What’s In Your #ThrowbackThursday?

In the mood for another commercial block?

A few weeks ago, I mentioned an expansion of the Throwback/Flashback timeline into the early 2000s, up to 2003.  I’ve found that when going through these blocks of commercials, I don’t usually find any one commercial that sticks out, but as an entire block, these commercials work well together.  That said, when I do make the jump to the early 2000s, it will probably be in these types of blocks.

Viewership doesn’t seem to mind this at all.

Today, back by copious viewership, we’ll be watching another block of commercials, this time from March 2001.  I taped these between 1 am and 3 am during the forer NBC programming block “NBC All Night.”  This block aired each night after normal NBC Late Night programming.  Monday through Friday, week-old reruns of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night With Conan O’Brien would air (I think at 2:05 am), on Saturdays, a past episode of Saturday Night Live (which was always a treat), and on Sundays, an encore of that evening’s Dateline NBC episode.

While this programming block was still active (it was phased out in the fall of 2006), I lived in town served by two media markets – New York City and Philadelphia.  The NBC All Night block on Saturdays was different for each network.  New York would show It’s Showtime at the Apollo at 1 am, so they wouldn’t air the classic SNL episode until 2 am, but Philadelphia’s NBC station would air the episode at 1 am, right after the current season’s Saturday Night Live episode was over.  I would start watching it on that station, and if it was a “keeper,” I’d set the VCR (yes, VCR) timer for 2:30 am to tape it from the New York station.  In 2002, I got a digital cable box, and the info button was my best friend.

The classic SNL reruns were goodies – usually ones from the 70s, 80s, and 90s.  By the mid-2000s, they would show ones from the early 2000s, which was fine, but this programming block really gave me the opportunity to see episodes I’d never seen, perhaps ones Comedy Central didn’t air in reruns.  It also gave me the opportunity to see them in their original, full version, not the 60 minute truncated reruns I was used to seeing.  I still have some of those 90 minute (and 60 minute) reruns on tapes, they’re gems and I really do need to transfer them to my computer.

Anyway, enough tangents, let’s get to what you came here for – the commercials!

As I said, today’s block comes from March 2001, and is a late night mix of national advertising and local avails.  Included in this set:

SLEEPING PUPPIES!

SnapShot

Newspaper guy!

SnapShot(0)

This air freshener, which I had.  It actually does work!

SnapShot(1)

Triscuits and weird facial expressions…while eating Triscuits!

SnapShot(2)

Cute babies who see through to your soul…

SnapShot(3)

Renting a video!

This will never go out of style!

SnapShot(4)

Lenny Kravitz cameo!

SnapShot(5)

A cameo by the local version of Elizabeth Taylor!

SnapShot(6)

(Not really Elizabeth Taylor)

And Homework Help!

SnapShot(7)

Ah yes, these two.  One was fired from another local station for evading the privacy of his fired co-anchor of the evening news, the other pretty much had to resign because her husband (a local politician) was sentenced to prison.  But in 2001, he was still at this station, and she was not married to the politician yet.

Simpler times.

So, whenever you’re ready, click play, and engage in commercial bliss!

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it?

Guess what?  We’ll do this all over again tomorrow!

You love that, don’t you?

If you do, come on back tomorrow.  Enjoy the rest of your Throwback Thursday!

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