5/2/13
Ads #67: 1981
Don't hate on me for saying this, but Mrs. Clooney looked like a man in 1981. Look, I wasn't exactly Cary Grant in '81 either, so I won't pass judgment - we all have our awkward looking years. Clooney was a good looking gal in her prime - in 1981 she was 53.
I dig the short shorts and the sweatbands.... and the look of the can that screams "SUGAR FREE!". I'd love to work out in a Sugar Free Dr. Pepper running suit for $9.75 (suggested retail price $24 - what a bargain!). And all you have to do is write "Sugar Free" on a 3"X5" index card and allow 8 WEEKS for delivery.
Tell me again why women don't wear pantyhose anymore? It looks great and provides women with an "all day massage". It's a win-win in my book.
When ear buds blossom and become full ripened fruit, this is what they look like. Just add water and nicotine.
I'll bet you can guess which one of these is my favorite. The "Venice" in red-blue-yellow. That's what I call style.
Before Tyler Perry, there was Flip Wilson.
Call it a hunch, but I'm betting that this book will recommend the Westinghouse brand appliances. Also, is it really necessary to by a book on the subject? The man on the cover is taking the appliance buying business a little overboard.
Notice how the ad says that Phenylpropanolamine "has been found safe" yet was taken off the shelves for causing hemorrhagic stroke in about 500 people per year. It's also a great way to make meth.
High Point was Folger's answer to Sanka and eventually morphed into Folger's Crystals. It's mainly remembered for the Lauren Bacall commercials. Remember: "Rushing for an eight 'o clock curtain every night means giving up a lot of things - but coffee ISN'T ONE OF 'EM!"
Shopping for "Hardy Mums". Note that "Prices slightly higher west of Denver."
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Oh my God. This was like a time-capsule of my childhood. I was five going on six in 1981, and my mom had Browsabouts, my grandma drank High Point...and I now have the long-forgotten Coronet jingle back in my head. THANK YOU for this! :D
ReplyDeleteGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I've tried to years to get that Coronet jingle out of my head... and now it's RIGHT BACK IN THERE!
ReplyDeleteThanks a &^!&!*!*(&*!!!**!() bunch, Gilligan!
Wonderful trip through time!
ReplyDeleteIs the girl in the pantyhose ad Marina Sirtis from Star Trek Next Generation?
ReplyDeleteNo it is skater Peggy Flemming.
DeleteThe photos and the layout make it look like she HAS to dance. Obsessively. Robotically. It's really irritating. I think girls have abandoned pantyhose because somebody told them they should. Girls can be very fad-conscious. A little more than men. "Stop wearing pantyhose or you are not a high-fashion, on-the-go, liberated gal." "OK."
DeleteGoing to the grocery store and the L'eggs eggs always had a prominent display area. Women have gone back to wearing hose more often than they did a decade ago but it will probably never go back to the glory days of the '80's.
ReplyDeleteI have a radio commercial for L'eggs from 1981 that's part of the same ad campaign.
ReplyDeleteI think my mom or older sister had those red/blue/yellow shoes you like so much.
I love the Hushpuppies.
ReplyDeleteI don't get why my fellow women won't wear pantyhose either. I walked through the living room while mom was watching that moronic "Millionaire Matchmaker" and that harpy was making a woman remove her pantyhose and telling her "Don't let me catch you wearing them again!"
The woman went from looking classy to trashy all in the removal of her hose. I'd have told Patti to STFU and the hose stay on.
The fashionable look has evolved (or more accurately devolved) from classy to trashy, and the fashion powers that be are notorious, shrill, dictatorial fascists. Sometimes I think they come up with insanely ugly fashions just to see if they can manage to foist them on a gullible public.
DeleteIn that photo Rosemary Clooney looks exactly the way Nathan Lane in drag looks in "The Birdcage".
ReplyDeleteI hope her nephew George never hears you say that...
DeleteYep, back then, ANYTHING you "sent away" for took 4-8 weeks to be delivered.
ReplyDeleteAnd, back in '81 (I was in 11th grade). I thought Clooney was one of those incalculably OLD former stars that you'd see in TV and magazine ads.
Now? 53 is now just around the corner for me...:0
Al Bigley
Did anyone else notice the little print on the Coronet toilet tissue? My mom used to buy color coordinated t.p. for our bathroom. I wonder why it fell out of favor.
ReplyDeletePeople were sensitive to the dyes?
DeleteIt also didn't decompose as quickly as white tissue, so it caused problems in septic tanks...
DeleteOMG... I totally forgot about coloured toilet paper!
DeleteWhen did pop cans go tapered at the top? A childhood memory was when cans were straight cylinder shaped.
ReplyDeleteI love the un-needed strips around the lady on the High Point coffee ad. So classic 80s!
The tapering serves two purposes: the cans don't fail as often, and they stack much more easily. Started happening shortly around this time, IIRC... right about the time glass quart bottles were giving way to cheaper and lighter plastic.
DeleteShortly after that, the two-quart was introduced (family size!). They used to have a black end cap glued to the bottom of each bottle, because the actual bottle came to a rounded point, "like a big Tylenol!" Soon they came up with that five-point molded bottom and were able to eliminate the end caps.
Sorry to go all Abe Simpson on y'all.
I was just as overboard with the appliance buying as that man on the book cover. It took me 20 years to buy a blender because I couldn't find "the one" I liked.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I don't like wearing pantyhose is that I ALWAYS end up running them when attempting to put them on, no matter how careful I am.
ReplyDeleteSame here. They tear so easily, too.
Delete