Commercial RAVE Time

[fuzzygobo]

Domino's also had a cool mascot around 1986 called "The Noid".
This little red and white arch-villain whose mission in life was to see you got a cold, soggy pie delivered to your door.
So call Domino's and " Avoid the Noid!"

Somewhere I got a little plastic bendy figure of him. Drtooth might know if he's worth anything, besides sentimental value.

Domino's back then was better than it is now. Having a store three blocks from a university with 10,000 kids made the owner mega-bucks. But a little mom-and-pop joint across the street called Nauna's puts Domino's to shame.

 

[Drtooth]

If there's one Christmas tradition I care not for, it's the whole "Elf on the Shelf" thing. Especially when it turned into an excuse for a terrible Christmas special and line of expensive accessories.

Now what does this have to do with advertising, you may ask? And why bring up Christmas when it's Halloween time?

Now clearly an advertising gimmick, now advertising a plush toy of a mascot on top of being a snack food mascot. I like the twist here, and kinda wish it didn't have to take Frito Lay of all people to come up with a Halloween counterpoint to that obnoxiously cutesy elf. Though to be fair, what else could it be? The Ghost on the Toast-er? The Vampire on the Spire? I've seen the Jewish parody "The Mensche on the Bench" that cracked me the heck up. Not that I'd part with 30 bucks for this thing no matter how cute the Chester plush is. Though I'd almost wonder why Mars didn't beat them to the punch with one of the M&M mascots.

As for the ad, it's at least a nice change of pace for this version of the character. And it looks like instead of a CGI Chester, he's a puppet. So yay that.

 

[D'Snowth]

Cheetos has been, curiously, trying to get in on Halloween for the last few years, by encouraging getting and handing out snack-sized bags of Cheetos for Halloween instead of candy, because somehow, candy is boring by Cheetos is exciting . . . then again, from what I've heard about Halloween treats, surveys indicate that kids want chocolate more than anything else in their plastic pumpkins.

Speaking of snack-sized bags of Frito-Lay products, remember Planet Lunch from back in the 90s?

As I recall, it seems like the less appealing bags of chips had the higher points on them (probably intentional). I don't think I ever saw the catalogs they put out, I just went by what I saw in the commercials. But, heh, you know in this day and age, you would never see such an advertising campaign, because there would be an outcry from parental groups and health food fanatics about encouraging unhealthy diets in our kids. When I see what Happy Meals look like today - with apple or orange slices - I can't help but feel sorry for kids of today who will never know the joy of what Happy Meals used to be like back in our day.

 

[Drtooth]

Cheetos has been, curiously, trying to get in on Halloween for the last few years, by encouraging getting and handing out snack-sized bags of Cheetos for Halloween instead of candy, because somehow, candy is boring by Cheetos is exciting . . . then again, from what I've heard about Halloween treats, surveys indicate that kids want chocolate more than anything else in their plastic pumpkins.

They've had Halloween fun pack Cheetos for years. I think I even have an empty box of one in a cellar somewhere, unless whatever in it got wet and it ate away at the box. Can't remember, haven't seen it in years.

But what I love is there's a new White Cheddar bone shaped Cheetos. I'm surprised the ad didn't bring those up. Think they even have Flamin' Hot ones.

But, heh, you know in this day and age, you would never see such an advertising campaign, because there would be an outcry from parental groups and health food fanatics about encouraging unhealthy diets in our kids. When I see what Happy Meals look like today - with apple or orange slices - I can't help but feel sorry for kids of today who will never know the joy of what Happy Meals used to be like back in our day.

To be fair, though, the only major difference is that you still get fries, they're just smaller. And you get to chose between apple slices and Go-Gurts, I usually get that yogurt option. You can still get a soda, but sometimes they charge extra. I know this as an avid collector of Happy Meal toys, and depending on the license, the toys are much better than they were in my day. I remember when you got small snap together model sets. Or maybe something like a small plastic figure with a cheap vehicle. Just nothing quite as good as the large action figures from the Monsters Inc promotion.

 

[D'Snowth]

Hey, check it out, Larry from THE BIG GREEN grew up to run a comic book publishing company!

And he still doesn't look any different than he did when he was petrified of the opposing team running the ball towards his goal as "really bad guys."

 

[Drtooth]

Maybe it's just because I love Chris Parnell and all, but I actually like the box commercials for Progressive. They're so much more fun than the Flo ones, no matter how hard they try and make them self deprecating (which makes them worse when they do).

Actually, I really like the one where the two old guys that run the Brand X insurance company put together a crazy, clumsy conspiracy Youtube video. All they did was somehow manage to point out the backwards message of "Lively li'l locksmith," with one of those Illuminati Bill Cypher pyramids. And it reveals them as basement dwellers. Pretty much sums up ever crackpot conspiracy moron on the internet. You had a freaking insurance ad freaking hand your butts to you.

 

[D'Snowth]

I like that one as well, but my favorite from a couple of years ago showed that they share a bunkbed, and one of them was having nightmares about the Name-Your-Price-Tool brought on by the other's ventriloquist dummy.

 

[D'Snowth]

This isn't even really a rave at all, but I swear the girl in this commercial used to be a cashier at one of our grocery stores years ago:

Not even sure how I would find that out, but I mean she looks very, very familiar.

 

[mr3urious]

Kudos to United HealthCare for showing a dumb mom in a commercial for once.

 

[D'Snowth]

Yay! Local reference that only people who actually live in the area will understand!