Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - The Commercials You Grew Up With

Episode Date: September 17, 2022

This week, we talk to baby boomers and take a look at the commercials they grew up with. From the toy and game commercials that inspired your lists to Santa, to the soft drink ads you can still sing along to 40 years later, to the ad for your first underarm deodorant, to the commercial for your first perfume, to the ads aimed at Mom but still got burned into your memory bank. So put on your pajamas and gather round the radio.And remember one thing – you have to be in bed by the time Bonanza comes on. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling.

Subscribe now, and don't miss a single beat. Due to popular demand, we've dug very, very deep into our archives and are pleased to announce the re-release of episodes from the last season of The Age of Persuasion. And we've remastered them to fit our Under the Influence format. Here is an episode from 2011. This is an apostrophe podcast production. Your teeth look whiter than noon, noon, noon. You're not you when you're hungry. You're a good man with a heart beat.

You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. I never played with dolls. Okay, that's not completely true. There was a time in my childhood where I did spend hundreds of hours playing with a doll. Don't say doll. Good point, Jeff. G.I. Joe wasn't a doll. Creator Don Levine knew boys wouldn't play with dolls, so in a very astute marketing decision, he

labeled his G.I. Joe as a, quote, movable action figure. It was 12 inches tall with 21 movable joints, and it came with all sorts of cool accessories like guns, holsters, helmets, canteens, belts, boots, knapsacks, uniforms, binoculars, and dog tags. Nirvana for my brother and me. We would dress them up in manly military wear, and then navigate around footstools and coffee tables and sofas in flat-out warfare right there in the living room. As Levine noted, it was hard to copyright his G.I. Joe creation

because it was, essentially, a human body, and everybody's got one. So Levine gave his action figures two definable characteristics. Every G.I. Joe had a scar on his right cheek, and the fingernail

of his left thumb was underneath the finger instead of on top. That way, if another company infringed on his copyright, Levine would know. But along with the hours of fun G.I. Joe's provided, it was the G.I. Joe commercial that set the entire craze in motion. If you're a male baby boomer,

you've never forgotten this jingle. G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Fighting man from head to toe On the land, on the sea, in the air In an ironic footnote, Vietnam killed the G.I. Joe craze.

As late 1960s protests mounted to end the war, the G.I. Joe military toy fell out of favor. Remember, only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe. You probably remembered every word of that G.I. Joe jingle. It has been filed in a place where your fondest memories reside. What may surprise you is how many commercials from that era you have stored. Come with me for a ride in a time machine back to your childhood. If you were as glued to the television as I was back in the 60s and 70s, you'll recognize every one of the commercials you're about to hear. From your favorite toys and games, to soft drinks, to food, to laundry products,

to your very first perfume. You just may discover that it's not only old movies, television shows, and songs that can make you nostalgic, but so can the commercials you grew up with. You're under the influence. When I was growing up in the 1960s, television was a big part of my life. I watched it after school, in the evenings, and especially on Sunday nights when my whole family would gather in the living room to watch the Ed Sullivan Show from 8 to 9 p.m. Right after that, Bonanza came on. And to this day, whenever I hear the theme from that show,

I still think it's time to go to bed. In that wonderful era, Madison Avenue was beginning to move from the live, stiff, black-and-white commercials of the 50s to the looser, more colorful, more conceptual advertising of the 60s. And the relationship between boomers and the language of advertising was forged. Probably the most nostalgic category has to be toy commercials. Who among us didn't fill their wish list to Santa based on the amazing toys and games we saw on TV commercials? At about the same time as boys were enjoying their

G.I. Joes, girls saw a new toy hit the market. Inspired by street vendors who cook pretzels and chestnuts with just a light bulb, the Kenner Easy-Bake Oven appeared in 1963. Since then, over 23 million ovens and more than 140 million cake mixes have been sold, and it was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2006. Girls, remember this commercial? Easy-Bake, Easy- easy bake, fast as you can. Mix them up, mix them up, pour them in the pan.

Slide them in, slide them in, let them bake now. Slide them in, slide them out, easy bake, wow! Light bulb not included. Another great toy from that era was invented by a naval engineer named Richard James, who was developing springs that could help keep instruments stable aboard ships in rough seas. He accidentally knocked a spring off his desk one day and watched it step between a stack of books to a tabletop to the floor, where it recoiled and stood upright.

In that moment, James saw the future. It's Slinky, it's Slinky, for fun it's the best of the toys. It's Slinky, it's Slinky, the favorite of girls and boys. His wife Betty dubbed the toy Slinky for the sleek and graceful way it moved. The first store they offered it to was Gimble's, where 400 Slinkys sold out in just 90 minutes. Everyone wants a Slinky, you ought to get a Slinky. It's still a perennial seller,

and over 300 million Slinkys have slinked into homes ever since. Boys love cars. Boys love fast cars. Elliot Handler, co-founder of Mattel, decided to create a line of die-cast toy cars for boys. He didn't get much support from inside his company,

but he forged ahead anyway. His first big breakthrough was when he developed low-friction wheels suitable for racing on a track. That led to the name Hot Wheels. Sixteen models were released in 1968,

and the very first one was a dark blue custom Camaro. The track was bright orange and could be bent to make death-defying jumps and loops. And who could forget the commercials? They're new. They're authentic. They're the fastest miniature metal cars you've ever seen. New Hot Wheels, only from Mattel.

Mattel estimates that over 41 million kids grew up with Hot Wheels. New Hot Wheels, only from Mattel. The fastest miniature metal cars you've ever seen. Question. If its origin is at the center of C squared, and its axis parallel to X and Y, and if we define the perimeter T as the angle by which the tangent point t rotates on c to the

power of one, and if the distances traveled by b and t create hypotrochoids and epotrochoids, can this actually be fun? Answer? You bet it is. Amazing. These are just a few of the designs that can be made with Spirograph by Kenner. Change wheels. Change colors. Make a million multicolored designs, each so beautiful your eyes won't believe what your hands have done. Dennis Fisher developed an interest in mathematics and geometry as a child when he was confined to bed with an illness. Someone gave him a book to read to pass the time, titled, An Elementary Course on Infantessimal Calculus. Poor kid.

But because of that book, Fischer became fascinated with geometric designs. When he grew up, he began creating military devices for NATO. One day, he was listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and just as the choral movement ended, he had a vision. A new device made out of a series of perforated plastic cog wheels and racks.

He called it the Spirograph. It became the best-selling toy in 1967 by offering patterns perfectly suited to the psychedelia and flower power of the summer of love I had a Spirograph and I loved it and I wasn't alone as more than 100 million Spirograph sets have been purchased over the last 40 years.

Now, with all that toy playing and easy-bake ovening going on, you could work up a thirst. Way back in 1927, Edwin Perkins developed a new drink called Fruit Smack. But shipping the four-ounce bottles proved costly and breakage was becoming a problem So Perkins figured out how to remove the liquid from Fruit Smack so just the remaining powder could be repackaged He named it Kool-Aid

It became your favorite drink in an envelope When General Foods later bought the product from Perkins It became your favorite drink in an envelope. When General Foods later bought the product from Perkins, a big Kool-Aid marketing campaign was launched, complete with the smiling face Kool-Aid pitcher and the jingle that still keeps floating through our minds. Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid, tastes great. You love Kool-Aid, don't wait. Speaking of cold, refreshing drinks,

do you remember a certain hillbilly who liked to yell out... Yahoo! Mountain Dew! Now he shoots off the cup, it's more than enough After nipping at that good old Mountain Dew Sure is shooting, there's a bang in every bottle Of our delicious soft drink, Mountain Dew It'll tickle your innards. Mountain Dew was created by two Tennessee beverage bottlers in the 1940s.

The name Mountain Dew was a colloquial term for moonshine whiskey, and the original bottle was made to look like it was bootlegged from a mountain still, complete with lines on the bottle that said, Filled by Ed and Gene. When Pepsi bought the brand in 1964, they continued with that imagery, using the character from the label, Willie the Hillbilly.

And while Mountain Dew was tickling your innards, another big soft drink brand was assembling a group of people on another mountain. In 1971, the Vietnam War was raging, and it would be three more years before the U.S. withdrew its troops. There were student protests on campuses across North America, and chants of peace resounded everywhere. And it was in this volatile climate that Coca-Cola created a landmark commercial about peace and love by gathering a group of teenagers from six continents on a mountaintop in Italy to send the world a wish. I'd like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love. Grow apple trees and honeybees and snow white turtle doves.

I'd like to teach the world to sing. me. I like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. When adman Bill Backer first presented the jingle to the Coke bottlers, he was met with deafening silence. They felt it didn't sell hard enough. So, Backer decided to create a TV commercial around the song. The I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke TV ad was a huge hit immediately and generated more than 4,000 fan letters in its first week on air. One savvy youngster wrote, Dear Coke, I have heard that you would like to buy the whole world a Coke. Well, you can buy me one.

Send the money to Kevin Mitchell in Lawrence, Kansas. Nineteen years later, in 1990, Coke created the Hilltop Reunion commercial and invited all the same teenagers back to that same hill, only this time, those teenagers brought their own children with them. You know, it happened right here 20 years ago. Right here, Mom? Mm-hmm.

You just can't imagine what it felt like. I'd like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love. Grow apple trees and honeybees and snow white turtle doves. I'd like to teach the world to stop it. The feeling you get from a Coca-Cola can't beat the pain. In the mid-70s, I remember hearing this commercial on radio in Sudbury, where I grew up. To all the patty specials, sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun. The local McDonald's restaurant announced that anyone who could say this tongue twister in less than three seconds would win a free Big Mac. So my buddies and I raced over, and may I say, we enjoyed a couple of fine Big Macs that day.

There were also many commercials that we grew up with that weren't aimed at us, but instead were targeted at Mom. Remember this one for Calgon detergent, which contained an ancient Chinese secret? How do you get shirts so clean, Mr. Lee? Ancient Chinese secrets. My husband, some hot shot. Here's his ancient Chinese secret, new improved Calgon. Calgon's two water softeners soften wash water, so detergents clean better. In hardest water, Calgon helps detergents get laundry up to 30% And how about the commercial for Alberto Vio 5 with that television star nobody had ever heard of named Rula Lenska?

I'm Rula Lenska. As an actress, I always have to look my best. So I'm glad that I found a truly great hairspray from America. It's called Alberto Vio 5. It holds an incredible 14 hours without stiffness or stickiness so I can breeze through a busy day without worrying about my hair. One of the funniest commercial campaigns that ran for several years in the 70s was for Gillette Right Guard deodorant.

You'll remember the scenario. A hapless husband opens his bathroom medicine cabinet to discover that his neighbor next door shares the same cabinet with him. I see you got silver, right, God? New Antiperspirant. Yes, sir. Stop soda keeps you dry? Yeah, it does. Yeah, I know all about that. I got the regular, right, God? Yeah, one shot, I'm good for the whole day.

Two kinds of people, two kinds of right, God. The series had a great storyline, with the wives eventually meeting through the shared cabinet, then the son on one side, the pretty daughter on the other, with a courtship finally ensuing. The 70s also saw a loosening of the conservatism of the 50s, and the advertising even dared go further than the 60s. Remember Bic pens? They expanded their product line to include a colorful array of Bic lighters and created a very funny and very risque advertising campaign, even by today's standards, by asking you to

flick your Bic. Coffee to your, a flick of my Bic. Flick of the Bic, sir. Oh, a flick of the Bic, sir. Why just light up when you can flick your Bic? It's smooth, easy on the thumb, and you get thousands of flicks from a single Bic. The Bic Butane. Stop flicking your Bic. The 70s was the decade of women's lib, and advertising began to reflect those changing dynamics. One of the landmark commercials that spoke to millions of women

who were entering the workforce with pride was for Charlie Perfume. It showed a confident Shelley Hack striding into the office with a briefcase and into glamorous restaurants while turning heads. Even Oprah Winfrey cites it as being one of her big inspirations. There's a fragrance that's here today and they call it Charlie A different fragrance that thinks your way and they call it Charlie Kind of young, kind of now,, kind of free, kind of wild One of advertising's favorite couples, or non-couples,

was James Garner and Mariette Hartley for Polaroid Instant Cameras. It was a long-running series, and even though they weren't married, the chemistry between them was remarkable. Hartley was a woman of the times and was more than a match for the charming Mr. Garner. You know what you're getting me for Christmas? Yep. Got a motor? Yep. Bucket seats? No seats. You stand up in it? Nobody ever has. Give me a hint. Well, you press a button and it gives you a prize. You got me a gumball machine. It's a lot of fun for everybody. It's

the simplest one in the world. It's got a motor. You press a button. It's the simplest one in the world. You didn't. It's a one-step. But you get those free. So convincing were these spots that Marriott Hartley began wearing a T-shirt that said, I am not James Garner's wife. A psychologist at the time said that the reason people thought they were married to each other was because, quote, they were so hostile to each other. As 1979 rolled around to 1980 and advertising was about to enter the me decade, it left behind some of its most enduring commercials.

They were signposts of our times, mini-movies that caught the mood of the moment. They made us stop, made us dream, and whipped up more than a little desire that set baby boomers on their consuming ways.

And then, when it was all said and done, those messages nestled in our imaginations for all time. Yes, movies can bring back tidal waves of nostalgia.

Songs can transport you back to a dance in high school. Old television shows can warm your heart. But amazingly, so can old commercials. They can make you feel 12 years old again, put a smile on your face, and have you singing the lyrics to a jingle you haven't heard for over 40 years.

After all, they are the commercials you grew up with when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Jeff Devine. Under the influence theme by Ari Posner

and Ian Lefevre. Music in this podcast provided by APM Music. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like Famous Advertising Jingles,

Season 7, Episode 12. You'll find it in our podcast archives. Follow us on Facebook. See you next time. Fun fact. The citric acid in Kool-Aid makes it a handy toilet bowl cleaner. Yeah, you're welcome.