FVA's Christmas Ad-Stravaganza 2013 - Part Two of Hopefully More Than One

You know who always made the best holiday commercials? If you answered "The fast food industry," you'd be one-hundred percent correct.

I've talked about these commercials time and time again on this blog, but dammit, I've watched a lot of holiday commercials in the last month - A LOT - and none of them are as good as McDonald's or KFC.

It would stand to reason, then, that if McDonald's can make really, really good Christmas commercials, then they should be able to make a really, really good Christmas special. Well, it seems that's not really the case.



Until about fifteen minutes ago, I was not aware that McDonald's had ever done anything like this. This special aired on CBS in 1991 or 1992, and is probably as bad as you're imagining.

Here is the IMDB plot summary:

Ivy, an orphan wants a grandmother and a doll for Christmas. She mistakes a sign greeting her into a town, she jumps off a bus and shouts, "It's me, Ivy!". In the cold she looks for a grandma unsuccessfully. She finally finds a woman who always wanted children and a doll, Holly. Based on the book The Story of Holly and Ivy. 

 Seriously, that sounds terrible.

I wish that I had the stomach to watch this stupid special. I really do. As a grown man with a baby daughter, I have to sit through a lot of stuff for her sake. I love all of you, my dear readers, but not as much as I love her. You can probably find the special on YouTube, but I'm not going to search for it.

If you don't want to search for it, but you want to learn more, I found this helpful review.

That's it for me today. I'll see you again real soon!

Edit from later that night: My wife and I ended up finding this special on YouTube. We got through two minutes of it, then delared it unwatchable.

FVA's Christmas Ad-Stravaganza 2013 - Part One of Hopefully More Than One

I've decided that I want to get an early start on our FVACAS this year, and get at least one post per week in before Christmas. Maybe... just maybe... we'll see some entries from our friends along the way!

This first commercial is from Hardees.


I  actually had to look up whether or not it was the actual burger chain, or some other business which shares that name. Y'see, I'm not from 'round these here parts. Where I'm from, there was no Hardees or Carl's Jr., and so I never even knew that this chain existed until I moved to Missouri. When I arrived here, Hardees was already into their sexy-nearly-naked-woman-covered-in-delicious-condiments phase. (I Googled that, and somehow didn't get any porn...)

Anyway, it had never occurred to me that Hardees could be anything but sleazy. I have no idea when this ad aired, but I know it was sometime in the 80's. This ad is so wholesome, and it features Disney characters, kids, and old people. It's quite the stark contrast to their current advertising campaign

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This next commercial starts with Bill Cosby sneaking up and yelling at some innocent kids.




I don't really have much to say about this one, except that it features Bill Cosby and Jello. Look how much fun those kids are having! You have to admire their patience, because everyone knows that it takes forever to make Jello.

Well, friends, that's it until next week. See you then!

FVA's Halloween Extravaganza 2013!

Hello friends! You didn't think I would go for the entire year without posting something, did you?

Today, we're going to talk a little about Halloween. I don't think I really need to tell you that there have been many, many spooky commercials over the last couple of decades. Let's take a look at some of them, shall we?

This first one is a Toys 'R' Us ad from 1980. Let's watch:


 

 

One thing that immediately stands out is the music. It's a perfect mix of spooky and zany. I like the lack of a voice-over for the first half of the commercial. It's not yelling at you to buy anything. Without a word, this commercial says "Hey, it's Halloween! You better start thinking of what you want to dress up as!" (That sounds grammatically incorrect. Would that be "You better start thinking of that as which you would like to dress?")

And check out this imagery!

Oh no, the cat is throwing up 

ghosts, witches, and other scary things.

Come in here! Y'gotta see this...

(followed by...)

Oh my god, a dancing skeleton!

Geoffrey, you wacky giraffe, you didn't 

prepare me for that!

And check out some these two costumes.

Gimpy Big Bird

Gimpy Yoda

Those are probably the lamest costumes I've ever seen. Maybe they were pretty cool by 1980s standards, but I don't think they'd hold up too much today. Why would Yoda wear a t-shirt with his own image on it?

All in all, I would still call this a pretty fun commercial. It has everything: great music, spooky animation, and terrible costumes.

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The fun doesn't end there, though. That last spot, great as it was, came out about two and a half years before I was born. Here's one that I distinctly remember from, well, sometime in the 90's.

Pizza Head was a blatant Mr. Bill rip-off that Pizza Hut used from 1993 until 1997. If you're a piece of pizza, this commercial really stabs at all your nightmares!

Pizza-cutter mummy

Pizza-cutter scary picture

Pizza-cutter vampire

I forgot just how much I loved Pizza Head, which is weird when you consider that I really hate Mr. Bill.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. I've got one more commercial that I'm going to try to get to before Halloween, and if it doesn't get put up this year, it'll definitely be around next year.

Until then, have a happy Halloween!

FVA's Christmas Ad-Stravaganza - Part Two of Hopefully More Than One

Happy December, my dear readers. I found a real treat for you today!

This year, Toys"R"Us is running this new commercial campaign where these kids put on a toy-themed newscast. While I was reading some of my advertising blogs, I came upon this one "newscast" that said eighty percent of kids today don't know the classic Toys"R"Us jingle. That inspired me to look around a bit and find some old toy commercials. I found this really great one!

Now, this isn't really a Christmas commercial. I get that. But don't Toys"R"Us and Christmas go hand in hand?


This spot for Toys"R"Us (which, by the way, is really awkward to type out) first aired back in 1984. There were about a million of these commercials back in the day, each featuring that damn earworm of a jingle. This one is particularly memorable, however, because of its all-star cast. Let's take a look at two characters in particular:

This little red-haired girl may look familiar to a lot of you. That's because she's an eight year-old Jenny Lewis, singer of Rilo Kiley. You may also remember her as Haley from The Wizard. Perhaps you may not know who she is at all. That's okay too.

Jenny Lewis is cool and all, but here's someone that everyone should know.

Yep. That's Jaleel White, better known to the world as Steve Urkel from ABC's Family Matters. (Also lesser known to the world as Stefan Urquelle.) Ol' Urkle was a Friday night staple back in the day, gracing the homes of millions during ABC's TGIF block.

So there we go. Two awesome people in the same awesomely outdated commercial.

I've got a few other commercials which I'm excited to talk about, so I'll be seeing you again real soon!

FVA's Christmas Ad-Stravaganza - Part One of Hopefully More Than One

Hello, friends. It certainly has been a while. I feel like I've all but abandoned this place, but something inside me has called me back.

As I'm sure I've mentioned many times before, it's really hard coming up with new content. I have plenty of content, but I don't really have the means of making it available for this website. I spent the night trolling the Yoo-Toobs, looking for something to bring that spark back. I won't lie to you - it was hard. But friends, I think I have something now.


Back in the 1980's (and perhaps even before then?), this series of commericals for Hills Department Store played almost 'round the clock starting in November. Once you heard the sing-songy jingle, you knew that the holidays had finally arrived.

Look at the seemingly endless supply of toys! Look at the bad 80's animation! Look at the man-elf who's actually a woman! Seriously, what's not to like?

I think that I've been to Hills maybe once in my life... and even then, I don't think it was during the Christmas season. And honestly, I remember being pretty underwhelmed. I was maybe six or seven years old. We didn't have a Hills in our town, so we had to make a special trip into Buffalo.

Unfortunately, Hills went out of business in 1991. I'll never have the chance to go back, and that makes me sad. Not that I would even want to, really. I'm a grown man!

Anyway, this commercial won't mean nearly as much to you as it does to me. To you, it's probably just another commercial. To me, though, it brings up warmth and fuzziness.

I sort of have this facination with with now-defunct department stores, and I think that's something I'd like to touch on sometime in 2013.

I know it's a little early for Christmas, but I thought it'd be nice to give you a little taste. Just a little something to make your mouth water just a little.

It's been a while, friends. It feels good to be back, even if it's just for a while.