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New Article: More ’80s Commercials!

With just minutes to spare to ensure that I don't miss tonight's new Sopranos and thus rob myself of the opportunity to bicker about what a letdown it was around the water cooler tomorrow morning, I finish this weekend's new article: More `80s Commercials! Pretty awesome batch, I must say. See reggae fruit dance with Snap and Crackle as they usher in Fruity Marshmallow Krispies! See kids turn into Optimus Prime by way of underwear! See the McD.L.T.'s cool side stay cool! Win a Sony Watchman! All this and more! More! A dozen total, each reviewed, with video downloads.

Posted by Matt on 03/19/2006. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 150 comments

Claps for the guy who can get so old commercials :D

Chestnuts roasted by Yelinna @ 03/20/2006 4:53 PM

I think the McDLT had some of the best commercials ever. I hadn’t seen the broken arm one in forever. "Comedians."

I’ve seen the Jason Alexander one all over the net, but there was another one that Jessica Marie eluded to. It uses the same song as the Costanza one, but it features Fame style dancers in a West Side Story type setting. I’m talking 80′s headbands, leggins, spandex, and sweat.

It’s a good time……

HOT BEEFY McD!! (I always wondered what exactly a beefy McD was)

For the great taste……

COOL CRISP LT!!

From McDonalds.

Chestnuts roasted by T.J. @ 03/20/2006 5:50 PM

It’s McBeefy.

I’ve never seen the West Side Story version anywhere but on my vhs. For shame, such a treasure.

Chestnuts roasted by Jessica Marie @ 03/20/2006 6:22 PM

Woohoo, I got the He-Man commercial to run all the way through today. Yesterday it would get to the halfway point and stop. I like the bad guys palling around "just like the old days"… even bad guys need a little help sometimes. And I forgot how much Skeletor sounded like the Cryptkeeper.

Chestnuts roasted by Welsh Rabbit @ 03/20/2006 6:25 PM

holy crap! I had totally forgot about Super Naturals! My brother had a ton of them and would never let me touch them. He was afraid I would damage their holographic abilities or something. As being the eldest child, I would then try to take them from him by force when he wouldn’t share. I usually didn’t succeed. He had no qualms about hitting girls and then going steal the heads of the cherished Barbie dolls…bastard

Chestnuts roasted by earthwormgoddess @ 03/20/2006 7:03 PM

So nice to see a little Supernaturals love. One of the most overlooked toylines of the period unfortunately.

Their magical holographs amazed me and my cousin many a time in my grandmother’s bathroom.

That sounds weird, I know. But it was awesome. You weren’t there and you missed out.

Chestnuts roasted by The Wukong Effect @ 03/20/2006 7:14 PM

I can remember when McDonald’s used to package everything in styrofoam. It seemed like everytime i opened one of those styrofoam conatiners the screeching noise it made gave me the same sensation that nails-on-a-chalkboard gives most people. THen again I was afraid to get on the escalator that was moving downward too…and the count from sesame street…Yeah I’m totally lame.

Chestnuts roasted by phunqsauce @ 03/20/2006 7:35 PM

Is it just me or does the voice-over at the end of the pepsi commercial sound a hell of a lot like Martin Sheen?

Chestnuts roasted by LP @ 03/20/2006 7:49 PM

Matt – any chance we could see Burnheart make an appearance in the advent calendar? A Burnheart/Mare matchup would rock.

Chestnuts roasted by Carri @ 03/20/2006 8:08 PM

I had stormtrooper and Boba Fett underoos. I remember in kindergarten we had bragging rights if we happened to be wearing the coolest underoos that day. God, kids are weird.

Tetsu Deinonychus and others, you reminded me of my own local Fox afternoon cartoon host- Major Astro! I think he was just in the Wichita, KS area, but I could be wrong. He wore a space suit (which, if I remember correctly, was pretty cool) but his set was basically the local studio control room. The TVs in the background would play random shots of stock footage from Space Shuttle space walks. I think they were supposed to be windows. I didn’t really care about "Major Asshole" (as we called him) but his bit delayed the start of Transformers. This was great, because the school bus would always drop me off JUST in time to catch that show. Man, what a trip- I had totally forgotten about that guy.

Double G- I had a similar experience about six months ago. Me and some other guys from work were in the Canonsburg, PA area for some on-site testing, and nobody wanted to make breakfast, even though the company sprung for the rooms with kitchens since we were going to be in the area for a month. We went to McDonald’s almost every day to snag coffee and McMuffins, until IT happened. I was in front and opened the door to the little foyer that leads into the restaraunt. An awful smell pretty much slapped me in the face. I stopped dead in my tracks, and the guy behind me bumped into me and pushed me forward some. Fortunately I was able to stop myself. Lying directly in the middle of the tiny foyer was the biggest turd I have seen in my entire life. It was as long as my forearm and a little bigger around as a d-cell battery. There was a trail of brown goo leading from this thing off into the restaraunt. No way this was an accident- some asshole did this deliberately. We stopped and stared for at least a few seconds. The worst part was the look of utter dejection on the face of the employee who was coming out from the restaraunt to clean it up. You’ve never seen anyone looks so sad and hopeless. We didn’t even know what to say to the poor guy. We just turned around and left.

Whenever I start to bitch about my job too much, the ridiculous paperwork and the idiotic rules that we have to follow (something about public safety and environmental damage), someone reminds me that at least we’re not picking up turds at McDonald’s. That usually perks me right up.

Chestnuts roasted by spaz307 @ 03/20/2006 8:22 PM

Tetsu:

I, too, remember Pete McTee. What a good clown. He had a scientist friend named Noodles. I’m guessing this means you’re in the same general vicinity as me if you know the McTee, so what town is this Old Sled Works of which you speak?

Chestnuts roasted by mtrox @ 03/20/2006 8:41 PM

Bludge, I don’t remember if the Fruit Islands contest was ever completed, but I do remember the King’s name. It was King Ayummayumma.
I remember the commercial fairly clearly because it was included on a videotape filled with episodes of the Alf cartoon I had when I was a kid.

Chestnuts roasted by Weredog @ 03/20/2006 9:18 PM

I swore I’d hold off on reading the new article until Sopranos withdrawl overwhelmed me.
So I just finished the new article…awesome as expected…the Underoos reminded me of the Johnson’s Soothing Naturals lotion commercials I’m seeing everyday lately. One version is geared toward selling to parents, but the other is geared towards selling to adult women and they use the same baby footage. There’s something unsettling about watching a woman step out of the shower intercut with reaction shots from various multiculti babies while the announcer points out the woman isn’t wearing a towel. It’s just too many kinds of wrong all smashed together.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 03/20/2006 10:30 PM

TV has really made me want some Thumb Warriors. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

Chestnuts roasted by Mystie @ 03/20/2006 10:50 PM

Matt, I’m not lying when I say that Burnheart was the king of my action figures as well. My favorite part of Supernaturals were the little guys, I remember them being especially cool. i also appreciated the face mask. I was a sucker for a knight’s helmet any day.

Chestnuts roasted by B-log @ 03/20/2006 10:50 PM

I loved the Mc DLT. I remember them trying to make that jingle popular like the Big Mac ingredient one.

Chestnuts roasted by The Dinner Genie @ 03/20/2006 11:04 PM

The McDonald’s ad with Jason Alexander is a classic.

One fast food ad that I remember very well is this ad for Little Caesar’s where there were these muppetesque Caesar dolls playing to the tune of Wooly Bully and some kid skyrocketing into the air after getting his surprise prize. You had to say "prize prize" to get something there.

Much of my watching Saturday morning shows came from when I was around eight or nine years old in the late 80s/early 90s in Evansville, Indiana. There were these two kids (one boy and one girl) on the local Fox station that would make silly jokes and have little contests for the kids, including a Dick Tracy lightup watch. I tried so damn hard to win it and I couldn’t get it done! I know that today’s Fox stations would not have anything like that, thanks to the rise of syndicated programming and Fox having second rate anime knockoffs every Saturday morning.

Chestnuts roasted by mjf7583 @ 03/20/2006 11:09 PM

I agree, Fox HAS gone downhill. I remember the glory days of coming home (from HIGH SCHOOL mind you- I AM a geek after all) and watching ‘X-Men’ (the GOOD one), ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ (the GOOD one), and ‘Spiderman’…

Chestnuts roasted by Muppet Baby @ 03/20/2006 11:14 PM

I know this post is gonna be random, but I just have to ask. If no one knows the answer, that’s cool too. :) But I figured I probably have the best shot at asking you guys.

Does anyone remember an old children’s book, sort of like Casper, but it really had nothing to do with him, or at least I don’t think so. I remember having this book when I was little, and I even dressed up like him once for Halloween. He had a pointy little tuft on top of his head, and he would try to scare people but just couldn’t, and was all depressed about it. I know it sounds like Casper, but I swear it was another ghost, and I SO have to remember his name. It’s really driving me insane.

Chestnuts roasted by Ryane @ 03/20/2006 11:23 PM

Ryane, was it…the Ghost with the Most? ahaha, I love Ghost with the Most!!

Chestnuts roasted by kidneyboy @ 03/21/2006 1:10 AM

The Old Sled Works is in Duncannon. It’s kind of a landmark there.

Chestnuts roasted by Tetsu Deinonychus @ 03/21/2006 2:21 AM

Hey did anyone else notice that the kid from the ROTJ sweepstakes commercial (exp. 1983) was the same kid in the Watch’n'Play contest? (exp. 1988) He must have found his niche early in life. I wonder if he still has the same haircut today.

Oh, and I have also been to Zern’s a few times(it was mentioned above). Yes it is a strange and sometimes wonderful place. Sort of a mutant city/farmers market…you’d like it.

Chestnuts roasted by OnePizzaPoint @ 03/21/2006 3:48 AM

Ryane: I used to have a book that might match your description. It was just called "Little Ghost," and it involved a ghost who wasn’t going to pass his scaring exam because he couldn’t scare anyone. And so he decided to go to a nearby elementary school to try and scare some kids, but it turned out that it was Haloween and people kept mistaking him for either a decoration, a costume or, in one memorable scene, a hand towel. Anyway, he eventually ends up onstage in the middle of the school play and then Bill Murray jumps out of the wings and captures him in a writhing stream of protons. Okay, so maybe I don’t remember exactly how it ended, but that’s the way I would’ve written it. And I can’t find any pictures of the dude, but he did indeed have a pointy little tuft on his head, and as far as I know his only name was Little Ghost. Hope that helps.

Chestnuts roasted by Jedoc @ 03/21/2006 6:25 AM

Did anyone else think the voice that said "Pepsi… the choice of a new generation" sounded like Martin Sheen?

Chestnuts roasted by MDH @ 03/21/2006 7:31 AM

Nope DJ Kat was worldwide as we had him in the Uk back in the early 90s.When did he origionaly air out there?

Chestnuts roasted by Greg @ 03/21/2006 7:55 AM

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 19th, 2006 at 8:12 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.