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Some of the best commercials of the 70s & 80s

 
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Mike Harrison
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Joined: 03 Nov 2007
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Location: Equidistant from New York City and Philadelphia, along the NJ Shore

PostPosted: Thu May 24, 2018 10:57 am    Post subject: Some of the best commercials of the 70s & 80s Reply with quote

Some newcomers, and friends from other countries, may never have heard of the late Dick Orkin and his original partner Bert Berdis, who created a slew of absolutely wonderful radio campaigns back in the mid-late 70s and into the 80s. No over-written rushed copy. No constantly bashing listeners over the head with the advertisers' names. In fact, no race to get the advertiser's name mentioned in the first seven seconds of the spot. Dick & Bert (and, others, after Bert went his own way) used humor. Certainly not a new concept, but this was humor that was expertly woven into seemingly everyday situations and conversations. Many (perhaps all) of these spots were Clio winners. It's no wonder why.

Here's 17 minutes of great advertising:

https://mike-harrison.com/vobb/Dick-&-Bert-&-Friends.mp3
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JohnV
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Location: Md/DC

PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 5:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK... came up with CHICKEN MAN! and worked Mutual Radio when Dick and Bert did the TIME magazine series and the NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR stuff... much here are all new to me! thanks!!!!
housecoat... banana boat... ahhh yes...

The timing on these (edited or not) is spectacular.

Orkin said their approach was to take a legal pad, start writing trying to make each other laugh and if they didn't mention the sponsor by 1/2 way down they started over.

this stuff is just the benchmark... getting right up there with Brown & Winn... and close to , ultimately, Freberg.
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Mike Harrison
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PostPosted: Thu May 31, 2018 10:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, John. Their stuff was outstanding. I'll admit I don't listen to radio very much anymore, but I'm just stumped as to why advertising's use of good, solid humor seemed to fall out of fashion. Either that, or maybe no one felt that they could approach this level. But, people still find themselves in various situations, and I'm pretty sure we all still appreciate funny stuff.

Though not the same thing, advertising jingles also seem to have vanished.
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JohnV
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 01, 2018 4:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There are still a few folks who can do this... this is 2008 or earlier but well worth the listen. Jimmy John's FAST TALKER series of radio spots.

https://youtu.be/K6g7qFcJbio
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Rick Riley
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Joined: 12 Aug 2011
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 01, 2018 8:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A few reasons we aren’t enjoying spots like that these days.

1) Comedy is difficult at best. You’re either funny or you’re not. If you’re a funny person you can be serious, but if you’re a serious person, you most likely can’t ‘be’ funny.

2) Notice they had 60 seconds on most occasions to set up the premise and get to the punchline. You need a certain amount of time to establish the bit. These days we live in a short attention span world. Apparently 30’s have now even deemed themselves too long and 6 seconds is what a lot of advertisers are going for. You can get five 6’s in the span of a 30.

3) Comedy has a short shelf life. Once you’ve heard the joke, you’ve heard the joke. You know where it’s going so the tune out rate is higher than just hearing information. Hence you need to come up with a new spot more quickly rather than just have a product name pounded into your head for a year or two.

I wrote comedy for radio for years. I love theater of the mind. You can take people anywhere with some creative writing and a few sound effects. Firesign Theater was a master of that. Dick Orkin was a master as well. Funny guy with a deadpan delivery. You can count those guys these days on less than one hand. Times are fast now. We tweet, we Instagram, we text, we don’t sit still for much. Hence the golden days of comedy and the time and talent it takes to produce it lie in the Fun Time Graveyard waiting for guys like you to stop and pause at their headstones and pay homage.

Thanks for posting that. They were great for their time for sure. Check out Firesign Theater ‘Everything You Know is Wrong’ which came out about the time Evil Knievel jumped the Snake River Canyon. They did a parody where Rebus Knebus jumped into the center of the earth. Very funny stuff.
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Lee Gordon
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 01, 2018 10:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I was Production Director/Copywriter at the radio station, sales people would occasionally request that write and produce them a "Dick Orkin style" commercial. I would always (hilariously) reply, "If I could do that, I wouldn't be working here for this money."
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todd ellis
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
You can get five 6’s in the span of a 30


i was told there would be no math???
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