I've mentioned this in the last few months, but I've been trying to get back into media archival.
A few years back I scored a backup VCR for free (my current main unit, actually) and the guy threw in a bunch of tapes he had kicking around with it.
One of those tapes was a Maxell 6-Hour T-120 that I immediately wanted to peruse. I quickly discovered it contained a TV recording of A Christmas Carol, featuring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. It aired December 1997 on CBC.
Is it possible to get high on old Christmastime TV bumpers?
I desperately wanted to mine the tape for any and all Christmas commercials that it might contain, but like many of my personal projects it was pushed to the background for a few years.
I finished a big assignment at work recently, which freed up some of my time, so I decided it was nigh time to digitize that tape!
A quick note on the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol - it's a decent movie, but a little darker than some of the other versions you might come across. You can find it on a lot of streamers and it often airs on TV this time of year. It's worth a viewing if you wanted to switch it up from your usual favourite.
Now, with that out of the way, let's talk about some of the classic commercials that aired alongside the film, back in '97! Honestly, there were so many good commercials on this tape, so I'm likely to return to this well later in the season. For now, let's stick with five (but really six or seven).
THAT Kellogg's Cornflakes Commercial
Oh, you know the one. This juggernaut of an ad started airing in 1990 and I'm fairly certain it ran, although edited slightly here and there, until the early 2000s. It's honestly right up there with the Hershey Kisses ad, which I'm fairly certain is still airing to this day.
The warm, earthy tones, dulcet music, soft-spoken actors, and perfectly lit scenery depict the ideal Christmas. Also, their kid-logic tracks: after a night filled with cookies and trying to squeeze down chimneys, wouldn't Santa like a brief reprieve and enjoy some healthy cereal? Makes sense to me.
I know this commercial has been encoded and uploaded about a million times on the web, but hey - what's one more?
Connect 4 and Guess Who
Alright, it's already time to cheat and break my own rules!
Not only am I including two commercials here, but neither are actually Christmas ads. So why are they on the list?
As I watched this tape, one of the things I had the hardest time grasping was it's recording date; December of 1997. The late-90s had a very distinct feel on TV. Everything had to be edgy and slightly obtuse to catch our attentions. Most of the commercials on this tape felt so early-90s.
And it's because the majority of them, much like the aforementioned Kellogg's ad, aired for like a decade. These days ad campaigns or mostly just related to focused ads on social media and YouTube and they completely disappear from social consciousness in a matter of minutes. Back in the 90s, 30-second ads on TV were the prime way to get a potential customer's attention and the companies that produced these ads went for broke.
In the case of these two commercials for Guess Who and Connect 4, there is no question in my mind that if you were a frequent TV watcher from 1990 to 2000 you have them emblazoned in your brain.
Throughout the duration of this tape, they played on almost every ad-break, back-to-back. It must've been a big year for Milton Bradley or interest in these games was lacking and they decided to throw big money at the problem. I can't speak for everyone, but I can say that it worked on me, because I wanted and owned both of these games as a kid (I was especially a fan of Guess Who) and I received them both as Christmas gifts, so I'm adding them to this list. If you don't like it... well I guess I'm sorry then? (Please keep reading my blog)
Disney Home Video
How's that for wholesome?
This is a commercial that distinctly feels like something from the early-90s, but I know for an absolute fact that it's from 1997, because not only is Disney hocking their other classic movies on videocassette, but they took this opportunity to push their latest Christmas flick, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.
Most folks my age ruminate about the lack of quality in the Disney direct-to-video market, but you just know these tapes sold like freakin' hotcakes.
It's not mentioned in this ad, but the pallor of Disney's false scarcity tactics clung to all of these video releases, so you had to get them before they went "back into the vault"! Not only did it likely sell a lot of movies during the holidays, but to this day resellers seem to think their old Disney tapes are worth your firstborn and probably a few limbs for good measure.
Sobey's Christmas
This is a commercial that will hit much stronger if you're a local Atlantic Canadian.
Sobey's is a grocery store chain that during the 90s would've only existed in a few provinces, like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and PEI. I don't even think they were in Newfoundland, but I could be wrong. These days, I think they have stores across Canada.
In the early 90s they had a smash hit commercial called "Songs of Christmas" that featured all sorts of holiday wholesomeness to the tune of a children's choir singing what amounted to a very long Sobey's jingle. That ad played on local TV for years and years and I'd dare say if you spoke to anyone from this area they could sing you at least a few bars if not the whole song.
In the late 90s, Sobey's decided to try and catch that lightning in the bottle again with this ad, which I believe ran for a few years, but didn't have near the same impact.
Still, I do love this commercial and have fond memories of it. I'm not sure exactly when it started airing, but it had to be mid- to late-90s. I think they even used some of the imagery and music from this commercial in the rest of their "regular" advertisements that ran during Christmas.
It sounds nuts, but some of these big production holiday commercials sort of felt like TV specials in a way. I'd actually look forward to seeing them on the tube every year and they were an important part of the holiday!
Local Season's Greetings
If you watched any low budget local TV (does such a thing exist any more?) you would've seen ads like this from many local businesses, sending season's greetings to any current or potential customers watching at home. I can recall when there'd be one minute (or more) solid blocks with Christmas-y backgrounds adorned with the fanciest of fonts sending warm wishes from many local businesses.
If you were a small TV station that needed public money and advertisement to keep afloat, I'm sure this was easy money during the holidays. I actually used to love these when I was a kid. It was this weirdly small, solemn moment that felt so calm and Christmas-y, even if you were in the middle of watching a TV airing of Alien or something.
The Coca-Cola greeting at the end is a particularly lavish affair, that even includes a few seconds of Coke's massive commercial with the Christmas lights on their 18-wheeler delivery trucks. La-tee-dah.
Christmas Day on CBC
I thought this was fun, so I decided to throw it in.
Every Christmas my family would go to an extended family get-together on Christmas Day. We'd gorge ourselves on delicious food, open presents, all that good stuff. Come the evening of Christmas Day, it was wide open. I'd usually play with my new toys and video games and my parents would have friends over for drinks and visiting.
I can't say I watched much TV on Christmas Day, because I was busy, but another reason was that it always seemed like blackhole. Nowadays it's become a tradition to air movie marathons and tons of Christmas specials, but back when I was a kid there was lots of religious programming, and old black-and-white movies I didn't yet have the appreciation for.
Case in point is the programming block for CBC on December 25th, 1997, which included back-to-back-to-back Christmas classics from the 40s, capped off a musical special from Canadian royalty, Tom Jackson.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of this, but when I was a kid there is about a -1000% chance I would've watched one second of this on Christmas Day.
And there you have it! Just a few of the wonderful Christmas commercials I mined from this tape. I'll hopefully make another post soon with some more of the cool stuff I found on here, but if not I hope you enjoy these clips and the warm fuzzies they bring!
0 comments:
Post a Comment