I always associate perfume ads with the holidays, and the Calvin Klein Obsession ads from the mid to late 1980s is the quintessential over the top perfume commercial.
My favorite are the ones that are in that white room while this guy tries to describe this woman? In this one (the above gif) she slaps a chick and then crumbles leaves on a guy’s face. All while he’s like, “SHE WAS A FEVER FROM WHICH I WILL NEVER RECOVER!” and at the end of each commercial he quivers, “ohhh THE SMELL OF IT!” then a detached voice saying which defunct department store you can buy Obsession from:
My other favorite one is with this Niles Craine looking guy who is on trial by his peers? He’s on fire!
During all this, we have this woman cutting her bangs off, because sure why not.
In 1990, David Lynch fresh off of Twin Peaks, directed several ads for the perfume.
In one, a man quotes Hemingway and cries while the train passes in the background. I lived in a house near train tracks in the early 00s and cried at night so I totally identify with that one.
I nicknamed the other commercial, (the screen capture in the above New York Times story) “Losing my shit at the sugar cube one with Lara Flynn Boyle.” I didn’t realize until Googling the quote that its from Madame Bovary:
The lemon and the jug of water part cracked me up for some reason. I keep almost a jug sized bottle of Evian next to my bed.
If you’re around my age you probably never even saw an Obsession commercial on TV, you only knew the Clavin Kleen parody from Saturday Night Live with Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks. They’re cleaning up in heaven now.
(yes, I did buy a bottle of Obsession from Sam’s Club while writing this. I have a teeny weeny bottle that I bought at Eckerd 11 years ago. You know its old ‘cuz I bought it from Eckerd and it had probably been there since the store opened in the mid 90s.)
//edit//
OH. I forgot to mention Obsession being mentioned in I Love the 80s 3D way back in 2005. Simon Doohan sprays a bottle of men’s Obsession and goes, “mmm! Cooking sherry! Oh no, its Obsession.” I also forgot that for years whenever I’d see the word “Obsession”, I’d say it like Michael Ian Black, “oblahssyon”.
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[I also wanted to add that I’m trying to clean up a WordPress mirror for this site before December 16th, just in case Tumblr thinks my stuff is too racy. They’ve been flagging the dumbest stuff on this blog and my personal blogs.]
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