Commercials – 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History, Week 21

Upon hearing these words, "We now pause for this commercial break" or these "After these messages we'll be right back" what did you hope or fear would appear on the TV machine. Recently, I've been a fan of Flo from Progressive (visit their YouTube channel), the first FreeCreditReport.com band (see all 9 of their commercials here) and just about anything from Geico (their YouTube channel is here). However, I am vastly irritated by any commercial by a drug company for their new products (think cholesterol, dry eyes, restless legs, etc.). Why? For the simple reason that just make me worry and I really don't need any help finding new things to worry about. Then again, some commercials are really just "nothing" in that you hardly even remember that you ever saw them. But which commercials do I remember from my childhood, which is getting longer ago with every passing moment?

The first of which I have any concrete memory was from DeVry Technical Institute. What I remember of it is just a guy with thick hair and heavy sideburns (it was the late seventies; he probably thought he was stylin'), sitting at a desk in a darkly lit room. At the corner of this desk was a phone – a big, beige, old-timey, touch-tone telephone. The phone rang and rang and rang, then an announcer asked if you were happy with your work and if not, you should call DeVry. For this spot to have left such a huge impression on the second-grade me, it must have played during episodes of Brady Bunch, Bewitched and the Partridge Family that I watched after school. It would seem to me that if you were an adult watching these programs at 3:30 in the afternoon, you were unhappy about something.

Two commercials I remember for their catchy jingles. Both are for car dealerships, but since I grew up Southern California, I suppose this isn't surprising. I've heard it said about this part of the world that one man, one car is as sacred as one man, one vote. The two dealerships were Pete Ellis Dodge (Long Beach Freeway, Firestone Exit, South Gate) and Cal Worthington and his dog Spot – if you want a car or truck go see Cal, however the dog was NEVER EVER a dog. See these commercials on Youtube: Pete Ellis Dodge is here; Cal Worthington here.

A favorite series of commercials was from Aames Home Loan. They featured actor Patrick Campbell in some awful predicament, usually accompanied by a chicken. As Patrick and the chicken set the scene, the announcer said something along the lines of "If you are in trouble, and you feel you are in getting in deeper all the time…" Then Patrick would look in the yellow pages, because everyone has one of those when they are on a deserted island or trapped inside a whale, and finds Aames Home Loan and then calls them on the phone, which based upon appearance must have been borrowed from the set of the aforementioned DeVry commercial. Then the announcer comes back and says, triumphantly, "it's Aames Home Loan to the Rescue" and Patrick would be rescued. My favorite, which you can see here, has Patrick in the middle of an ocean in a lifeboat surrounded by sharks. He calls Aames Home Loan and the US Navy appears out of nowhere to save him. On occasion, I still tell people to call Aames Home Loan if they are in trouble, but nobody gets it in Ohio.

On Saturday mornings, I was always amused by Mr. Turtle and Mr. Owl assessing the longevity of Tootsie Pops. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop? To find the answer watch here.

But, I think my all-time favorite commercials from childhood were from Chevron. They were inventive, they were educational, they had dinosaurs AND they were animated! What more could a kid want?  Someone has finally posted them on YouTube (I've looked once or twice before). Despite the fact that the grown-up me is much more critical of oil companies and our dependence on fossil fuels, I still love these commercials. Watch two spots here and here.

And then the announcer said, "We now return to our regularly scheduled programing."