Christmas TV Commercials

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. Now we move on to The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. I have great stuff to share with you this year, so let's get it started with some Christmas commercials.

First up, what would a TV commercial post at the blog be without a McDonald's commercial? Here, a young boy rewards Santa with a treat that trumps milk and cookies:



Another Mickey D's spot features Ronald and his friends and a shooting star:



Hallmark remains a mainstay for the holidays, between cards and gift wrap.



Here is an ad for the worst Atari game of all time, E.T. It's a long story as to why that is, but if you research it on the Web, you'll see for yourself. This commercial, however, has a nice charm to it.



Speaking of charm, here's a lovely ad from AT&T from 1987.



I featured a fine 7-Up ad last year, and this year is no exception.



You know what today's Christmas commercials need more of? VOLUME! As in LOUDNESS! Like in this Crazy Eddie's commercial from 1982. His prices were INSANE!!



The drinking glasses featured in this Taco Bell commercial from 1977 look very nice, but doesn't Santa sound a little creepy as he laughs at the end?



Here is a great commercial for a department store I've never heard of, Zayre's. It features none other than Batman and Robin, in 1960s camp mode, shopping at one of Zayre's 24-hour locations. The nameless actors do a great job playing the TV show versions of the heroes. A lot of fun!



Finally, here is an update of a Christmas commercial classic, the Norelco Santa riding on a razorhead through the snow.



I'll see you about midweek with another Christmas commercial post, this time devoted to one product and one theme. Thanks!

Thanksgiving Cornucopia

And so we end this year's Thanksgiving programming with these themeless clips!

The last Thanksgiving cartoon for the year arrives courtesy of LadyTink, who found this gem from Warner Brothers entitled "Tom Turk and Daffy," starring Daffy Duck and Porkey Pig.



These next two clips go out to my readers from the various comic book blogs that I link to. Here is a clip from the 1987 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade featuring the Marvel Comics float, complete with living super heroes!



And a clip from the 1989 parade and that year's Marvel float.



Finally, here is a commercial from 1995 advertising some of the Black Friday doorbuster sales at the now-defunct Caldor department store chain. This is not a particularly unique or special commercial, to be honest. The only reason I'm posting it is because my wife and I used to work at a Caldor store in Philadelphia (it's where we met) and have been a part of some of these sales. If you're going out this Black Friday, good luck!



Well, that's a wrap for this year's Thanksgiving stuff. I hope you enjoyed it all; let me know in the comments section.

But wait, what's this?



Yes indeed. It's just about that time of year. And just like last year, I have some awesome stuff to show you. Ho ho ho!

I hope to begin the holiday festivities later this weekend. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!

"Pilgrim Popeye"

Oh look, another cartoon featuring a classic character acting as a Pilgrim chasing a turkey. This time, it's Popeye the Sailor in "Pilgrim Popeye." Get your food shopping done, the big day is days away!

Gumby, "Rain Spirits"

This clip has little, if any, well OK, nothing to do with Thanksgiving. But it does feature Native-Americans, or animated stereotypical versions of them. Does that count?

This is an early installment of the Gumby TV series featuring creator Art Clokey's clay characters. In this segment, Gumby and Pokey help an American Indian hoping to summon the Rain Spirits to help corn grow for his tribe. The clay animation seems at once both crude and innovative. It lacks the slickness of Wil Vinton's Claymation characters, such as the California Raisins, but also uses the tools and effects of the time quite impressively. Enjoy!

Huckleberry Hound, "Grim Pilgrim" and bonus Thanksgiving commercial

Here is yet another Thanksgiving-themed cartoon with the main character starring as a Pilgrim chasing after a prize turkey. This time it's Hanna-Barbera creation Huckleberry Hound in "Grim Pilgrim." Enjoy!



Frequent commentator LadyTink sent me a great commercial for Jennie-O turkey, the same company that created the turkey-in-a-dryer commerical in one of my previous posts. It was an amazing coincidence that she brought this to my attention when she did, as I had just seen this commercial for the first time two days before. Thanks Tink!

Pac-Man, "Happy Pacs-Giving"

Next up in my Thanksgiving parade of clips in another episode of the Pac-Man Saturday morning animated series from the early 80s. Travel back in time to see the first Thanksgiving in Pac-Land in "Happy Pacs-Giving!"

Tex Avery, "Jerky Turkey"

The next serving in this year's Thanksgiving feast is the MGM cartoon "Jerky Turkey," directed by animation legend Tex Avery. It's the typical Pilgrim versus turkey routine, which is a common theme found in cartoons. Most of my Thanksgiving posts this year will demomstrate this. This one features plenty of self-aware corny jokes, a few of which are World War II related, as this is when this cartoon was made. This was featured on the Pop Culture Holiday Blog last year.

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving TV Commercials

Today begins this year's Thanksgiving programming. Turkey Day is just two weeks away, and those weeks will fly by, trust me. Before we begin this year, I want to tell you to check out last year's stuff by using the Thanksgiving label on the right of the blog. I updated those posts yesterday, as there were quite a few dead links, but now they're ready to go. If you ever check out my archives and notice a dead link or missing video, please let me know in the comments and I will correct it as soon as I can. And now, onward to Thanksgiving 2008!

Today I just have a few TV commercials, but they're good ones. This first one is a Carvel ice cream cake spot for Tom the Turkey. If you're familiar with Carvel cakes at all, you know it simply means a picture of a turkey made of icing on one of the same two molds Carvel used for all of their cakes. But I have to admit, their cakes are delicious!



If youv'e ever made Thanksgiving dinner, you know what a pain in the arse it is to thaw a turkey. This commercial for Jennie-O turkeys demonstrates how not to thaw it!

Feel the Heat
Uploaded by lookatturkeynow

Finally, here is a commercial that wasn't exactly created for Thanksgiving. In fact, it debuted during this year's Super Bowl back in January. Two balloons in the Macy's Thansgiving Day Parade, Underdog and Stewie from Family Guy, battle it out in the New York City sky over a Coke bottle balloon. Who wins out? You may be surprised!



I'll have more Thanksgiving fun in a day or two. See you then!

Blogiversary: The Best of Me and You

Greetings and salutations! Today I'd like to acknowledge, two weeks late, that this blog celebrated its one year anniversary! Me and You and a Blog Named Boo debuted on Tuesday, October 30, 2007, and I've had an absolute blast keeping it going. That's thanks in no small part to you, my loyal readers. I hope you've enjoyed reading all of this as much as I've enjoyed bringing it to you.

In honor of the blog, I've decided to steal an idea from the Secret Fun Blog (sorry Kirk, I hope you don't mind), available in my blog list to the right, and label several of my past posts as the Best of Me and You. These are posts that have attracted the most attention according to my stats, or posts that I personally think define the reason for this blog's existence. Some of the posts included are the "Hey Ya, Charlie Brown" post from last November, the He-Man/She-Ra Christmas special, various fast food TV commercials posts, my article of the late and lamented TV Channel 48 here in Philadelphia, and more.

You can check out all of these posts under the "Best of Me and You" label. I will make additions as warranted going forward, so if you'd like to tell me what your favorite posts are, let me know in the comments section of this post or email me at phillyradiogeek@gmail.com.

Thanks!

Saturday Matinee: Drive-In Theater Intermission Films

As I've said before, I'll only have a few light items for the Saturday Matinee this month, as the feature will be on hiatus through the holiday season. It'll be back in full force after the new year.

This week I have a 10-minute montage of various interstititial films that would air before, between, and after features, sometimes advertising the concession stand fare, sometimes asking you to behave at the theater, and some are public service announcements that were commonly featured at theaters back in the day. Most of these were designed for drive-in theaters, which never featured a matinee of anything, being only able to show movies at night, but what the hey. Enjoy!

A Return Visit with La Linea

Here's somthing we haven't experienced in a while--a visit from our friend La Linea. Enjoy!

We Are The Champions!

I know I said that I might post one or two more Halloween items before the weekend, but I looked around my Halloween cache and noticed that I'd pretty much used it up already, so Friday was indeed the Halloween swan song for this year. I hope everyone enjoyed my programming. Please let me know via comments or email what you thought of it so I can prepare for next year.

And so we move on. In case you haven't noticed from my last two posts, I'm very happy that the Philadelphia Phillies have won the World Series.

Ahem, let me say that again...

THE PHILLIES HAVE WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been 25 years since the city won a major sports championship, so I had to exude some glee these few days. Below is a fan's footage (not taken by me) of the last out in Game 5 last Wednesday night:



The victory parade was Friday, travelling through downtown Philly right to the city's sports complex. My workplace is just a block away from the start of the parade, so I managed to get some footage with my video camera.

Here is a large crowd in Philly's famous Love Park anxiously awaiting their World Series Champions:



Here is a (admittedly shaky) clip of the Phils making their way along Market Street:



Finally, Phillies second baseman Chase Utley gave a very, shall we say, enthusiastic speech at the victory celebration. NOT SAFE FOR WORK!



Obviously, it was a joyous and wild day for Phillies fans everywhere. Thank you Phillies!

I'll get back to my usual fare from now on, I promise!