Welcome to the first installment of retro commercials. The first may be the last, since I don’t have any others on hand at the moment, but we’ll go with it regardless.

The following are commercials that I’ve personally taken off old VHS tapes, so I’m not just meandering around Youtube looking for update fodder. We run a clean ship around here, you know. All of these were around an original airing of No Man’s Land, which I’m sure I will be tackling at some point. A few seem to be from a later point in time, since VHS tapes aren’t really all that organized. Often you just threw a tape in at the last moment to record something. Alas those days are gone, and I don’t even know how to tape things off the TV anymore.

What’s magically delicious? Obviously stones, grass and celestial beings. They hadn’t quite added all of the staples apparently at this point, and there’s no horseshoes. Hearts, Moons, Stars, Clovers, and Diamonds were the only offerings. Mild diabetes was all that was achievable in 1982 apparently.

Comical physical violence was still okay, and Lucky is fired into the ground by a cannon, then apparently burnt alive. The cereal fairs worse and disintegrates. The kids already scores their own box, so the leprechaun is just out of luck.

This one commercial has been a hit on my Youtube account. I’m not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to Star Wars. I don’t even know if Return of the Jedi is part 2 or 3 (Okay part 4 or 5, I know that much at least). If it didn’t have the words ‘Return’ in the title, I might not even narrow it down that far.

But they made toys for the characters in any case, and here they are. With a light sprinkling of random movie clips featuring characters that aren’t even being sold, this leads to kids playing with the four new offerings. Of the four, only Luke and Lando are remotely recognizable to me. The other two are random aliens apparently. So for some reason in a feature length movie, they couldn’t find a new character that had more appeal. Perhaps they didn’t know which characters would be a hit yet. Or maybe I’m completely ignorant (let’s assume so).

The thing that always gets me about toy commercials are the elaborate sets the kids get to use. Even at this point, they had an entire sand dune in their house to simulate a desert. It’s not as bad as today where kids seemingly romp around in a futuristic world specifically designed for their current toy in hand, but still, I never would have been allowed to have an indoor sand box.

I think I have to hand in my man card for posting this one, but hey, I need material. Much like many of these commercials, the products were still simple. The Care Bears didn’t talk, or walk, or teach Spanish like today’s offering. Back in a simpler time, they were just plush stuffed animals. I’ll leave this paragraph short as to not give the impression that I care.

An annoying song, and more annoying hair styles. Since Fruit Rollups debuted in 1980, this was an early release. Of interest is the designation of ‘Fruit Corners’, while modern products are released under the Betty Crocker label. This only continued until 1986, which is why it seems like a vague memory as by that time, I had only just started to eat them. Not sure how I got away with it, since the stickiness was a sure cavity magnet.

Another case of big 70’s to 80’s crossover hair, a family is washing a car when their mother comes and calls them for breakfast. This raises a few questions. Who washes a car before breakfast. Either it’s late in the day and they’re starving, or the sun rises at 3AM. Also who eats breakfast on a picnic table in their yard. And why are there so many kids.

Breakfast commercials did always seem like a grand event, what with a glass of milk, a glass of orange juice, basket of rolls, toast, and a vase of tulips. Why was there more milk. Isn’t the stuff in the cereal enough. A long shot from eating cereal out of the box like I used to. And by used to, I mean still do.

This one brings back good ol’ memories of when I used to load my body with horrible horrible substances. While that statement is usually reserved for ex-drug addicts, I instead refer to Chicken McNuggets. Nuggets aside, I miss the old polystyrene containers. I know they’re bad for the environment or something, but they had that half-hearted attempt to provide a place for the sauce. I’d always ask for three sauces too, and then I’d drink one. It’s a wonder I’m still alive.

One time I tried to order McNuggets at Wendy’s, and the guy got all bent out of shape.

I’ll leave you with this TV spot. Enjoy.