60 second version
Save Money
Dinner At Home
Grocery Bill
Coffee Pot
Cleaning Crew
Rare Steak
First Family Night
Second Family Night
Lunch # 1
Lunch # 2
Enjoy!
In February 2023, Canadian TV Reporter and Broadcast Personality Helen Hutchinson passed away. She was a pioneer for women in Canadian Broadcasting. I think comparable to Barbara Walters in the US. She did everything she could, host a national TV morning show, investigate reporter, sports commentator, it seems she could do it all. More about that HERE to get an idea of the extent of her career.
What seemed to be lost to time though, is the one commerical that I know of that she lent her personality to. ABC Laundry Detergent is a brand of detergent in Canada that has been around for decades, but Helen did the first campaign for it "Can't See a Difference" in the late 1970s. I was surprised not to find the TV ad online for this really, as it was really played to death in the era and even subsequent years later as the campaign did so well. It was recycled into the late 1980s, but without Helen. One can assume at that point in her career she didn't want to hawk laundry soap, but in any event, it was so set on my brain over the years that I was gleeful when I found a original tape of the radio ad (which took the audio from the TV ad and put it on the air) destined for the tape eraser. Obviously, it made it past getting wiped and up here to present to you as a piece of canadian flotsam
Suddenly It's the 1970s, chain smoking the cancer sticks of tobacco in a high stress job is commonplace and a concern even then. We've come a long way since then, but endorsements from big time TV celeb Ed Asner who admits in this spot he had those days to come on and try to lay off the smoking for a day certainly were a reality then and who knows, maybe some people quit because of this campaign. We will never know, but let's look back 45 years to a simpler, more second hand smoking time with this exhibit.
1-Smoking Is Bad
DOWNLOAD
2-Don't Panic
Until Next Time
Miller High Life-White Water-A-5-60-0109
Miller High Life-Smoke Jumper-A-5-60-0110
Miller High Life-Mountain Climber-A-5-60-0111
Miller High Life-Trucking-A-5-60-0112
Miller High Life-Motorcycle-A-5-60-0113
Miller High Life-There Comes a Time-A-5-30-0116
Miller High Life-Day Is Done-A-5-30-0117
Miller High Life-Call It a Day-A-5-30-0118
It's time for an exhibit of Commerical Flotsam...from the 80s.
Undeniably, Max Headroom (as portrayed by Canadian actor Matt Frewer) has to be an iconic symbol of the 1980s that lasted beyond the short lived Max Headroom TV series about Network 23. The whole bad stutter and what amounts to primitive graphic of the 80s on what the future would look like makes me think of a slightly simpler time.
Does it make me think about Coke? well not really. Still, Max was HOT circa 1987, and appealing to the young and if anything is a perfect vehicle for Coke, was Max Headroom.
It was a advertising marriage made in heaven you could probably say.
These two radio spots from that year remind you when max is new, stuttering with a artificial looking computer image was cool and you just wanted to "catch the wave" of hype that was the soft drink's slogan for that era.
Funny though, just coming off the new taste of coke, drinking trhe old taste of coke, I don't remember buying into the hype myself, but I just drank the product, but Max Headroom was still fun and decades later, it still is.
Enjoy!
