6 Old Adverts That Had Jingles

Ads don't seem to have jingles, and we might as well acknowledge that's no bad thing. But look, these days the world effectively runs on nostalgia value, so I have no intention of pretending to be ashamed about it. These days, to indulge in a bit of pointless nostalgia, or you need is YouTube and some diligent soul who'll do the research on your behalf; this will point you in the direction of things you vaguely remember, and then you'll convince yourself that these were "important parts of my childhood" rather than "stuff that was on telly for a bit." BBC 2 and Channel 4 got hours of programming out of this concept, so I don't see why I can't use it as a blog entry to pad out the "ranting about politicians" theme that's been a bit too prevalent lately.

So here we are.


1. Toshiba

Bog-standard animation that seemed wowzers at the time, even when we'd already seen Battle of the Planets. In a little flurry of cross-links I can point you towards the original "song", although I use the word loosely (here); the animation concept (here); and the neon-ified template for the design (here). That's right, this is Alexei Sayle x A-Ha x Tron, all to sell technological toys to dimwits with more money than sense. The 80s, distilled in their purest possible form. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.


"You wankers, you voted for Thatcher... you wankers, you voted for Thatcher. Hope you feel like dirt now... hope you feel like dirt now. This is all your fault. This is all your fault."


2. Kia-Ora

One of those adverts that you literally can't believe took place after, say, 1962. Growing up in a world where the golliwog has been successfully excised from history (and, to an extent, the collective consciousness), watching a string of suspiciously ethnic-looking birds volunteering themselves for slavery in exchange for orange cordial is just... actually, I don't really think there are any blanks to fill in. All I'll say is that I'm even suspecting "too orangey for crows" to be a cryptic reference to Holland's colonial past.


Believe it or not, it actually seems even worse in the context of the next entry.


3. Weetabix

Holy shit. Who came up with this one? Presumably they were created to send the Kia-ora birds back to where they come from, 'cos they bin dragging down wot used to be a proper British neighbourhood. The alternative is that some advertising types thought "Hmm, we need to get kids interested in our breakfast cereal, which has the unfortunate habit of turning into disgusting gloop as soon as a milk carton is brought within four miles of of it. How about we get some anthropomorphic Weetabix skinheads to frighten them into doing it?" This concept isn't even what bothers me most, though. The first Bix appears to say "I see a titty breakfast", and shortly after this we're introduced to a female Bix who acts a bit like she's the gang's bike; this, inevitably, leads to me thinking about the workings of Weeta-sex. Due to the aforementioned reaction of Weetabix to fluids, it must be a completely dry process... nope, now I'm imagining a human Weetabix dissolving in a flood of wheaty man-juice. Brilliant. "I'm melting... melting..." That's no way to go.


Titchy breakfast, that's definitely what he's saying. Titchy breakfast.


4. The Scotch Video Skeleton

You mean the Scottish Video Skeleton. (Shameless Stewart Lee reference)

At the time this was cheery and had a cracking jingle. Actually, it's more than a little disturbing. If you look at the prequel here, it's revealed that it's actually set at some point after 2021. So... in less than 20 years time, the earth is (presumably) a post-apocalyptic nightmare planet, the only life remaining is an ageless deathless skeleton, forced to remember happier times by watching videos, while living alone in a single dingy room. With a budgie. With an undead, skeletal, cadaverous budgie.


"I'm going to tell you how it's going to be... like Threads, or something! You're all DOOMED! DOOMED!!"


5. Ariston

Calling your company Ariston is all very well, but you then have to find something that rhymes with "on and on". They've already been forced to lapse into a different language here, as well as creating a whole new country called Britonn, and in a follow-up were forced to boast about their "three hundred servicing pers-ons." Which isn't much to boast about, and anyway, it seems like a few too many; if you need three hundred people to travel around fixing the things, then they must be bloody shite. Still, this is probably the best ad of the bunch, just 'cos it's got talking pans and stuff. See, when Nick Park did it, he got told he was a genius. Ariston give us talking saucepans, and... nobody cares. It's wrong, I tells ya. Wrong.

It's also worth nothing that the cucumbers start goosestepping when they mention Germans. Coincidentally, natch.


"And then we rearrange the sausages so that they spell 'Nazi scum!'... just a tiny amount..."


6. The Title Sequence from Mannequin

It's not an advert or anything. It's just cool.


Oh yes it is. Look, it's my fucking website, right? Piss off. Stop looking at me.