Tag: Adverts

10 random things from 1991

Advert

Ariston, which I always thought was a deodorant, but now I realise I was thinking of Arrid Extra Dry. Ariston (and on, and on…) seems to be a brand of washing machine. I can only assume that the original 5 million machines are still in perfect working order, as no one seems to buy them any more.

Barbie videogame for NES

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I’m not sure why she’s doing giant washing up, or what the Zs are for. All I know is that Barbie is rad. I don’t know why there is a man in a turban offering you SODA. Continue reading “10 random things from 1991” →

Magazine battle: Hers vs Inside Wrestling

I got these two magazines from a junk shop, because that’s what I do. I haven’t looked through them yet, and I need a way to procrastinate, so I figured now was a good time to crack them open.

In the blue corner we have the December 1970 issue of Hers, which looks to be about cleaning and periods and shit, although they do promise me I can sew my own ‘glamorous party tunic’.

EPSON MFP image Continue reading “Magazine battle: Hers vs Inside Wrestling” →

80s and 90s doll adverts: magic piss and Travelodge Barbie

I’m a girl, and as such I only like miniature versions of myself that piss and shit. Given this information, it’s no surprise that the vast majority of adverts for creepy, dead-eyed Uncanny Valley residents were aimed at me.

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Don’t get me wrong, I love dolls. Dolls don’t answer back, unless I’ve been drinking. I also love doll adverts, even though the majority are unrealistic. Doll adverts should show the doll taking part in a re-creation of some episode of Brookside that you watched with your parents and didn’t fully understand. At the very least, they should show Barbies in their natural state – naked and scribbled on with all their hair cut off.

Whatever. Let’s have a look at children who are not me playing with dolls correctly, courtesy of a bunch of random adverts I found. Continue reading “80s and 90s doll adverts: magic piss and Travelodge Barbie” →

Bras, Mr T and lighting farts: Rubbish PSAs

Hello. I hope you don’t fall into a silage pit while reading this, or climb up a pylon and get electrocuted. I would be sad.

Horror movies? Please. The seminal series 999 starring Michael Buerke? No, although that was shit-your-pants scary too.

These are nothing compared to public service announcements.

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PSAs back in the day made all manner of things simultaneously terrifying and tempting. As kids, we’d never have thought to do most of these things, but suddenly there were adverts announcing that pylon climbing or farm messing about were real things, which we could do, if we were so inclined. Of course, they went on to say that the outcome of these activities was DEATH, so they should never be attempted.

Balls to that; my friends and I took great pleasure in attempting to recreate these adverts to prove we were hard. Having said that, we also thought we were being hard by walking past the “haunted bungalow” on our estate. It was only haunted because the people had moved out and left some furniture behind. Continue reading “Bras, Mr T and lighting farts: Rubbish PSAs” →

A tribute to shops I have known and loved

This article has no real purpose, except that I just wanted to do it. I’m sure that when I used to actually go to these shops as a protesting, mullet-haired kid, they were mostly just boring. Now that I’ve grown up, these shops have become things of wonder – legendary relics of the past whose stories will be told round campfires for generations to come.

Andy’s Records/Our Price

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I was a bit of a music nerd when I was a teenager, so a lot of my Saturdays would be spent happily browsing the CDs in the Doncaster branches of the above shops. Activities included trying to find some Radiohead import I didn’t already have, or spending my entire week’s worth of pocket money on a CD I’d never heard of, because the cover looked vaguely interesting. I decided these CDs would look good on my bedroom shelf, so I bought them in case I ever made any friends and they ever came round to look at my CDs. Continue reading “A tribute to shops I have known and loved” →