For no particular reason, I braced myself and watched a few minutes of the Star Wars Holiday Special [4], which will pretty much wreck any illusions you have that we live in a just and sane universe. A related video caught my eye, though, and it was the 19 minutes of commercials that were aired during the aforementioned special:
Believe it or not, I was much more interested in these ads, and they are a study. I felt like I was transported back to my childhood, and from the perspective of 2015, it's fascinating to get a sense of the gestalt of the United States in 1978. The first commercials are:
- General Motors - very salt-of-the-earth, UAW-promoting commercial showing how a typical GM worker is oh-so-proud of the fine American automobiles he's making. I suppose Detroit was starting to feel some heat from these newfangled Japanese imports. I notice that the "soldering" they show on the assembly lines is done with the skill and craftsmanship of a five-year old boy with a box of finger paints. No wonder the cars rattled.
- Trail Tracker toy - I vaguely remember those.
- CBS show promotions, featuring Lucille Ball (!) and Dallas.
- A Comtrex commercial with the most 70s hairstyles you can imagine.
- My personal favorite, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (which inexplicably is narrated by a man). You remember this one: "Look for.........the union label.........." Unions were already on the descent, but little did they know they would practically vanish were it not for the horrendously overprotected government employees we have in 2015.
- AT&T telephones, featured as (disappointing) gifts.
- A promotion of The Bible movie to be shown on CBS.
- Reggie Jackson promoted his candy bar ("Reggie") which, understandably, is no longer around.
- Another GM ad showing people make their engines and assuring the viewer that the engines do, in fact, work once they're delivered to the factory that puts them into auto bodies. The insecurity about the quality absolutely saturates these commercials. It's clear America had lost its way.
- Pillsbury cake mixes, featuring God-knows-what chemicals that taste "more like scratch" (scratch being a synonym for actual baking using actual ingredients).
- Hungry Jack commercial.
- A news break, which is a real blast from the past, discussing the Soviet premier scaring 12 U.S. Senators to death with talk about a neutron bomb and a story about a CIA espionage case involving, of course, selling secrets to the Russians.
- A Contac ad, which is the commercial I saw a million times as a kid with a bazillion little spheres bouncing all over the place when the pill was pulled apart.
- Another promotion for a CBS special - the Bobby Vinton Rock & Rollers (dear God).
By this halfway mark, I had lost interest in writing down each of these damned things, but it's worth a look, particularly if you are a certain age. And, with that, I leave you with a nominee for the worst song in the history of anything, plucked directly from the Star Wars Holiday Special: