Old adverts I love – booze edition

I like booze, because it's big and clever. Now I'm a grown up, and have decided which tipples I prefer, it's become easier for me to tune out the cacophony of alcohol advertising that tries to enter my brain via my eyes and ears. Not so when I was a nipper. The TV ad breaks (not the ones during things like Rainbow, obviously) were awash with strange adverts for mysterious drinks, and all you knew about them was that they were somehow different from pop.

Booze adverts back then were fascinating – they were obscure enough to make me wonder what that strange new product was, and why I never got to have any. Nowadays (Smirnoff, Famous Grouse etc aside) a lot of booze adverts just show you the booze. In a glass. Which is the last thing you want to see when you have a hangover.

Here are some adverts I remember fondly for being funny, or bizarre, or just downright good -

Skol

What happened to Skol? Can you even get it any more? A quick Google search shows you can, albeit mostly in Brazil, where it is the country's number one lager.

Over here, Skol was marketed as a rowdy Danish/Swedish/Norweigan/foreign lager that was drunk by a load of singing cartoon vikings (one of whom was Hagar The Horrible). Anyone who has seen the advert remembers the song. All together now -

Skol skol skol skol skol skol skol skol skol (continue x 42).

Babycham

I used to get a 4 pack of Babycham every Christmas, until my dad realised I didn't really like it. I used to think it was the same as Lambrini, and then I found out it's actually 'sparkling perry'. Then I found out that Lambrini is sparkling perry too. You win some, you lose some.

This advert was very odd. Not creepy odd, just 'ooh, look at that guy' odd. I think it's meant to be what happens inside a Babycham bottle. Or possibly when you get to the bottom of one. Also, the guy singing sounds like Otto from The Simpsons. Possibly that's not deliberate.

Taboo/Mirage

Ah, the holy duo. Never ever seen separately, apart from nowadays, since Mirage is no more. And the world is the poorer for it. Taboo without Mirage is like Cannon without Ball – you'd get people going 'oh, whatever happened to them?' before going back to not giving a fuck and/or their knitting.

I never had Mirage, but I do know that Taboo and lemonade tastes just like jelly babies.

I think the reason Taboo survived and Mirage didn't is because human beings are inherently naughty. We like the idea of drinking liquid hedonism, but not the idea of drinking something a nun would approve of. We get enough goody two shoes stuff rammed down our throats without having to drink it too, thank you very much. This is expertly shown in the advert – the woman drinking Taboo is obviously having a more interesting time, and she's probably off to fuck the barman in a minute.

Tia Maria

I was originally going to talk about the advert where the bird hypnotises some dude into coming over and opening a pickle jar for her, but I found out that advert was from 2000, not the early 90s like I originally thought. Oh God, I'm old. I have no sense of temporal awareness any more. Soon I'll be forgetting why I walked into a room, or not going out because I need to 'rest my bones'. Mind you, I do that already.

Instead, I'm going to show you the actual 80s Tia Maria ad, featuring a woman with a stripey face -

Bonus advert – Guinness – featuring GEOFFREY!

LOOK! LOOK! IT'S GEOFFREY HAYES!

That is all.

5 shit and pointless beauty products

I am not au fait with advances in beauty and grooming technology. Neither my job nor the mister require me to possess any vanity whatsoever. Dressing for work normally involves grabbing the first clothes that come to hand after groping round on my bedroom floor. I do brush my hair sometimes, but only if I'm going somewhere really nice, like KFC.

However, I do watch a lot of teleshopping, which is where I've seen most of the following monstrosities. These products promise to make you more beautiful, so you can gain a sense of self worth, grab that promotion at work, and sink your wedding obsessed claws into some poor unsuspecting chap. These products will change your life, by which I mean you'll have slightly less money than you had before.

1. Head Cones

Are you tired of having flat hair? Never fear – 'Bumpits' are a nifty bit of kit that will instantly make you look like one of the Martians off of Mars Attacks. The idea is that you put this headband thing under you hair, then arrange your real hair around it, and it's somehow meant to look good.

Maybe the thinking behind it is something like this - if a potential mate sees you have a bigger skull than all the other girls, he'll think you have a bigger brain, and that you're not just going to talk about shoes and periods on your first date. Or maybe some company just had some leftover padded bra inserts and/or traffic cones they needed to get rid of, I don't know.

2. Stroke Simulator

You know what's really good for making you feel youthful and revitalised? Having a stroke! Haven't had a stroke? Never mind – now you can simulate one with the stroke-o-matic! This piece of dickfuckery claims to 'exercise' your face, leading to, I don't know, a muscly face?

In reality, it does this -

I'm assuming you don't use this just before a big night out. You probably have to do it before leaving the house. But if you're willing to sit at home and have 20,011 strokes, then you too could end up with a face that's, well, the same really. Apart from slightly electrocuted.

3. Foot Sander

I've had countless dates ruined, and countless broken hearts, and all because my feet needed sanding. And I never knew. More fool me. Thank God for the JML Pedi Pro – a revolutionary new foot sander, or whatever it's called. You simply switch it on, sand your feet the desired amount, then empty your disgusting foot shavings in the bin.

I don't know why they always show this bloody advert at teatime – the last thing I want to see while I'm eating is someone's discarded foot skin being emptied out into the bin. Especially if I've been on the beer the night before, then I really don't want that.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure my feet don't need sanding down – I have pretty normal feet without ever needing a foot sander. And don't give me all this “Oh women in 1950 used sandpaper on their feet, Britain today has lost its backbone”, - that is not true. Feet are for walking on, and drawing on in biro. And occasionally poking the mister in the head. They are not for sanding.

4. No No (a foot sander, but for your hairy bits)

WOMEN! Are you tired of looking like Tom Selleck? Then give us money, and we'll give you another electric sander to go along with the one you already bought for your feet, only it's not for your feet, honestly. All women need every body part sanding down until there is only a stump left.

So how does 'No No' work? The simple answer is it doesn't*.

I assume it's meant to rub your hair so hard that it gets friction burns and dies, or until it's so scared it actually starts running away of its own accord.

Hairy women, let me give you a tip – Nair cream for your face, and men's razors for your naughty, unspeakable bits. Rubbing your nether regions with a sander won't work, unless you're a pervert and you're trying to do something entirely different.

5. Spray on hair

SUPERMillionHair claims to revolutionise the fight against baldness, by introducing a spray that covers up bald patches in both men and women (as long as your hair is approximately 1 inch long). 

It sticks to the hair you do have in a magical new way. And what do you do if you're Ross Kemp? You kick the crap out of the company who made it, that's what.

I cannot be the first to say that I think the SUPERMillionHair secret formula is probably Bisto. It certainly works for brown hair. And blondes? Well, they have chicken Bisto. They don't have a red version, or a purple version, judging by this colour palette on the SUPERMillionHair website

Maybe they're waiting until sweet n sour or blueberry versions become available**

*Disclaimer - I have no scientific evidence that NONO doesn't work - only the fact that it looks shit.

** I'm assuming the grey/silver variety is currently made from stuff they have gathered from old ashtrays.

Old adverts I love part 4

This is developing into an ongoing saga, so parts 1, 2 and 3 can be found below -

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

I keep stumbling across adverts I used to go nuts over as a kid. I only stumble across them by accident, while I happen to be googling '80s adverts'. This latest part of my journey into insanity is a collection of adverts that have stayed with me for the creepy music and/or the general mood they evoke. For some reason these adverts have become etched in my memory in slightly unsettling ways. This might become easier to explain as we go along -

1. Castrol GTX -

It's the music, man. Seriously. Probably the dark room containing liquid with a life of its own doesn't help either. I was transfixed by this advert as a pup, it looked nightmarish and dystopian to me, a bit like how the future was going to look when everyone died and all that was left was some oil that ran round doing what it wanted.

2. St Ivel Gold -

A very relaxing Enya type track accompanies someone windsurfing down a road, if that's even a thing. I think the general message is that if you eat St Ivel Gold low fat spread, you'll feel relaxed enough to not care if you're sailing into oncoming traffic.

3. Sanatogen -

I don't know why this used to creep me out. I think it was probably the weird scribbly animation, where things change into people and back into things, and all the time some woman is asking you if you feel all right, in an oddly threatening way.

4. BSB satellite TV -

Dear lord, where do I start with this? The weird irrelevant wolf thing at the beginning? The apocalyptic lighting and soundtrack? And what is that kid laughing at out of his bedroom window? This advert would be scary enough even if it was for something mundane like toilet roll. As it is, it was for the unknown and mysterious 'satellite TV' – no one quite knew what it was meant to be or how it was meant to work – just that it was all going on completely undetected, unless you bought a special magic box, and then you could be party to all kinds of secrets, and programmes broadcast live from other dimensions. That's how it felt, anyway.

5. P&O ferries -

This one is the creepiest, because I seem to have imagined it. Ok – back in the 80s/early 90s I SWEAR I remember an advert similar to the animation above, except it had the following song playing over the top of it -

I've never been as sure of anything as I am that this advert was real, yet no record of it exists, and no record exists of “La Mer” ever being used in an advert for anything. But this raises two questions. One – how the hell have I known that song my whole life? Two – if P&O didn't use this song, why the hell not? It was perfect for their European ferry ads. This fake advert has puzzled me for years. Do you guys ever have something you remembered really clearly, only to find out it never existed? Or is it just me? Am I actually insane? I need a cup of tea now.

5 old adverts I love part 3

I used to think I wasn’t the kind of person to be influenced by adverts. Recently I’m starting to see how wrong I was. I did backflips in Asda the other day, because they’d started selling Um Bongo again, which I’m 99% sure was down to the Um Bongo song. I don’t know what it is that makes me so happy about watching companies from yesteryear trying to flog me their tat, but it does.

Since this seems to be accidentally turning into a series, you can find parts 1 and 2 or my adverts extravaganza here and here. Today I’m going to write about five adverts with insanely catchy songs attached to them. The genius of these adverts was that people (and by people, I mean me) are still singing the accompanying jingles twenty years on. It’s all very well having an expensive and arty ‘concept’ advert, but what good is that if no one can ever remember what's being advertised? If I was making an advert, I’d go for a catchy tune and a cartoon character singing the name of my product a million times over a dolphin having sex with a chessboard, or whatever.

I present to you, in no particular order – five advert jingles they really should release as singles –

1. Milky Way

I know they brought this advert back in recent years. However, they brought it back in a stupid cropped form, thus taking all the context out of the advert. Nowadays it’s just a red car and a blue car having a race. Not much happens, and in some versions we don’t even get to see the part where the bridge collapses, thus negating the whole point of the advert, which is ‘if you eat Milky Ways instead of lard, you won’t get fat’. Still, at least 7/10 for effort.

2. Sunkist

Late 80s/early 90s summer power ballading at its best. You’ve got surfboards, you’ve got hair gel, you’ve got guys called Brad frolicking in crashing waves with girls called Cindy. And, bizarrely, a can of Sunkist balancing on a girl’s bottom. No doubt cashing in on the Neighbours/Home and Away inspired ‘everyone wants to be a beach bunny’ wave of hysteria, the Sunkist ad managed to inject a wave of real sunshine into our gloomy British days.

3. Birdseye potato waffles

Undoubtedly, the only part anyone ever remembers from this song is the last line, followed by the cuckoo clock chime. But had you been paying attention to the rest of the song, you’d have learned that Birdseye potato waffles go with all kinds of things, from cheese to chilli to burgers to eggs, with about a bajillion things inbetween. You could probably eat them with raw petrol and they’d taste nice.

4. Crisp N Dry

A badass jazz/blues/skiffle number complete with singing nuns. Ok, the nuns aren’t singing, but if they were they’d be awesome. Let’s face it, nuns liven up any advert. The main message of this song is that with Crisp N Dry cooking oil, your food won’t end up tasting like it’s smeared with lard and therefore from the North of England.

5. Lilt

A cool reggae journey through your average Carribean village. Apparently, in your average Carribean village, not only does everyone stand around all day doing no work, but they also have a ‘Lilt-man’. I’m assuming this is in place of a milkman, and that the residents of this village substitute Lilt for milk in all areas of their life. I’m assuming they have Lilt in their tea, and Lilt on their cornflakes.  This is all well and good, but at least a milkman wouldn’t just ride around throwing bottles of milk at your head, which you just happen to be lucky enough to catch.

Um Bongo!

Look what's back!

I just bought this triple pack of bad boys from Asda, and they're delicious. They also still contain all the fruit mentioned in the Um Bongo song -

I just thought this was important and that I should share it with the world. Maybe next week they'll bring back Gino Ginelli ice cream!

3 spoiled bitches in UK adverts

Right now, there are loads of adverts here in the UK that piss me the hell off. All the stupid Match.com and E-harmony adverts that feature beige women talking about how they’re single. Let me tell you, I’m not surprised any of you are single. At all. The weird Confused.com advert that rips off Y.M.C.A., which makes me mute my TV every single time. Anything to do with Oak Furniture Land. Oh great, the bloody Confused.com advert is on my TV even as I write this.

But there are three adverts that really wind me up, not because they’re bad adverts, but because of the spoiled, whingeing, self-important heifers that feature in them. Every time, every single time, the women in these adverts make me want to throw all my pans at the TV. And I have five pans. Let’s see if I can get to the end of this post without combusting with rage.

Spoiled cow #1 - Trivago

This woman’s boyfriend is taking her on holiday to Barcelona. That’s nice of him isn’t it? Apparently not. Apparently he’s a prick who hates her because he dares to suggest hotel rooms that might be below her exacting standards. First she gets pissy because he might accidentally book a twin room rather than a double room. That’s sort of understandable, although I bet he really did want separate beds, because she snores and stinks of piss. But what really gets me is when, once he finds a double room, it’s still not good enough for Her Majesty because she wants something "more stylish”. What? Pardon? So your nice boyfriend is taking you on holiday, and you’re going to sit in the hotel room and moan that the wallpaper is the wrong colour? Do yourself a favour boyfriend, dump this bitch and take someone else to Barcelona. Someone like, I don’t know, Suzie Dent from Countdown. She seems nice. Anyway, how much time is his dumbass girlfriend planning to spend staring at the walls of the hotel room? I hope she ends up spending all her time doing just that. I hope she eats a bad paella, or gets a sunburnt arse, and has to lie there looking at her lovely beige walls while he’s out having fun with Senoritas. 

Spoiled cow #2 - M&Ms

This bitch isn’t ill, and she doesn’t appear to be pregnant. She’s just laying there on the sofa, like the lazy-assed skank she is, watching World’s Stupidest Boyfriends (which her boyfriend is starring in). The only effort she ever expends is craning her neck so her Stepford boyfriend can get sucked in by her puppy dog eyes routine. She gazes at him with her eyeballs, and says “I could really go for a snack.” No please, thank you, nothing. And, like a programmed manservant, he goes and has a fight with some M&Ms to obey her order. So you want a ‘snack’ do you? Why, been tiring yourself out laying there watching Sky Living?

When the manservant presents her with her ‘snack’, she just looks at him, as if to say “well, it’s not going to chew itself is it?” I hate her.

Spoiled cow #3 - Nescafe Azera

Here we have it, the last in a triple bill of women expecting the males they’ve acquired to run round like well trained dogs. This one’s lazier than the M&Ms woman, because she can’t even be bothered to get out of bed. Which I bet she’s pooed in because she’s so lazy.

This time, not only is there no please or thank you, there isn’t even a question. She just turns to her boyfriend/butler and says “Guess what I want.” I know what she wants, but unfortunately I don’t know where she is to be able to give her a slap.

She talks to him like Barbara Woodhouse would talk to an Alsatian. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d then started shouting “And fetch the paper, there’s a good boy! Good boy!”

She demands that the poor boyfriend goes out in the pouring rain to get her a cup of coffee. This is despite the fact that they have a kettle at home, not to mention she has a body with which to take herself out for coffee. But then, why should she go fetch her own coffee when Fido’s there to do it for her?

This advert’s one slightly redeeming feature is that Fido doesn’t actually go out to get coffee – he just makes some coffee in the kettle and lies about it. This is sort of ok, but what he really should have done was thrown her out of the window into the street and shouted “There, now you’re closer to the coffee shop than I am. While you’re out get me a Mars Bar, thanks!”

Wow, I guess I did make it to the end of the list without exploding. Well done me. I shall reward myself with a nice cup of coffee, WHICH I SHALL MAKE MYSELF, AND WHICH I SHALL NOT USE ANY OF MY FEMALE LEGS AND BOOBS TO GET.

Pages from the 1993 Argos Christmas catalogue!

Look what I've got! A while back, me and the mister decided to go mad spending more money than we could reasonably justify on Ebay, acquiring a shitload of old catalogue scans on CD-Rom. I'll just give you a minute to let that sink in. Yeah, you wish you were me.

First up we have the obligatory "generic crap" pages, featuring all the stuff you never knew you wanted, because you didn't. Who could have lived without some cheapo bubble bath featuring the head of one of the gladiators off of Gladiators? Or a teapot in the shape of what appears to be a Nazi bear? I do, however, covet the Sonic The Hedgehog quilt cover, rather badly, and also the Helix treasure chest cash box thing, just because.

Next up - the latest in cutting edge technology. Scotch video tapes anyone? Regular readers will know how much I love the Scotch brand, with its Derek Guyler voiced skellington mascot. You really can re-record and not fade away! Also of note is the boombox - beloved talisman of all rubbish thugs in 80s movies. Ok so it's not really a boombox, but come on, it is a bit.

Disney videos! All the classics are here, like The Jungle Book, and The Little Mermaid, and... oh wait. It's not The Little Mermaid, it's a crappy spinoff featuring "43 minutes" of non stop fun. I think I've seen one of these episodes before. Ariel catches crabs.

Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes upon the following pages. I have nothing remotely derogatory to say about them. Indeed, I love them like my own brothers.

And finally - Barbie! I definitely had the one at the top, where you paint stars onto her hair. I think I still have that frilly gold skirt thing somewhere too. But I don't ever remember having 'My big fat Gypsy wedding' Barbie. Also, on the other page, why has Sindy got her legs crossed like she needs a wee?

Have I made your day sufficiently awesome now? Good.

5 more of my favourite old adverts - featuring apricots, keys and skiddies

Ok, time for five more adverts that I loved as a kid -

1. Clarks Magic Steps

For those of you not in the UK, Clarks are a chain of shops that sell sturdy leather shoes. They are also famous for having those scary foot measuring machines that look like they're going to chop your feet off, but you have to stick your feet into them anyway because your mum told you to.
Back in the day, Clarks' Magic Steps were the thing to wear on your feet if you were a small girl. These are they -

They also came with some kind of plastic key. I don't remember much about the key, but I'm pretty sure it unlocked other dimensions of space.
The advert featured a girl being transformed into a princess by virtue of her imagining that she's a princess. She has to climb a tree so save some smurfs, or something. Her magic key unlocks a box full of sunlight, then hey presto, she's back in the shop having her foot chopped off by that machine.

My only regret is that they don't make Magic Steps for adults. Nowadays I have a pair of knee high boots and my house keys, and they don't hold quite the same magical appeal.

2. Aquafresh toothpaste -

There is something inherently awesome about stripey toothpaste, more specifically toothpaste that will match your pyjamas (as long as they're red, white or blue). I could never quite put my finger on why I loved this advert so much; I think it must have just been the novelty value of patterned toothpaste. Pretty nifty song too.

3. Bluebird A la carte kitchen -

I had one of these, and they're every bit as ace as they look. In the advert, a small child is cooking what looks like a swiss roll on some shit. I don't remember my parents ever letting me have real food to play with, probably with good reason. Instead I had to make do with my mountain of plastic play food that I had, including things like bright orange hot dogs, and 'Snazzo' brand "catsup".

Also, note the washing machine at the other side of the kitchen. That thing clearly has no room in it to hold a decent load of washing. Bluebird missed a trick here - they could have installed a real washing machine, so that girl's parents could have made her do her own washing. That would teach her not to have skiddies.

4. Vitalite -

You know the ones - a cartoon sun wearing sunglasses, going round singing about cheap margarine. Why was the sun wearing sunglasses anyway? He was made of sun, every bit of him, including his eyeballs, so surely some thin plastic lenses were going to offer little protection?

Also, when I was eleven, we had to make a comic strip in Art, featuring a famous cartoon character, all about how to make things out of clay. I chose the Vitalite sun guy to star in mine, because he was really easy to draw. My version still looked terrible though.

5. Um Bongo -

All together now -

Way down deep in the middle of the Congo

a hippo took an apricot a guava and a mango

he stuck it with the others and he danced a dainty tango

the rhino said I know we'll call it Um Bongo!

Um Bongo Um Bongo they drink it in the Congo

the python pick the passion fruit

the marmoset the mandarin

the parrot painted packets that the whole caboodle landed in

so when it comes to sun and fun and goodness in the jungle

they all prefer the sunny funny one they call UM BONGO!

My favourite 80s adverts

Sometimes, when I have nothing better to do, I'll sit around in my pants watching ad breaks and continuity from the 80s. What do you mean how the hell did I ever get a boyfriend? Anyway, since I have a free afternoon, I've decided to write about my favourite adverts. Because it's too cold to sit around in my pants.

Here are my top 5 pieces of corporate flogging propoganda from back when I was a nipper -

5. Smiths crisps -

Cuteness overload, and that's why I love it so much. I've always been a sucker for cute food, be it parachuting chicken McNuggets, or singing vegetables on Sesame Street. You'd think it would be the other way round, and that I'd refuse to eat such darlings. Not so - "Oh look, it's talking and has pretty eyes, I'm going to nom that."

4. Terrys Pyramint -

NO ONE ever remembers this advert, ever. For years I thought the Pyramint was made by Fry's, which was hell in the days before Google knew everything. I never actually had a Pyramint, but apparently they were like eating a whole box of After Eights in one go, with the added bonus of not having to wait until after eight o clock to eat it.

3. Trebor Softmints - 

With an ace song performed by Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel. I only know this because I used to go out with someone who was really into Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel. I ask you, have you ever met anyone who's "really into Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel"? He was a bit strange. Although he must have been really, to want to go out with me.

2. Kia Ora - 

Here's how I think Kia Ora Ltd and Wefuckwithyourmindadvertising plc came up with the concept for this advert -

1. Everyone in the meeting writes down their worst nightmares on scraps of paper.

2. They also grab an encyclopedia and, blindfolded, point to random articles, which also get transferred to scraps of paper.

3. All the paper goes into a hat.

4. The men stand around the hat, naked

5. The women run the cold tap until all the men need to piss.

6. The men piss in the hat, and whichever pieces of paper come out the wettest are incorporated into the advert's storyboard.

There is no other explanation.

1. Scotch video tapes -

Not only my favourite advert, but one of my favourite things to watch, ever. As regular readers know, I love skellingtons. And one of the few ways a skellington can be improved is by having it sing a Rolling Stones cover with the voice of Please Sir's Derek Guyler. He's even wearing a tie, because he's so swish. I wish Scotch would bring this advert back, but that would involve beginning to mass produce video tapes again, at enormous cost, and probably no one would even buy them. I would though, because I love skellingtons.