80's Commercials Vol. 1063

These commercials aired on NBC on April 11th, 1981
1. Promo for "SCTV" (RIP to cast member Joe Flaherty)
2. TV Spot for "Stir Crazy"
3. Playtex Tampons (With Brenda Vaccaro. I can't help but notice she's a lot less "breathy" in this than the ad I posted in the previous volume...I'm thinking that they actually muted the audio when she wasn't speaking here)
4. Kronenbourg Beer
5. TV Spot for "Caveman"
6. "Saturday Night Live" Commercial Bumper (The 1980-81 season is cited by pretty much everyone as the worst in the show's history. Lorne Michaels had left as executive producer the previous season taking all of the cast and most of the writing staff with him, with new producer Jean Doumanian filling his role for this season. After an on-air F bomb on the 2/21/81 show SNL was put on hiatus and Doumanian was eventually let go. This 4/11/81 episode hosted by Chevy Chase was the last episode of the season before the 1981 WGA strike put production on hold and was the first produced by NBC exec Dick Ebersol. For the next season, only Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo remained from the 1980-81 cast)
7. Denorex (You can feel it tingle! 2:28 did we REALLY have to follow shampoo man into the shower?)
8. Dr Pepper (With David Naughton and Mickey Rooney! I believe this also features the ensemble cast from Sugar Babies, a 1979 Broadway musical that Rooney starred in at the time)
9. Honda Motorcycles
10. Nature's Organics Plus Henna Shampoo
11. "Saturday Night Live" Commercial Bumper
12. TV Spot for "Excalibur" (It's always a thrill to post trailers like this for iconic movies. This movie is far from perfect but it's certainly an experience and has some incredible imagery...and Nicol Williamson as Merlin is just a classic performance)
13. Giacobazzi Wine
14. Budget
15. S.O.S. (With Estelle Harris)
16."Saturday Night Live" Commercial Bumper
17. Promo for "Fugitive From The Empire" (A TV movie intended as a pilot for a series that wasn't picked up. The success of "Excalibur" and other fantasy epics like "The Sword and the Sorcerer" and "Conan The Barbarian" probably made them rethink their decision to not have a sword and sorcery TV show on the air during this period)
18. WPIX FM
19. Kawasaki 650 CSR Motorcycle
20. McDonald's $10,000,000 Build A Big Mac Game
21. Promo for "Bob Hope's Spring Fling"
22. Bic Shaver (Featuring a bunch of football stars. Fred Dryser at 7:52 later starred in the NBC TV show "Hunter")
23. Lowenbrau
24. Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus
25. The Gap (I actually had no idea the "fall into the gap" slogan was that old)
26. "Saturday Night Live" Commercial Bumper
27. Summer's Eve
28. TV Spot for "Nighthawks" (Rutger Hauer's first American movie. This was plagued by production issues)
29. 97 WYNY FM

[@yusakug]

7:06 - Voice acting legend Frank Welker, who voiced everyone from Megatron to Dr. Claw to Kermit on Muppet Babies.

[@yusakug]

Caveman…For the one person who dreamed of seeing Ringo Starr Dennis Quaid and Shelly Long in the same movie…

[@toonswap8511]

You win the wittiest comment of the day. That's some funny stuff.

[@mansquatch2260]

I notice a lot of these ads mention their competitors as much as their own product.

[@DanZero77]

RIP Count Floyd! He made appearances on the animated Ed Grimley show on NBC in 1998 as well as on the Grace Under Pressure Tour concert video from Rush! I have no idea who the WNBC V/O is but the way he says "KAWAAASAKI" is scary! WYNY flipped formats to country later in the 80s as well as jumping around the radio dial a few times!

[@MyMelodyOfTheHeart]

S.O.S.- I almost expected the lady using the Brillo pads to knock down the wall between the two kitchens to grab some S.O.S. pads from her friend after being told how good they are at cleaning dishes. McDonald’s $10,000,000 Build A Big Mac Game- Impressive effect of combining live action with animation throughout this commercial. I like how the woman’s family looks slightly confused at the end after the woman comes out of the television.

[@scorpiouk5914]

The lady using the Brillo pads was Estelle Getty, George's mom on " Seinfeld".

[@80sCommercialVault]

@@scorpiouk5914 The actress in the SOS commercial is Estelle Harris. This is mentioned in the video description, which should be read before adding comments like this. Estelle Getty is a completely different actress.

[@goodtarjones]

Hey that’s Tim Kazurinsky in that Kronenbourg beer commercial. On that very night he debuted as one of the new cast members on Dick Ebersole’s revamped SNL right before the writer’s strike. Unlike poor Laurie Matcalfe, however, he would come back for the next full season

[@hopegrimsley3427]

2:42-This must have been one of the last David Naughton Dr. Pepper ads; I am pretty sure they ended after his appearance in “An American Werewolf in London.”

[@80sCommercialVault]

He was let go from their commercials after that but it wasn't released to theaters until August of 1981.

[@yusakug]

Pryor and Wilder were so great together. Shame their union had to end the way it did with the mediocre Another You, which is hard to watch, given neither were in the best comic shape by then.

[@TTrigg]

SCTV-Godspeed Joe 😢..say hi to John for us Stir Crazy-"That's right,we baad.." Saturday Night Live-that on-air F bomb was,i believe,delivered by then-castmember Charles Rocket(R.I.P):"..I'd like to know who the F--K did it!" The reactions by everyone present were priceless Dr Pepper-the time when Andy Hardy met the American Werewolf Excalibur-loved the entire sequence leading up to the final battle..also good early performances of Patrick Stewart,Helen Mirren and Liam Neeson Fugitive From The Empire-a.k.a The Archer And The Sorceress McDonald's $10,000,000 Build A Big Mac Game-with Robert Do'Qui The Gap-my favorite store to visit before leaving the mall on Saturdays Nighthawks"WULFGARR!!!"

[@blinkereye123]

Speaking of SNL, I think that was cast member Tim Kazarinski in the Kronenbourg spot.

[@hrtvfan2870]

I guess the Bic ad shows the announcer, Marv Albert, was taking any job he could get (juggling the Knicks, NFL games for NBC and being lead sports anchor for WNBC)

[@jareddicarlo7816]

Note how Robin Duke is in the SCTV promo at the beginning of the video and the SNL bumper at 6:15. This is because she (and Tony Rosato) had just been poached from SCTV by Ebersol to join his version of SNL.

[@toonswap8511]

A whole football team sharing one razor? I imagine HIV was not commonly known of or understood by the public at this point but I'm sure Hepatitis was.

[@80sCommercialVault]

AIDS was not known or reported until the spring/summer of 1981. The first report about AIDS cases from the CDC was made on June 5th, 1981, a few months after this.

[@Jeff-gj7ko]

6:18 Well, looks like we found a future episode of MST3K.

[@WilfredCthulu]

Ooo I like the designs of those organic shampoo bottles. The guy in the Denorex one looks like Mr. Bean. Can anyone say if that caveman movie is any good? Even ironically? I mean ringo starr? Come on get outta here!

[@80sCommercialVault]

The stop-motion dinosaur special effects in "Caveman" are honestly pretty impressive. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpuwpnd_lqeLeM0

[@WilfredCthulu]

Stop Motion is pretty cool and charming. Like it a lot in Basket Case and Robocop too.

[@CMmeows]

Ringo is best Beatle

[@MelissaHash]

RIP to a funny fella in Joe Flaherty! Plus i thought Caveman was a funny movie, another fabulous crop of vintage adverts! 👍

[@mst3kanita]

Oh this was that season six episode of snl right before the writers strike that had new cast members.

[@80sCommercialVault]

Yes, it is a very weird episode. Chevy Chase returns to host Weekend Update in a segment that lasts over two commercial breaks (!) the longest ever on SNL, probably because they needed to fill time. It would have been interesting to see how the rest of the season would have gone.