I figured an entry featuring local advertisements would be a good way for people to get to know who I am. So I decided to feature advertisements from a New Jersey legend, for two reasons: first, to get into a bit of regional history, and second, to show some great locally-made commercials from the 1980s.
Action Park was an amusement park located in Vernon, NJ, in the northern part of the state. It opened in 1978 and closed in 1996, and was known by such monikers as "Traction Park," "Accident Park," and "Class Action Park." These nicknames were not without merit. Stories of accidents and injuries became the legacy of Action Park. Action Park was also featured in multiple Weird NJ magazine stories (the guys who created Weird NJ also hosted a TV series, "Weird U.S." in 2004-05!) throughought the 1990s and 2000s (for the record, Weird NJ is a popular magazine here in the Garden State, featuring strange trips around my fair state).
The park was also known for it's commercials and catchy jingles. I don't personally have any memories of these, but they ran in the mid-80s, so I would have been too young to remember. However, thanks to the wonder that is YouTube, these legendary locally produced commercials live on!
This first one is from 1983, the year of my birth. Here we see New Jersey residents (you can tell by the accents, there's a nice mix of both north and south Jersey accents, if you have an ear for that sort of thing). The motto at that time was "There's Nothing in the World Like Action Park." Check out the awesome computer-animated graphics, too!
Here's are two more from sometime in the mid-80s, featuring all the fun stuff you can do at Action Park, as well as a toe-tapping theme song. No mention of life-threatening injury, however:
Well, my friends, that should do it for this edition of Fun Vintage Advertising. I'm looking forward to writing about other fun commercials from the past as a regular here at FVA!
0 comments:
Post a Comment