h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is the one where the mother is pulling the washing out when the son aged 20ish, hasjust come back from the Glastonbury festival.The clothes are covered in dirt and food and mud. The mother takes one look at them and says - 'It wasn't like that in MY day' The boy smiles, that teenage, we're so cool nowadays, smile. 'The mother adds ' No, in my day, we didn't wear any clothes'....

My favourite ad at the moment is the Guinness Surfing ad where white horses are part of the breaking waves. A real work of art that one, it should win an award. A couple of years ago Guinness also ran a series of 'surreal' ads with Rutger Heyer, [sorry if thats spelled incorrectly, I can barely pronounce it never mind spell it] They were pretty good too but Guinness adverts have always been well regarded I think. Obviously their marketing men know where their towels are.
Going back even further, some of the ads I would like to see again were screened on Rediffusion TV on Saturday nights. They were for Esso and Shell petrols. The Esso ones were cartoons of the Esso sign accompanied by a jingle exhorting us to 'Call at the Esso sign' because 'The Esso sign meant happy motoring' while the Shell ones were a sort of short 'Travelogue' narrated by John Betjeman.
Sorry about these fits of nostalgia, I'll go and lay down for a while, it'll soon pass. Best wishes A.M.

Had a lay down, still no good, woke up with another one, which were the B.P. [British Petroleum] ads in the sixties to 'Put a tiger in your tank' They gave away 'tiger tails' with the petrol, which were six inch [or so] long pieces of fabric with an elastic loop to attach to your petrol filler neck on the car to look as if the tigers tail was hanging out. Almost half the cars on the road sported one in the end it seemed. I have to admit I'm not 100% certain it was B.P. for that one though, it might take a bit of research. I think they still use a tiger in their advertising to this day. And there's more...
I thimk it was Shell that gave away 'stick on bullet holes' around the time of some of the first Bond movies, might have been 'Goldfinger' They were clear transfers that stuck on a cars window glass and looked as if it had taken some hits in their 'escapes' Some cars were covered in the things, alough what wannabe Bonds were doing escaping in Morris Travellers and the like I shudder to think.
Completley off the petrol theme an old detergent ad that sticks in the mind was Surf and Mrs Bradshaw, probably because it went on for years.. the 'front man' was Mrs B's lodger who who extolled her and Surfs virtues. It always involved him holding a pillow case or the like up to a window and uttering the immortal lines 'Hold it up to the light, not a stain and shining white' The series of ads ran for so long he must have made a career out of it. Funny thing though, you never got to see Mrs B.

There was also the 'Cadburys Milk Tray' ad which involved proto Bond George Lazenby jumping out of Helicopters, Windows and off Cliffs etc and creeping into some poor womans room while she was asleep to deliver a box of chocolates 'All because the lady loves Milk Tray'.
Another ad for cigarettes which became a bit of a legend in its own lunchtime was for Strand cigarettes. The' lonely man' would wander around wet city streets, presumably The Strand in London to the accompanyment of rather wonky music which would build to a crescendo as he lit up a fag, and voice over reassured you that 'you are never alone with a Strand'.
Another series of ads that stood the test of time were for OXO cubes. Originally in the sixties they centred around Katie and husband Phillip who, not surprisingly I suppose came to appear rather well fed as the years went on. Most of their recepies centred around two OXO cubes and she probably did more for casseroles and stews than the sainted Delia. They were resurrected again in the eighties, this time 'Katie' was played by Linda Bellingham.
BTW The lyrics/jingle to the Esso ad was:
The Esso sign means happy motoring,
The Esso sign means happy motoring,
The Esso sign means very happy motoring,
Call at the Esso sign, for Esso Extra, extra, extra.
Those for Shell were:
You're going well,
You're going Shell,
You can be sure of Shell.
A.M.

Surely a classic. Boy climbs up an almost impossibly steep hill (with a bicycle I think) somewhere in quaintest Yorkshire just to get a loaf of bread. Hamlet cigars also did a series of amusing adverts before they were banned. Someone lights up a cigar to Air on a G-string after an embarrasing or irritating moment, I remember them well... Never bought either product though - so much for advertising.

I think that all the Carling adverts were great, some of my favorites are the one with the squirral going over the obstical course to the theme of mission impossible and the one where they are in the laundrette and the man strips to his underware, the two men opposite are reading newspapers. One says, I bet he drinks Carling black lable and the other says Nah, he doesn't was his pants. They are both naked except for the newspaper.
BTW I'm sorry if the spelling are wrong, this has always been my weakness.
Sassy.Saint ()

In addition to the Esso petrol ad's. Do you remember the fab Esso Blue Parrafin ad. With the fine wee song that went:
Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum, Esso Blue
that was my fave, great tune.
I vaguely remember a little Blue flame character, but that could just have been on the signs at the petrol stations.

I think that Esso 'Put a tiger in your tank'. Do you remember the one with the real tiger running across the beach.....

I can't be sure if it qualifies as my favourite ever ad, but coming close has to be the Kinder Egg ad from about 1982 (?) "Chocadooby...", which I found rather disturbing and spooky, and I am reminded of it by the new(ish) Fifi ad for playstations. About the same time as the Kinder ad was also the Munchies cat food ad with the cat singing Karaoke "Miaow miaow miaow".

Indeed these are by far the best ads.
The one with the surfer in the bar was the best though.(to the tune of the old spice music)

Also there is one advert that was an amalgam of 4 (or more) adverts. It started with a little cowboy pulling a big cowboy along after the little on had been lasooed by the big one.

They then went a through a garden where Ren'e and Renata wannabees were singing (the next advert) and so on.
Brilliant stuff

Rob

Peta, Yes that's right, I remember now. The tiger in the tank was Esso's. Thanks for that. I remember reading about some of the later ads with the real tiger and how they had extreme difficulty in getting it to 'perform' as they wanted. The one in the snow and jumping onto frozen ice ended up wit some camera trickery using polystyrene for ice and salt[?] for snow.
Also the Esso Blue paraffin ad had the Esso Blue dealer, Can't remember if he had a name [Fred ??] but he was also known as the Esso Blee Dooler if I remember awright.A.M.

My favourite ad was probably the Castlemaine XXXX ad with the two guys loading the tins of beer into the back of the ute. As an afterthought the driver asks fo a bottle of sweet sherry for the wife. The bottle is placed on the ute, which promply collapses under the weight. Booze-shop proprietor turns to our all-Australian hero and slowly says "reckon you overdid it with the sweet sherry, Bruce."

Next best were the Heineken ads with the kangaroo, shown during a Bond film.

A special Lifetime Achievement Award goes to Apple, because every ad they've produced has been excellent - from the first 1984 to Think Different, the Jeff Goldblum iMac ad, and now the G4 Pentagon ad. But not many of them get shown over here.

Can anyone remember a peanut adverts (probably KP) where various tense dramas were being played out only for someone to do a strange kissing type thing with their lips and the jingle
"you never kno-ow when the nibbles will strike" would play.

If I had to pick an ad it would definitely be the Guinness surfers on the white horses. £1m pounds of computer rendered graphics. Money well spent.
I like all of the Guinness adverts and the other companies ads i like are Tango from the "You've been Tangoed" ads (which were banned) to "We drink tango don't you know" to "NON tango drinkers sponge off people like you and me!"
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j