I'm in complete shock right now. Just a few moments before writing this I was utterly gobsmacked by an ancient TV ad and I'm still reeling.
Have you ever had a memory that is so vivid that you just know it has to be real, but logic dictates that it unequivocally can't be?
I have had such a memory and I've just been simultaneously vindicated and crushed at the same time.
I've at least briefly written about my experiences with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in the past, but I really haven't sold just how afraid and scarred that film left me.
The Cole's Notes: My mom rented it for me as a kid. This had to've been around the 1988 release of the video. The film had been a runaway success in 1982, which is underselling it. For scale, it out-grossed Star Wars that year and the success saw a re-release in theatres in 1985.
So, by '88 there was E.T. fever and the video release sold gangbusters.
I was around 6 at the time and my parents had what I would call... difficulty understanding what was appropriate for kids to watch? When I got older this worked very much to my advantage. They actually had our video store tag my card so that I could rent anything 18A (Rated R) and below when I was likely too young to wield such power, but that's a story for another time.
Now, this wasn't really their fault. This was something that society was still working out back then. I mean, I could turn on the TV and watch cartoon versions of RoboCop and commercials for toys from The Terminator. This was a time before motherly advocacy groups were hitting the streets and protecting their precious children and Hollywood had no qualms on trying to sell kids on everything from Rambo to Freddy Krueger.
So, in my mom's defense, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was a PG-rated film sold as family-friendly. But for one little boy, it was absolute nightmare fuel that would riddle his psyche for years.
I promised Cole's Notes and gave you War and Peace. My apologies. In short: E.T. scared the shit out of me. And, of course, I was absolutely fascinated by it.
So all these many, many years later my memories surrounding E.T. are seared into my brain. And one of those memories I had come to believe I'd completely made up.
I've probably mentioned it in the past to friends - I don't think it's anything I've ever written about - but I have had a vivid memory of seeing a commercial for "E.T. 2" since I was a young kid. I'll walk you through it and this time, I will exercise brevity.
There's a shot of Elliott in his bedroom tossing his baseball in boredom when it suddenly stops mid-air. He excitedly looks to his window where a dead sunflower suddenly bursts to life. He runs out of his house into the backyard to see E.T.'s spaceship and E.T. himself! They share a touching moment, which is suddenly broken by evil versions of E.T. scurrying out of the ship and into the wild, much to the shock and dismay of E.T. and Elliott.
Again, I can't tell you just how real this whole thing felt. I eventually reached the conclusion that I'd dreamed the whole thing up... until now!
600 words later, I'll get to the point.
I've been re-reading old Dinosaur Dracula Christmas posts going back to 2012. Matt's loaded his site with great nostalgic Christmas content, and it's been a while since I did a re-read, so I've been having a blast going through his old articles over the past few weeks.
I was watching a bunch of old Christmas commercials that Matt had posted and right there in the fifth edition of his Classic Christmas Commercials series is THIS:
So validating.
I mean, of course I somehow conjured up all the stuff about it being "E.T. 2" and the evil E.T.'s, but - again - I was 6. I'm actually pretty astounded with how well I remembered the rest of the beats for the ad.
On the one hand, I wasn't one of the few people (as in just me) who got to see some super secret teaser for a sequel to E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, but after all these long years I at least know that I'm not completely crazy and this ad does exist! Ya know, as a Pepsi cross-promotion for the VHS release.
I can now rest easy.