Six Great Commercials From My Childhood

By C.T. Heaney

Whatchamacallit

Probably the finest advertising jingle I've ever heard in terms of musical craftsmanship. It's the best song by the Bangles, the Go-Gos, Roxette, the B-52's, and Deee-Lite, all at the same time.






Reese's Pieces

Another great jingle, with its super-German, super-'80s nerdpop feel (although, for at least a decade, the song played in my head at double speed - "chess piecescenterpiecesmantelpiecesreesespieces" all in rapid-fire monotone).






Bubble Tape

This commercial is like Peter Gabriel's video for "Sledgehammer", in that both share the same video-collage style, but also in that no reasonable human being with any basic understanding of the art of short-form video entertainment can call them anything but sheer masterpieces.





Diet Coke Break

For as long as I can remember, whenever it has been 11:30 (AM or PM), I have referred to the time as "Diet Coke break". I do this despite the fact that I neither find construction workers sexually attractive nor drink Diet Coke, which I think tastes like bacon-caramel seawater.





Ragu Chicken Tonight

I don't know if we have a word for "retarded and insanely catchy at the same time" in the lexicon yet, but we need one. In addition to this and many other commercials, the word could be used to describe songs such as "My Humps", "Drop It Like It's Hot", and "Because I Got High". Also, did anyone ever eat this? It looks like it might have been delicious.





Weaver Chicken

This one is at least as catchtarded as the "Chicken Tonight" commercial, and far more annoying, but the phrases "elbows off the table", "take small bites", and "chew it right" inevitably jump forth from the recesses of my mental archives at any point when table manners are discussed. The tune has a Weird Al/Dr. Demento flavor to it that I think is rather more adventurous than most thirty-second jingles.



Comments

Anonymous said…
The Weaver ad seems to be of a Danny Elfman/Jeff Lynne variet