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03/06/2005: More Commercials of the `80s!

Well, hello there. Long time no see. As a reward for your loyalty, I present another fine batch of `80s Commercials, including everything from a Mr. T doll to a radio controlled inflatable Hulk. Fer real. I’ve done this ten-commercials-in-an-article deal a few times before, but I must say, this may very well be the best batch yet. It’s even got those Bad Case Of Worms toys I was asking about a short while back. Read the whole way through for a bonus section on “Freezy Freakies,” the gloves that changed the world. Henjoy.

Adding a Survey: Well, what are your hobbies? Real ones, not ones that just sound cool in the retelling.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 135 comments

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Woo! 80’s Commercials! Loyalty!

Ghosted by Warx @ 03/06/2005 1:57 PM EST

All right! I was wishing for some new commercials the other day! Mr. T and the Hulk, you can’t beat that! Rock.

Ghosted by kidneyboy @ 03/06/2005 2:00 PM EST

Ah yes, 80’s commercials. They always bring me back to the good old days of being young, not having much responsibility, and getting the most awesome toys. Those were the days! Now people just look at me weird when I talk about toys and when I buy them for myself.

Ghosted by Andrea @ 03/06/2005 2:12 PM EST

all I gotta say is that liquid stuff was very sexual!!

Ghosted by IHAQ @ 03/06/2005 2:28 PM EST

Whoa Miss Pac-Man sounds like a drag queen!

Ghosted by Pat @ 03/06/2005 2:35 PM EST

hulk link isn’t working for me. Anyone else have this problem?

Ghosted by pig-malien @ 03/06/2005 2:59 PM EST

That hulk link kept sending me back to the home page. Anyway, I think the slime in a garbage can with EYES was definitely the coolest toy of that lot. Remember how, during Halloween, Jello would sing "J.E.L.L.O. it’s aliiiive" as their jingle? Halloween is so ultra64 awesome that we should all get the Ghoul-Aid vampire tattooed on our faces!! Think of how impressed chicks would be

Ghosted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 03/06/2005 3:01 PM EST

Hulk link has been fixed.

Ghosted by Matt @ 03/06/2005 3:02 PM EST

Closest to 1st I’ve ever been!

I want a fist full of rage.

Ghosted by DrVilovski @ 03/06/2005 3:25 PM EST

I had forgotten all about those gloves. I had a pair, I remember a red heart appeared on them when they were cold. I think it might have said I (heart) snow or something.

I also must say "adult" toys have certainly changed over the years.

Ghosted by maglizrd @ 03/06/2005 3:36 PM EST

Ooh, I didn’t know that veteran Saturday Night Live announcer Don Pardo also lent his voice to Atari ads back in the day! Also, is there an obscure technical reason why the Atari Pac-Men ate dashes and not dots? Does the command to display dots really take up that much more memory on the cartridge than the command to display dashes did?

Also, I was around 10 at the height of Transformer mania (84-85) and I live in Canada, so you’d think I’d remember Freezy Freakies, but, nope. Either they didn’t sell them around where I was or they just weren’t popular at my specific elementary school.

By the way, the link at the end of the article goes to the entry with the movie reviews.

Ghosted by Steve Brandon @ 03/06/2005 3:41 PM EST

We don’t get snow or anything resembling "cold" compared to what you guys deal with, so I don’t think the Freezy Freakies has such a monumental impact in my neck of the woods. We had all the ‘changes color in the sun’ crap though.
The radio controlled Hulk and T doll strike me as really great props that a wacky therapist could use to get their patients to roleplay. Like, you could talk through Mr. T to work on your anger management issues, and use Hulk to give voice to your frustration about not being taken seriously during family discussions or something. The possibilities are endless!

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 03/06/2005 4:49 PM EST

Man I could watch these commercials all day long. If only I had the time/knowhow to put all of my commercials onto my webpage. Oh well

Ghosted by Czar Matthew @ 03/06/2005 4:55 PM EST

That a classic song that Ms. Pac-Man is singing.

KB went out of business here. We still have a couple of Toys R Us left and I hope they survive.

That is a weird He-Man commercial, saying that it’s a set but everything is sold separately. Strange.

I wish I remembered the things in this article besides Q-bert and Ms. Pac-Man, mostly cause they’re timeless.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 03/06/2005 5:13 PM EST

Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T! Mr. T!

Ghosted by Darth Monkey @ 03/06/2005 6:05 PM EST

I remember having that Mr.T doll. That is all.

Ghosted by Overlord @ 03/06/2005 6:30 PM EST

Very nice even though I didn’t have any of those things (or even remember the commercials and that includes the Talon Fighter). My parents were weird about that. I had tons of figures (MOTU, StarWars, etc.) but outside of GI-Joe, I never had any vehicles or playsets. No Castle Greyskull, no Millenium Falcon, no X-Wing, and certainly no Eternia. The only reason I probably had GI-Joe is because it was one of the few things my older brother and I played with together. I got his SW hand me downs and he was too old for MOTU.
Thanks for the commercials anyway. That MS. PACMAN is 5 star!

Ghosted by The Manimal @ 03/06/2005 6:50 PM EST

I was a slave to the Freaky Freezies fashion trend. I wanted a pair soooo much, but my mom (in true uncool mother style) refused to see reason and would not buy me a pair. As I lived out in the country on a farm, I didn’t even have the recourse of walking to a local store with hoarded birthday money to buy my own. This totally unreasonable denial of my basic need for hand-coverings that became 100 times cooler in the cold is probably at the core of my many issues today.

Ghosted by Ripley26 @ 03/06/2005 7:46 PM EST

i’ve been lookin for somethin and was wonderin if u guys could help:
does anyone remember a sort of digital etch-a-sketch? u could draw little pixilatd pictures and then animate it…i think it had white casing with a black n white screen

Ghosted by gerv @ 03/06/2005 9:24 PM EST

"all I gotta say is that liquid stuff was very sexual!!"-IHAQ

Well, I was going to make a joke about "fluid fantasies" that I always have to clean up the next morning, but I think they gave us something better to work with when they said, "Fluid Fantasies, an adult toy." Yeaaaaaaah . . .

Ghosted by Predacon Warlord @ 03/06/2005 9:34 PM EST

The Freaky Freezies mittens are about the only item out of that batch I remember today. We did see the commercials, but they were expensive, and it rarely gets cold enough this close to the ocean to need such puffy hand coverings.

Ghosted by starwenn @ 03/06/2005 9:41 PM EST

Gerv,

I do believe the item you are searching for is the "Etch-a-Sketch Animator" circa 1988. I DID have one of those proving I wasn’t totally deprived.
http://www.inthe80s.com/toys/etchasketch.shtml
If not, then I have no clue.

Ghosted by The Manimal @ 03/06/2005 11:04 PM EST

My Hobbies:

Theatre
Film
Writing
Reading
NES
Collecting obscure videos and games
Pee Wee Herman

The list could go on, but what I have here tells you all the genralities. Anything else you want to learn about me can be surmised from my various posts here on X-E.

And now to read that article…

Ghosted by Nate @ 03/06/2005 11:06 PM EST

80’s commercial articles are the best.

I had a pair of those gloves. But mine had rainbows that would appear. I can’t remember, but they might have been Care Bear ones. Haha, I hope I didn’t wear them past kindergarten.

As far as hobbies go, I buy a lot of 90’s alternative and punk CD’s.

Ghosted by Dean @ 03/06/2005 11:18 PM EST

I recall seeing a similar Ms. Pac-Man commercial that did feature the singing cartoon Ms. Pac-Man, plus a few other elemnts from the commercial in this article. However, it also had these kids discussing a date with Ms. Pac-Man that one of the fortunate children had. He talked about how unbelievable she was.

My God. Kids getting horny over Ms. Pac-Man? And actually believing that they had sex with her? And people say that today’s video games are corrupting our children’s minds.

Ghosted by Nate @ 03/06/2005 11:36 PM EST

Say, Matt. You oughta hunt down that commercial. It’d make a great addition to your next installment of old-school ads.

Ghosted by Nate @ 03/06/2005 11:38 PM EST

Hobbies? Well, my website.. first and foremost. Also; reading books, skateboarding, and checking out X-E. I also enjoy indulging in quality conversation in late night diners.

Ghosted by Review the World @ 03/06/2005 11:56 PM EST

Matt, please consider putting links for the commericial reviews in the 80’s Ad section.

Ghosted by ME @ 03/07/2005 12:05 PM EST

well SINCE Gerv asked…I have a question too.

There were these toys I used to covet when I was very small. Maybe around four. It would have been 1988 or ‘89.

They were stuffed animals, faintly popple-esq, and they had clear plastic domes for noses. (I think it was noses)
Inside the dome there was a toy or a mechanical thingamajig, and when you pressed on the nose, a mechanism would work the toy inside. Each stuffed animal had a different nose.
This is by far one of my earliest toy-related memories, so it might well be a hallucination. I Just wanted to make sure. It’s an absolutely retarded concept, but in the eighties they tried to sell stuffed animals with tear ducts, so I can’t quite dismiss it as a false memory.

Anyway. Been reading this site for almost a year, and it just gets better. BRILLIANT stuff.

Ghosted by Katherine @ 03/07/2005 12:34 PM EST

Too bad I missed out on some of those toys (I spent ‘85 being born and what not). Some of those look familiar, though. That Mr.T doll would have made a adequate Uncle Phil in a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air playtime re-enactment.

My Hobbies:
-Writing (I’d give an arm, an leg, or an ovary if I had one to write for television and film some day. For now, I keep the hope alive.)
-watching movies/tv (Look above. My humour is John Hughes/Wes Anderson-ish so I like, but don’t limit myself to those types of movies. For TV, think Arrested Development and Scrubs…making sweet monkey love to each other.)
-video games (Nintendo, ya heard?)
-retro/vintage things (Jukeboxes and pinball machines. I want them.)
-sports (Not so much now, but I like basketball. I’m not 20 feet tall, but I’m decent. Soccer too.)

Ghosted by Dr. Acula @ 03/07/2005 1:33 AM EST

I hope Freezy Freakies make a comeback sometime soon. I desperately need a pair.

Also, it sounds so geeky, but I crochet and knit. I also play the guitar and read. And I like freshly outdated things, like the song "Party like it’s 1999" and "Best of 19 blah blah’s" compilation CDs.

Ghosted by jc @ 03/07/2005 1:34 AM EST

There’s nothing on the planet that is cooler than Mr. T. It’s a scientific fact.

I’m going to grad school for my hobbies, heh. I’m an MFA student for fiction.

Sadly, I still have yet to completely break the nerd habit of magic. I still play in tournaments every couple months or so.

Ghosted by Jeff Mack @ 03/07/2005 2:05 AM EST

Nate: that version of the Ms. Pac-Man ad is already on the Internet; I downloaded it somewhere….wish I could remember where that somewhere WAS so I could link it to you.

"Fluid Fantasy" is just a freaky ad, and it’s made worse by being a lava-lamp ad viewed by bad TV reception seen through a pixilated internet video file. It just doesn’t work, but it’s probably here for the classic line at the end.

Ghosted by Mars @ 03/07/2005 2:09 AM EST

Outside of reading and watching TV and internetting? I’m trying to learn crocheting. I write. I collect shot glasses and autographs (that last one’s slow getting started but I’m working on it). So far I’ve got Michael J. Anderson, Tim DeKay, Adrienne Barbeau, Clea Duval, Carla Gallo, Nick Stahl and Clancy Brown (all of Carnivale) Alton Brown (of Good Eats) and Jhonen Vasquez (of Johnny the Homocidal Maniac, Squee! and Invader Zim, though I didn’t get this one in person).

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 03/07/2005 2:29 AM EST

"Comes in it’s own garbage can, complete with two plastic eyeballs." BEST SLOGAN EVER.

Ghosted by Ed @ 03/07/2005 2:47 AM EST

adding hobbies:
Horror is my biggest; i have a website that reviews horror movies. Real Horror movies, like italian horror and exploitation.
Another hobby is i put action figures in cups of water then freeze em. When you take them out they look like they’re frozen in icebergs! Cereal is another big hobby, because its pretty much all i eat. Pets are kind of a hobby. I watch a lot of cartoons. I play DDR and paper mario 64. Sporadic girlfriends. Breathing. Guitar/Keyboard. I guess college fits in there, somewhere…

Ghosted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 03/07/2005 3:40 AM EST

#@$*#*

Ghosted by Cyanyde @ 03/07/2005 3:44 AM EST

When I saw that Fluid Fantasy commercial I remembered getting one for Christmas when I was little. So I rummaged through my old toys and sure enough there it was. Sadly, the liquid was all gone out of it, so I guess no $100,000 for me.

Ghosted by Simon @ 03/07/2005 3:50 AM EST

Hobbies:

My pets – fish, birds, dogs, ferrets
Reading – horror, sci-fi, historical
Movies – horror, sci-fi, comedy etc…
Outside stuff in summer – hiking n’ immature things like fort building, exploring the woods, tag in the dark (I should be too old for that shit – when is the official break for creepy old people playing kid games?)
Watching cartoons

Jeff – don’t be too harsh – I play Magic semi-regularly too. Nerd habits are hard to break (even for a girl)!

Ghosted by Ripley26 @ 03/07/2005 8:49 AM EST

My main hobbies are sewing and quilting, but I also love reading, baseball, and drawing. Hooray for articles!

Ghosted by B-Dawg @ 03/07/2005 9:17 AM EST

I had a different pair of Robot Freezie Freakies that were much less cool than those. I think I still have them somewhere.

Ghosted by Lou @ 03/07/2005 9:19 AM EST

Katherine, those bears with the dome noses are called Nosy Bears by Playskool. I’ve got one with a basket ball game for a nose. Got him at the ol’ thrift store…which leads us to my hobby!

My hobbies are thrifting and making comics about fighting crime and solving artsy mysteries which I’m told are, allegedly, funny.

Ghosted by Kennef @ 03/07/2005 9:51 AM EST

Review the World Dude:

I don’t mean to bring negativity to the site, but man, you’re copying X-E — right on down to pagiarizing my most favorite X-E article ever: The amazing incredible bag-o-crap. Tsk Tsk

Great Article Matt. I love the looks back even though it makes me feel old.

Hobbies:

Collecting bootleg Cure concert CDs
The Icy Hot Stuntaz
Surfing
Reading/collecting Fantastic Four comic books
Visiting NYC dive bars
Campy 70s and 80s dubbed Kung Fu movies
Tobacco enthusiast
Watching Duke b-ball

Ghosted by Pedro @ 03/07/2005 10:25 AM EST

Hobbies
Wrestling tapes…seriously…waaaay too many wrestling tapes I can watch wrestling all day long and I don’t know why.
movies
everyone comes to me for what is good and bad
writing
live journal
midgets in my basement

Ghosted by thejyav @ 03/07/2005 11:01 AM EST

Oh Yeah I had the robot freezie freaks…I dont remember them making me cool though…

Ghosted by LordSorrow @ 03/07/2005 11:43 AM EST

I had that Mr. T. It got thrown away one time when I was 5 or 6 and Mom decided I had too many toys, so grabbed some stuff at random and tossed it out. I got him out of the trash. ^_^ Then he got lost in a housefire with like… 100-bajillion He-man figures… now I’m sad… I miss it. *sobs*

Ghosted by Blaine @ 03/07/2005 11:50 AM EST

Oh BTW… When the themesong sang "Mr. Teeee!!!", am I the only one that follows it up with "I’m gonna liiiive forever!! I’m gonna learn how to fly!!" … thought so.

Ghosted by Blaine @ 03/07/2005 11:52 AM EST

Another sweet haul of ads.

Ghosted by Dragonrider @ 03/07/2005 1:18 PM EST

"Another hobby is i put action figures in cups of water then freeze em."–Eddie Lightning Frog

I used to do that all the time. Then, I’d unthaw them in the sink because I always forgot why I froze them in the first place. I was usually playing with toys, and the guy would get frozen, and I figure I was going to have him rescued later, but I’d forget.

Ghosted by Predacon Warlord @ 03/07/2005 1:23 PM EST

Didn’t the slime actually say this is a toy on it? always thought that was strange, but then again I bought several cups of that stuff, what did we do with it?

Ghosted by RAS @ 03/07/2005 2:23 PM EST

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