vintage commercials Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

Happy Birthday to the United States Air Force!

On September 18, 1947, the U.S. Air Force officially became an independent branch of the military. So today marks its 79th birthday.

I thought this early-1950s recruiting commercial was a great way to look back at just how young the Air Force still was at the time.

The cartoon wasn’t simply advertising enlistment. It was recruiting young men for the Aviation Cadet program, where successful candidates could become pilots or other flying officers.

And check out the sales pitch: jets, travel, officer’s wings — and more than $5,000 a year after graduation.

There was a reason the Air Force was advertising so aggressively. Historical records show it was dealing with a serious shortage of Aviation Cadet applicants in the early 1950s. Requirements were adjusted, the minimum age was lowered to 19, and recruiting teams were sent onto college campuses looking for candidates.

It’s also easy to forget just how new everything was. The Air Force hadn’t even celebrated its tenth birthday yet, and the Air Force Academy didn’t exist when this recruiting push began. Congress wouldn’t authorize the Academy until 1954.

And since we’ve been paying more attention to the music in these old commercials, I looked into that too. I couldn’t find a reliable credit for the jingle used in this particular ad, so I’m not going to guess.

But here’s something I never knew about the official Air Force Song.

Robert Crawford wrote what became “Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder” in 1939 — and according to Air Force history, he first came up with the melody while flying from Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Trenton, New Jersey.

Even better, the first page of Crawford’s original handwritten score eventually went much farther than Bridgeport or Trenton — Apollo 15 carried it to the surface of the Moon in 1971.

From a brand-new independent service in 1947 to the Moon barely 24 years later.

Pepsi’s “You’ve Got a Lot to Live Campaign

Do you remember this Pepsi jingle? Because this one was designed to do a lot more than sell you a bottle of soda.

This 1970 commercial, called “Portrait of America,” was part of Pepsi’s “You’ve Got a Lot to Live, and Pepsi’s Got a Lot to Give” campaign. Watching it again, what strikes me is how little time they spend actually selling Pepsi. Instead we see racing, boats, city streets, beaches, children, couples and ordinary Americans simply living their lives.

And then there’s that song.

The music was written by Joseph Brooks, who years later wrote “You Light Up My Life.” Pepsi described the sound as “gospel rock” or “jubilation rock,” with a big communal chorus meant to sound hopeful and uplifting. It reportedly grew out of a protest song Brooks had written before being reshaped into the Pepsi theme.

That makes a lot more sense when you remember what America felt like around 1970. BBDO realized that the carefree “beautiful young people doing beautiful things” advertising of the earlier Pepsi Generation no longer completely reflected a country watching war and social unrest every night on television. Their new goal was to be real and involving, even searching the country for real people doing real things.

Maybe that’s why this jingle stuck. It didn’t tell us Pepsi tasted better. It told us we had a lot to live for.

Do you remember hearing this one on television?

Ford Once Used “Fix It Yourself” to Sell Cars

Could you imagine a car manufacturer running this commercial today?

This is a 1969 commercial introducing the 1970 Ford Maverick, with a group of American Airlines stewardesses practically taking the car apart and putting it back together.

There was actually a reason for it.

Ford marketed the Maverick as “The Simple Machine.” It was supposed to be simple to buy, simple to drive, simple to maintain and — most interesting to me — simple to repair yourself.

And Ford wasn’t kidding.

Period advertising proudly pointed out that the Maverick owner’s manual contained 24 pages explaining maintenance jobs owners could perform themselves, including changing spark plugs and adjusting ignition timing. Ford even advertised that the fenders and grille could be replaced in a matter of minutes.

Think about how different that sales pitch sounds today.

Modern cars are safer, cleaner and far more sophisticated, but they’re also filled with computers, sensors, electronic modules and software. Some repairs now require proprietary diagnostic equipment, programming or electronic authorization. The Federal Trade Commission has even examined manufacturer restrictions involving parts, repair information, diagnostic software and components electronically paired to individual vehicles.

So while you can certainly still work on your own car, there are a lot more barriers between the owner and the machine.

Ford was selling almost the opposite idea in 1969:

Buy our car because you CAN work on it yourself.

The strategy apparently worked. The Maverick started at $1,995, Ford reportedly received more than 22,000 orders in its first three days, and nearly 579,000 were produced during that first model year.

A car company encouraging you to grab a wrench and fix your brand-new car yourself.

Do you miss when cars were simple enough that you could actually work on them in the driveway?

MIGHTY MOUSE & ZESTABS — WHEN CARTOON HEROES SOLD VITAMINS

Seeing Mighty Mouse selling vitamins takes me right back to an era when our Saturday-morning cartoon heroes seemed capable of selling just about anything. In this commercial, Mighty Mouse gets clobbered by a cat, takes a Zestabs chewable vitamin and suddenly turns the tables — not exactly subtle advertising, but certainly memorable!

There’s actually much more history behind this little commercial than I expected. Zestabs came from Sauter Laboratories, a division of pharmaceutical giant Hoffmann-La Roche. That strange “Mighty Mouse — Nutley, New Jersey” slate at the end makes sense once you learn that Roche’s longtime American headquarters and research complex was in Nutley.

The campaign also arrived just as people were beginning to question how products were marketed to children. Zestabs came in fruit flavors and later chocolate, and groups such as Action for Children’s Television objected to advertisements that made vitamin pills look and taste too much like candy. By 1972, Hoffmann-La Roche said it had stopped placing its vitamin commercials inside children’s programs, although Zestabs advertising continued elsewhere on television.

And here’s one connection I never expected: years before Pretty in Pink or Two and a Half Men, Jon Cryer says his first paying acting job at age four was a Zestabs commercial.

FUNYUNS — THE SNACK THAT ALMOST WASN’T CALLED FUNYUNS

This commercial takes me right back to when a bag of Funyuns seemed like one of the strangest snacks in the chip aisle. They looked like little onion rings, tasted like onions and even had a name that sounded like somebody made it up on the spot. As it turns out, somebody pretty much did!

Funyuns were introduced by Frito-Lay in 1969, created by employee George Wade Bigner. But here’s something I never knew: Funyuns weren’t supposed to be called Funyuns. The original name was OnYums, but that name was already taken. Advertising copywriter Jim Albright came up with “Funyuns” instead, and more than half a century later we’re still calling them that.

And listen closely to the music in these early commercials. The tune came from “I Love Onions,” a wonderfully odd 1966 novelty song recorded by Susan Christie. The song actually made the Billboard Hot 100 before its melody was adapted to help sell Funyuns.

Another great connection: in 1971, a young Roger Enrico went to work marketing Funyuns. He eventually became CEO of PepsiCo and was one of the men behind Pepsi’s blockbuster Michael Jackson era. Not a bad career beginning for a guy working on onion-flavored rings!

And yes, Funyuns are still around today.

“Ever Eat a Pine Tree?” — The Commercial That Turned Euell Gibbons Into a Punchline

This may be one of those commercials where one sentence became much more famous than the product being advertised.

Euell Gibbons looks into the camera and asks:

“Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible.”

And if you were watching television in the early ’70s, apparently there was no escaping what happened next!

I found contemporary FTC records for this exact Grape-Nuts commercial dating it to 1972, even though it’s often identified today as a 1974 spot. Gibbons wasn’t some eccentric actor they hired either. He was a respected author and wild-food expert whose Stalking the Wild Asparagus had been around since 1962.

But that pine-tree line turned him into a pop-culture phenomenon.

John Byner spoofed him on The Carol Burnett Show, Johnny Carson made tree-eating jokes, and Match Game used Euell Gibbons repeatedly as material. One question joked that he had eaten the television camera! Even The Electric Company created “Early Gibbons,” who ate stumps, sticks and stones.

Gibbons even got into the act himself. When Sonny and Cher handed him what appeared to be a wooden plaque, he took a bite out of it. It was actually made to be edible.

And all those jokes certainly didn’t hurt Grape-Nuts. By the end of 1973, the advertising trade press reported that his commercials had increased sales by about 30 percent.

There was one unexpected ending. In 1975, the FTC stopped commercials showing wild plants as edible because regulators worried children might imitate Gibbons and eat something dangerous.

More than 50 years later, say Euell Gibbons to someone who remembers the ’70s and there’s a pretty good chance they’ll answer with something about eating a pine tree.

Do you remember the original commercial — or do you remember all the jokes about Euell Gibbons even more?

Happy Meals

Here’s a commercial showing the beginning of something that eventually became such a normal part of childhood that it’s hard to imagine McDonald’s without the Happy Meal.

This commercial is from 1979, the year McDonald’s took the Happy Meal nationwide. But here’s something that confused me at first: the Happy Meal actually dates to both 1977 and 1979.

McDonald’s was already test-marketing Happy Meals in selected cities beginning in 1977, and the company even filed the HAPPY MEAL trademark that year. Those early tests gave McDonald’s time to refine the meal, the packaging and the prizes.

Then in June 1979, the Happy Meal officially went national with the colorful Circus Wagon boxes. That’s why 1979 is usually considered its official birthday.

And those first boxes weren’t tied to Disney, a movie or the latest cartoon. Inside you got a hamburger or cheeseburger, fries, a drink and McDonaldland cookies, along with prizes like an ID bracelet, Doodler ruler or McPuzzle Lock.

I also didn’t realize how complicated the “who invented the Happy Meal?” story was. Advertising executive Bob Bernstein said the activity-covered box was inspired by watching his son read cereal boxes at breakfast. But in Guatemala, McDonald’s operator Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño had already created a smaller children’s meal called the Menú Ronald, complete with a gift.

And McDonald’s wasn’t even the first burger chain to try the idea. Burger Chef introduced its Funmeal in 1973 and later sued McDonald’s over the similarities.

What amazes me is how quickly it all took off. By the end of 1979, McDonald’s was already doing movie tie-ins, and from there the toy became almost as important as the food.

Do you remember your first Happy Meal — and were you more excited about the hamburger or the toy?

Before Taxi, Judd Hirsch Was Selling Us Listerine

Take another look at the young radio DJ in this commercial. That’s Judd Hirsch, years before Taxi, Ordinary People and the long career we know him for today.

This spot appears to be from around 1970, when Hirsch was still trying to establish himself as an actor and doing commercials to make a living. What I didn’t know was that before acting, he had earned a degree in physics and actually worked as an engineer. A few years after this commercial, his career began taking off, and by 1978 he was Alex Rieger on Taxi, eventually winning two Emmys for the role.

But the other star here may really be Listerine’s advertising.

Most companies tried desperately to convince us their products tasted good. Listerine basically said the opposite. Its famous campaign was “The taste people hate twice a day.” In other words, yes, it tastes awful — but that must mean it works!

And boy did we believe that.

Listerine had actually been around since 1879, originally developed as an antiseptic rather than an everyday mouthwash. By the 1920s, advertising helped make the word “halitosis” part of the American vocabulary and convinced generations that bad breath could ruin everything from a date to a marriage.

Looking back, I think the burning sensation became part of Listerine’s identity. You swished it around, tried desperately to make it the full 30 seconds, and then came up gasping for air!

And sitting there in this old commercial is a young Judd Hirsch, probably with no idea that millions of us would someday know him as one of television’s most familiar faces.

Did you recognize Judd Hirsch right away — and be honest, how long could you actually keep old-fashioned Listerine in your mouth?

When we were growing up, did we really think Ragu was authentic Italian food?

I think a lot of us probably did — or at least we never questioned it. The commercial ended with “That’s Italian!”, there was an Italian family gathered around the table, Mom or Grandma knew good sauce when she tasted it, and that jar somehow represented the Old World.

And the interesting part is that Ragu really did have authentic Italian roots. Assunta and Giovanni Cantisano came to America from Italy in 1914, settled in Rochester, New York, and in 1937 began selling Assunta’s homemade family sauce from their home.

But by the time we were seeing commercials like this one, Ragu had become something quite different — a huge American packaged-food brand. It went national around 1970 and absolutely dominated the jarred spaghetti-sauce business. By 1975, Ragu reportedly controlled about 65 percent of the prepared spaghetti-sauce market.

And those commercials were a big reason why. Beginning in the 1970s, millions were spent selling us “That’s Italian”, using the family, the kitchen, Mom and Grandma and all the familiar Italian-American imagery to make opening a jar feel like somebody had been simmering sauce all afternoon.

Of course, what Italians traditionally call ragù can be very different. The official Bolognese version is a slow-cooked meat sauce with pancetta, vegetables, wine and relatively little tomato — quite a distance from the red tomato sauce most of us poured from a jar.

So maybe Ragu wasn’t exactly Italy in a jar. It was really an Italian immigrant family recipe that evolved into a very American idea of Italian food.

And apparently the advertising worked on us pretty well!

Be honest — growing up, did you think Ragu was authentic Italian sauce, or did your family insist homemade was the only real thing?

Jiffy Pop — Was It More Fun to Make Than Eat?

It’s Friday night, and this one brings back that whole feeling of the weekend finally being here. Maybe there was a movie coming on TV, maybe we were allowed to stay up a little later, and somehow popcorn just seemed to belong with Friday night. And if somebody pulled out a Jiffy Pop, making the popcorn became part of the entertainment. Standing at the stove, shaking that pan back and forth and watching the foil slowly puff up was almost as much fun as eating what was inside.

There was popcorn, and then there was Jiffy Pop, where half the entertainment was watching that aluminum foil grow into a giant silver ball.

Looking this one up, I found that Jiffy Pop goes all the way back to 1959, but it wasn’t actually the first popcorn sold this way. A product called E-Z Pop had been around since 1954, and its manufacturer eventually sued Jiffy Pop’s makers for patent infringement. The case went all the way to a federal appeals court, where Jiffy Pop won in 1963 partly because its foil expanded differently.

The magician connection in these 1970s commercials wasn’t just advertising make-believe either. Harry Blackstone Jr. was a genuine professional magician, and in 1976 Jiffy Pop was promoting the product as “the magic treat.” Blackstone came from quite a magic family — his father was The Great Blackstone, one of America’s best-known illusionists and a contemporary of Harry Houdini.

Harry Jr. went on to become a major star himself. He was twice named Magician of the Year by the Magic Castle, took his show to Broadway in 1980 and later donated his family’s famous floating-light-bulb illusion to the Smithsonian.

And Jiffy Pop certainly outlasted these commercials. It even had a memorable role in the opening of Scream in 1996.

Best of all, Jiffy Pop is still being made today. Some products really don’t need much improving — watching that foil balloon get bigger was the whole experience!

Since it’s Friday night, this seems like the perfect one to ask:

What memories does Jiffy Pop bring back for you — family movie nights, staying up late watching TV, or trying not to burn the bottom?