dana carvey – saleintothe90s

427. Super Bowl 1991 Commercials (1/27/1991)

(I love that this carefree ad ran in the WE’RE AT WAR issue of my local paper, Daily Press, ten days before the Super Bowl):

I believe my mom would save the papers from the war, and send them to my dad who was out to sea at the time. That’s the only reason why we still have this copy that’s in my collection right now (I took this pic back in 2017 when I re-found it).

So, anyway, just like 30 years ago, Super Bowl 2021 is being held during an uncertain time in the country, and just like in 1991, advertisers were hesitant. Diet Pepsi pulled a “call this number for your chance at a million dollars” ad days before the game, citing “world events”, and the fear of “Disrupting our nation’s ability to communicate” 1:

New York Times on wartime Super Bowl coverage the following day:

Even the commercials were affected by events in the Gulf. In most Super Bowl telecasts, the messages are slick and expensive. This year’s batch was somewhat toned down because of the war, most notably the ads of Coke and Pepsi, which abandoned ambitious promotions and made sure the viewer knew it. (And didn’t Pepsi have to love that halftime shot of a soldier drinking its product while watching the game in Saudi Arabia?) 2

(source)

Before we get started, I have to mention Whitney Houston’s Star Spangled Banner from that year. Every Monday morning in elementary school, we had to stand for the Star Spangled Banner along with the Pledge of Allegiance. For weeks after the game, we always stood for the Whitney version. I always refer to this Super Bowl as the “Whitney Houston Super Bowl”.

Ok, now to the “subdued” (?) commercials, beginning here:

Look, I know that Jay from the Purple Stuff Podcast said he loved this commercial in the Super Bowl Commercials episode, but I think this Bugle Boy commercial with the GoGos is so lame. I mean, I’m going to say it, were the GoGos still relevant in 1991? Was Bugle Boy clothes still a thing in 1991?

Are picture-in picture TVs still a thing?!

Bud Bowl 3 with Bud Dry this year! I predict Bud Light will win this year.

At 4 minutes in, Advertising History happens. Yes, it’s the Ray Charles Diet Pepsi UH-HUH commercial! I was seven when this aired, so this was one of the first big commercial campaigns I really remembered. I have this strange memory of seeing a TV interview with the Uh-Huh girls (Meilani Paul, Darlene Dillinger and Gretchen Palmer) , and they said they were coming out with an album soon, and little me was like, “I’m going to buy that album”. It never came out.

Ray made an appearance on Pepsi cans in 2018. I never got my hands on the Ray can, I always got Britney or MJ when I got a pack of Diet Pepsi that Summer.

I’ve been meaning to watch the John Goodman critical flop King Ralph for months now.

Is wielding around a giant bottle opener legal at the Bud Bowl?

Part 2 starts with an upset at the Bud Bowl – Bud Light hid the football in his label? what? So many questions with the commercials this year.

Peter Jennings updates us during the commercial break about the war. The Air Force was using smart bombs to disturb the oil flow into the Gulf, started by the Iraqis. It was 3am and quiet in Saudi Arabia.

Earlier, I mentioned that I was just a little kid when this was going on, and I don’t remember much. However, I do remember thinking “Iraq” was spelled “Arrack”, until I saw the word “Iraq” in a newspaper headline.

Peter will be back at halftime for another update. Yup, you heard me, no halftime show was broadcast that year. If you were at the stadium in Tampa that year you saw the show with the New Kids on the Block and an “all kids Super Bowl”, but if you were watching it on TV, you got the news, and maybe after the premiere of Davis Rules after the game, you saw the show, pretaped, but most people didn’t see the show. There’s a great video by Secret Base about the “worst halftime show ever”. Peter Jennings was “the Beyonce of 1991″. It looks like from Secret Base’s video that we didn’t miss anything. i mean a small bowl-cut haired boy sang “Wind Beneath My Wings”, which I’ve mentioned before, is the saddest song ever:

(that little kid has major hair roots)

The original World Football League only lasted two years. I found an early game on YouTube.

McDonalds thought that neon clad skiers could sell its steak sandwich with onions, mushrooms, and sauce that looks little McRib-y.

Here is a Harlem Globetrotter dancing with Miss Piggy.

Karl Malone had some jazzy LAGears. Did you know that there are some LAGears on the Payless Shoes website?

I have more questions, what is that popping out of that Panasonic TV? A remote control? Way back in the beginning of this website, I asked another question about a Panasonic Commercial that aired this evening.

Bud Bowl update at the end of part 2:

Part 3

Oh, give me a break with this elementary school garbage, Hertz. This is the Super Bowl.

All the goodwill I gave the Ray Charles Diet Pepsi commercial is out the door after hearing Jerry Lewis ~~sing~~ murder the song.

A 40 oz of Budweiser crushed and murdered some Bud Light bottles. Game’s tied.

Part 4

~the new Panasonic portable laptop word processor~ Nope, this wasn’t a computer, it just handled word processing.

Eriq La Salle played an olympian in a Budweiser commercial. ~America~

Ok, Boomer. But seriously, l’m 37, and I still want Reebok Pumps.

Diet Coke dumped their Leslie Nielsen commercial, and instead ran a commercial stating why they didn’t feel right airing it? I don’t think this commercial would hurt anybody’s feelings or offend anybody, Diet Coke. In 1994, The New York Times mentioned it as an ad fail:

In 1991 the Persian Gulf War overshadowed the cola wars, forcing Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola to reassess plans to promote contests with humorous commercials.

Coca-Cola went ahead with its contest, but replaced its silly spots, starring Leslie Nielsen as a bumbling police detective, with serious spots, including one announcing a $1 million donation to the U.S.O. There have been few more surreal moments in advertising history than when a somber-voiced announcer in a no-frills Diet Coke commercial asked consumers to play the “Crack the Code for Real Refreshment” game.

Pepsi, by contrast, scrapped its contest but stuck with its funny commercials, featuring Ray Charles warbling “You got the right one baby, uh-huh!” for Diet Pepsi. The result: Diet Pepsi trounced Diet Coke – and Coca-Cola has yet to return to the Super Bowl. 3

A sense of relief washed over me when I saw my bbys, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey in an American Express commercial.

Jon couldn’t shop at Needless Markup.

Budweiser is cheating again.

(part 5)

Bud Light won fair and square!

1. “Pepsi Promotion Fizzles Out.” Broadcasting, January 28, 1991. 26. https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1991/BC-1991-01-28.pdf

2. Lapointe, Joe. “SUPER BOWL XXV: TELEVISION; ABC’s Coverage Stays in Perspective.” The New York Times, January 28, 1991, sec. Sports. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/28/sports/super-bowl-xxv-television-abc-s-coverage-stays-in-perspective.html.

3. Elliott, Stuart. “Super Triumphs and Super Flops.” The New York Times, January 30, 1994, sec. Business. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/30/business/super-triumphs-and-super-flops.html.

375. Super Bowl Commercials, 1989

Everyone here should know by now that I’m not the sports type, ok, figure skating and gymnastics, but not much else. So what is a non sport tv watching person to do ~~tonight~~ last night. Do what I do every night, watch old commercials:

Watch my boo Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey in an American Express commercial where they go to the Super Bowl in Miami but Jon’s boring ol Visa card doesn’t work.

This is the closest thing I found to the commercials shown that night, I believe that’s all of them. My internet is being a jerk as I write this so, gifs will be sparse. That’s also why this entry is the night after the super bowl. Thanks, internet.

Hold up, though. I didn’t know that 1989 was the first year for the Bud Bowl! You know, the Bud Bowl where Bud and Bud light beer bottles waddle across a mini field. Or, from the Simpsons episode, “Lisa the Greek”:

PSA: don’t forget about CPR Saturday next weekend.

These dumb dumbs think this car is Japanese. Girl, its a Plymouth Shadow. Or was that a Dodge Spirit?

Smash that unsub button!

It wasn’t interesting enough to make a screen cap of, but there is this overly sappy commercial around 10:36 that at first you think its about like, jewelry because its a married couple in the beginning of the commercial and then kids and then old people. NOP. It’s about Nabisco products. Wasn’t Nabisco in a heap of trouble around this time because of RJ Reynolds buying them or something? That book, Barbarians at the Gate? I need to read that book. I wonder if this awful ad is mentioned.

Oh! The Diet Pepsi ad with the chimps who can’t say please and thank you to their scientist premiered too! Dumb Dumbs commenting on YouTube are saying that Travis the chimp who mauled Charla Nash’s face is in this commercial, but it is impossible because Travis was born in 1995.

More places need a steak and enchilada combo.

This “greatest hits” Night Court commercial is insane (18:23)

I adore these Oldsmobile commercials with celebrities’ kids in them, this one changes it up and has a celebrity’s mom as the star of the commercial. There’s also a Johnson & Johnson contact lens commercial with the Bengals and Ickey doing his signature shuffle. And a Diet Coke commercial with the Bengals. They didn’t even win!

WOAH, WAS THERE AN EPISODE OF HOGAN FAMILY WHERE AUNT SANDY “WHEAT THINS” DUNCAN POSED NUDE.

This is what a bag cell phone looked like in use. In case you were wondering.

There’s those poppin’ Nightingales again. Watching the commercial for this you would have no clue it was just a show about ladies in nursing school.

One of these days I really need to sit down and take note of commercials that had Soviet Union themes. They all follow a “oh look, they’re learning Western things for the first time!” kind of plot. For example, these Soviet kids think they’re cool because they drink Pepsi.

Speaking of Pepsi, Michael J. Fox’s clone gets to go out with Aunt Becky.

Arm Wrestling over flowers in a diner? It happened. This was part of a string of out there commercials. To a faux Super Bowl crowd singing happy birthday to the Big Mac, to a Delta worker using his football skills in the airport, to this Master Lock ad where thieves beat up Master Locks.

Tom Brokaw reports from down in Miami. George Bush [just being sworn in days prior] asked for prayers for the new administration.

The 3-d Diet Coke commercial comes on after this, which I’ve brought up before. This copy didn’t have that dripping with sarcasm Bob Costas intro though 😦

“PUNCH IT, MARGARET!”

A sign you’ll never see on the fridge at my house.

Rigged! Rigged! I call shenanigans!

256. Vanity Fair “Hollywood Issue”, April 1995, part 2

(part 1)

This second part will mostly focus on the ads that make up the first 50 pages of a typical issue of Vanity Fair.

This go cut off because I wanted to show the entire spread, but it’s for an Estee Lauder perfume, Tuscany. It’s still being made, but not in that bottle. Maybe next time I’m at the Cosmetic Company Outlet, I’ll catch a whiff.

Guess Jeans. Triangle on the butt.

I went on the Alexandra de Markoff website, and found this:

I feel like this before and after would have worked so much better if it was you know, in color.

Neiman Marcus no longer sells the brand.

This CKOne (which is my favorite perfume, by the way) ad scanned weird. I was trying to get the full layout. Instead, I got a ghost guy. I need to find some black jeans to cut off at the thrift store before it gets hotter than it is now in Hampton Roads. I wear plus size though and it’s all stretchy jeans at the thrift store.

Oh, this was after the 49ers won the Super Bowl. Does anybody remember the Dana Carvey Critics Choice stand up special and he does a bit about the 49ers winning the Super Bowl? I just remember him saying “f—–g forty niners!” a lot.

Oh dear god, no. AND THE GLOVES.

This was the cool girls uniform the last few weeks of 6th grade. Mom bought the white skirt for me from Stuarts Plus and then only let me wear it like, 2 times. She hated it on me. What gives, mom?

I remember the first time I heard the name, “Kardashian”, I thought, “wait, are they the rug family?”

ok, naptime.

A peuter looking blackberry necklace and earrings? Sign me up!!

At the 1996 Oscars, Christine Cavanaugh (the voice of Babe the pig) brought with her a little piggy Judith Leiber purse:

I don’t like ads where the advertiser illustrates the clothes instead of the actual photograph. I remember when Big Lots rolled into my town in the early 90s their salespaper had all the items illustrated.

The old Rainbath bottle looks so clumsy. Sidenote, I’m probably the only person still keeping Rainbath on the shelves at this icky WalMart mom forces me to take her to on Saturdays.