Ah, Television commercials! Love them or hate them they mold the world around you and tell your vapidly simple mind what to buy. I have an unhealthy obsession with vintage 1970’s and 80’s commercials. I am proud to say that the nerdiest thing about me is that I own tons of old Betamax and VHS tapes chock full of ‘em (which is more sociopathic than nerdy).

Eighties TV commercials where exciting, mysterious and some times disturbing but always entertaining. No matter what you say, there’s just something magical about revisiting the very same Saturday morning commercials you grew up with as a child. Nostalgia at its finest! By the time the 1980’s came along, nearly any social subject was fare game. This allowed companies to market their products using methods not employed before. Sex? Sure! Violence? The more the better! Claymation? See violence. Sexy violent claymation? Oh god yes!!!

I personally think 80s commercials are so much more effective than commercials of today (it’s actually been proven with several studies which I will now back up with absolutely no data). They are also much more entertaining than say… one of those stupid gecko commercials.

To celebrate the very decade I was born in, I present to you 8 fantastically ludicrous 80’s commercials! And while they are all not that great, they win their own merit of retardation. Lets take a look!

The following is a hiring campaign by the people that bring you the bland, soggy, cardboard flavored shit in the shape of a pizza.

This commercial would have you believe that a job at Dominos will lead to money and respect, plus you will quickly learn traits so useful; they just may save your life one day.
Well that’s it bitches, I’m sold! I am going to go learn more about the employment opportunities Domino Pizza has for me.  Aahchekit out!

In reality the only thing working at Dominos Pizza is going to teach you is how to work a register, which might go along way if you plan to take peoples orders for the rest of your life. The only thing Domino's Pizza has taught me was to avoid the Noid, and even that lesson is useless since he committed suicide in the summer of 1991.

The commercial continues with an infectiously bad pseudo-porno music that beckons you to check it out the infinite possibilities of working at Domino’s Pizza. Commercial, I’ll pay you $10 if you shut the fuck up…

Shut up, shut up! SHUT UP!!!

Contrary to the message in the commercial you won’t get respect and barely any cash from a job like this. That doesn’t deter the guy in this commercial; he pretty much walks into a Domino’s Pizza (while seemingly on an acid trip) and gets hired on the spot without saying a word. Domino’s Pizza employees have a high mortality rate (suicide) so it’s no wonder they used this commercial as desperate attempt to recruit new employees. Enjoy the commercial.

Recently Kentucky Fried Chicken changed there name to “KFC” and attempted to change its company image by trying to trick everyone to believe “KFC” stood for “Kitchen Fresh Chicken”. You know, since any food associated with the word “fried" leads to the disease ‘Fatassatitis’ (also known as Obesity).  When they aren’t serving you soggy chicken corpse and torturing your meaty poultry treats, they continue to resort to long established stereotypes of how badly black people love them some chicken, and they go one better by making a Claymation commercial all about it. Bigotry in Claymation form? That’s new… I think

In this commercial it seems like KFC tries to cash in on the sultry seductive charm of Claymation, and it works. All I know is a little plasticine African American woman made me want to dive head first into a bucket of chicken, and that’s not bad marketing! This commercial sends out an important message: If you don’t buy your fried chicken from KFC you are going to end up with rubbery human flesh fried up like chicken. Ok, message received loud and clear. But what other messages are being sent out in this advertisement? Possibly a sinister one involving a black woman, an Eskimo chicken and a rope?!! The world may never know.

Ok so what if KFC tired to pull the wool over your eyes with their finger lickin’ bullshit. Yea they changed there name in the early 1990s because of public concerns with fried foods, but that didn’t stop people since then to make this nation the fattest nation in the world! And while KFC chicken is like growth hormone for your ass, go ahead and bite into the juicy goodness of this commercial!

As with any product a company sells it’s the seller’s responsibility to make the viewer think they need their product. And if they don’t buy it, everyone they love will be massacred by a rampaging muscle-bound maniac wearing nothing more than a smile and your wife’s skin as panties. While many security companies in the past lulled us to believe we needed something totally useless (for example: the clapper as a security deterrent. Yea…) this commercial tries to peddle one of the worst ideas as a security system… Store front security shutters for your home.

Enter York Security Shutters! This small company located in New York primarily sold their customers a personal version of store front shutters, commonly found on any New York street corner store after hours. It’s that extra something that adds that touch of the ghetto to any home. I live in New York and I don’t see these anywhere but on stores, which begs the question: where the fuck do you live that it’s so bad that you need blast shield shutters over your windows?

With the simple press of a button you too could be safe behind 30 pounds of cheaply constructed plastic window shielding. And as if they where trying to outdo themselves in total uselessness, they even have a non motorized version which requires you to hand pull the shutters retracting cable. Just imagine burglars breaking through your windows as you try to lower the shutters. If you bought this crap and the burglars kill you, I’ll consider it a mercy killing because you where just too mentally retarded to go on living. Sure I can come up with something more useless then hand powered security shutters, but that’s just because I am a genius. And since I don’t have to prove my genius to anyone, just watch yourself the commercial.

I have witnessed a lot of stupid ways companies attempt to market their useless crap, but I never seen one quite like this commercial. It seems to be geared towards the bimbo’s and valley girls prevalent during the decade of decadence, which I guess is a good marketing scheme due to the fact that they always have their daddies credit cards in hand. In any case this is quite an Eightiestastic commercial with very Breakfast Club type characters.

This is the story of a girl in plight. Her only wish is to be so much more of a dumb bitch than she already is which is astonishing since in three other Jordache Basic commercials she reprises her role as the poster child for birth control. And if questionable mental capacity wasn’t bad enough, the commercial give you no hint to what they are trying to sell you, I would have even preferred a nervous pause in the commercial displaying the actors blank faces for a good 10 seconds then for a brief millisecond they display the message “You love Jordache products, Go buy them … Oh P.S: Satan is your God now!” over a red screen showing chopped up dead people in the background instead of the ambiguous crap they pull in this commercial.

Actually this was one of the few commercials that I did any kind of research on, and apparently the only thing that comes up on Jordache Basics is some article as far back as 1988, now that makes me think, did these commercials kill the Jordache Basic clothing line? Now I am not going to say these commercials where that bad, I mean there has been far worst commercials today that match (if not exceed) in stupidity. And while it’s NOT illegal to be stupid or annoying, but if I where King I would have all the stupids march into rush hour traffic covered in angry bees. I’m just saying. Roll the tape!

If you like being scared shitless while drinking cherry cola this is the commercial for you.

While it may not be immediately apparent, this commercial is a throw back to the 50s and 60s retro style (which had a resurgence in the 80s if you didn’t notice), this is one of those commercials with a very catchy tune, it just might have you stuttering its theme song for days to come. CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI- CHERRY COKE!

Like many things in the 80s, things had to be radical, awesome or outrageous; it was just the nature of things. And since this isn’t any old cola (if you just said “I know, it’s Cherry Coca Cola” you underestimated the power of this soft drink) it simply can only be described as damn Outrageous Cherry Coca Cola! I am sure if I drank a cold bottle of this stuff today it would grab me by the balls, punch me in the throat and ride me like a pony because to me, that is the very definition of “outrageous”… and “sexy”.

While ads like this may anger and frustrate a few confused simple minds out there, this commercial has it all, tiny rhythmically challenged white people dancing on a Jukebox, big screen werewolf’s assaulting movie patrons, astronauts undressing Marilyn Monroe and best of all, a guy dressed up like a Nazi pitching Cherry Coca Cola! What more could you ask for?! While I go buy me some Cherry Coca Cola, enjoy this trippy commercial.

Incase you weren’t born in the 80's I have to tell you, Swatch was big! They where the marginally expensive but cheaply made plastic watches that where a huge fad back then. They came with very colorful faces and interchangeable wrist bands and where the perfect accessory to compliment your skinny tie.

Through the years Swatch came up with different patterns and gimmicks on their watches, but few where so absurd and deserving of attention as the one in this commercial. A Swatch watch with diamonds! Imagine being the first on your block to own a diamond Swatch, the look of envy in the face of your fellow yuppie neighbors.

This commercial doesn’t make a shred of sense, it seems to be inspired on Lionel Ritchie’s music video for ‘Dancing on the ceiling’. It shows random people joining a masquerade party being held upside-down on the ceiling of a furniture-less apartment. This is what they thought up to sell watches? Wearing one of these is like wiping your ass with gold plated paper bag, absolutely useless but a sophisticated way to tell everyone else “Fuck you! Even my cheap crap is expensive!” If you happened to actually buy one of these back then, don’t feel to bad about your questionable taste, I mean 95% of Americans back then where using a combination of glow in the dark accessories and denim jackets, wore mullets (even women!) and listened to “Wham!”. Enjoy the commercial!

Cookie Puss: The intergalactic ice cream cake! Even though ice cream has been attributed with evil in the past, Cookie Puss is a peace loving alien, that’s until you try to slice him open for his soft sweet innards. And like any international star, he has his very own posse of ice cream based characters which included “Fudgie the Whale” and “Hug me the Bear”.

Cookie Puss seemed to be the more popular and harder to find cake of the three. I mean I don’t remember anyone coming into a Carvel store and asking:

Obviously stupid customer: “Let me have one of those “Fuck me” the whales”

Under paid Carvel employee: “Sir, its “Fudgie” the Whale, and yes, we have tons of those but no Cookie Puss”

Obviously stupid and drunk customer: “I want no "Cookie Pussy" and its non of yar business what I do with my cake after I buy it! Now gimmie a “Fuck me” the whale or get me your manager!”

I used to live in the crawl space of a Carvel during the years of 1982 to 1991 and used to see this happen a lot back then.

I guess Carvel didn’t think an alien made of ice cream and asbestos was cool enough to entice buyers, so they went a step further and even made plush dolls, one of “Hug me” the bear and one of Cookie Puss. The funny things about these dolls are that they don’t particularly look like either of the characters they are supposed to be based on. For example: “Hug me” the bear looks like an average teddy bear dressed in clothing vaguely resembling the outfit his cake counterpart wears, as for the Cookie Puss doll, it looks like failed Pac-man Jr. doll repackaged as Cookie Puss with an ice cream cone nose glued on for good measure. Anyways enjoy the commercial!

And finally I left the worst product for last, Ayds appetite suppressant candy. Now I say its one of the worst products not because it’s a diet supplement with a name that sounds phonetically identical to the AIDS virus, or that the concept of the product was the fusion of candy and pharmaceutical drugs, oh no. It was just the simple fact that Ayds didn’t work! Or maybe not, maybe I am just a douche-bag and it sounds funny to me when people say “Ayds made me lose weight and feel great! Now I am popular with the ladies!” Yep, that is hilarious.

This commercial was made during the middle of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and while I would like to say there are companies out there that produce distasteful products with a name so insensitive to other peoples suffering (For example: Microsoft’s insensitivity to impotent men everywhere), it’s not the case with this one. Ayds was actually a product that started its life during the 70’s and was used by clueless housewives and homosexuals until the product was discontinued during the very early 90’s.

According to all the old people I hang out with (they supply the steady amount of cats needed to satisfy my lust for blood) they remember buying the product and it not working for them. The dietary supplement was supposed to suppress your appetite by decreasing your sensitivity to taste (in other words, numbing your taste buds) thus suppressing your want to eat. But really in this day in age you can do the very same thing with better results by walking into your local White Castle and ordering a sac-oh-ten and purging the essence of life that once flowed in your very veins. Now that I think about it, that’s a fair description of the AIDS virus! Oh my god, White Castle gives you AIDS!!!

:( Commercial…

Well, there you have it! I hope you enjoyed our little stroll down memory lane. I would like to give a special thanks to Mr. T who was gracious enough to help us rate our commercials… Eh, who am I kidding, all we could afford was Pauly Shore, and that’s just because I had a half empty can of oven cleaner he could pull off some whipits from.