or is it because their men have been at the sea for six months and they want a little something something after all of those lonely nights? Old Spice may be an elixir for some people, but I have a hunch it’s the latter of the two. And knowing full well that the crabs come in on the captain’s dinghy, I’m sure these ladies aren’t the only sirens the sailor boys are coming home to.

Old Spice… it’s old and smells like rotten spice, but it’ll help the sailor in you bring home the catch of the day. Just be warned the “catch” may be a young man who carries his own butter knife.

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!