We’re Excited About #ThrowbackThursday!

…especially when it involves a whole bag of school supplies meeting its fate on a suburban street.

Welcome back to school!  Another year of learning about math, science, history, and playing volleyball in gym (ugh).  It’s going to be a great year!

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Well, not for me.  I’ve been out of school since 2005 (when I graduated from college).  I took a few night classes post undergrad degree at an adult evening school (run through a county technical high school), and a few online classes here and there, but otherwise, I haven’t been in any kind of educational setting since 2009.  I miss school, but I don’t miss the homework.

Remember the days of going to buy school supplies?  My dad used to take us to Staples every year for our school supplies.  He had a corporate points card through his job, so he figured he could get a few quick points off of his children needing notebooks and pens.

Ironically enough, my dad’s favorite office supply/back-to-school commercial was that infamous Staples ad from the mid-1990s (related: #FlashbackFriday: It’s (Not) The Most Wonderful Time of the Year).  You know the one – the elementary school-age kids sadly watching their father shop for supplies while Andy Williams proclaims it’s the most wonderful time of the year.  I swear, I was watching TV in the summer of 2000 (the summer before I started my senior year of high school), and that exact same commercial was on.  By that point, those kids were probably in high school in real life as well.

That commercial started airing in the summer of 1994 (the summer between fifth and sixth grade), and aired right through the mid-2000s.  There is a version that aired in 2005…featuring the exact same kids, just with a Staples slogan change.  If you really needed to drive a point home, this ad did it.  And my dad loved it.

Staples really knew how to make sure we knew they were the best place to buy school supplies, but they did have other ads to serve the purpose of driving the “it’s back to school time!” point home.  Take this week’s ad, for instance.  It’s from 1998, it is a Staples ad, and it could have been timeless.

Except the mom’s voice is just awful, but everyone could relate to this one.

So we have mom and her three little darlings…

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And she just finished buying them everything they need for school…that fits in one single Staples shopping bag.

Is that even possible?  We used to leave with at least three bags of supplies when we did school shopping!

And as she is driving away, unbeknownst to her, her kids are getting excited.

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But not for the reason you think.  And when you click play, you’ll find out why,

It’s almost magical watching colorful paper fly out of a forgotten bag…

…and glorious when the bag meets its end.

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“Yea, no more school because we don’t have school supplies…oh wait…”

But hey, with deals like these…

…Mom won’t feel so bad about having to run back out for new supplies!

Just wait till she figures out what happened, but we know her little darlings will never tell her the truth!

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And by that, Staples means all the supplies you lost.

Try saying “yea!” to that!

And there you have it, back to school done right…and then carelessly lost when left on top of a car roof.

We’re continuing with the theme of back to school tomorrow as well, which thankfully doesn’t end with supplies scattered all over suburbia.

Find out all about that tomorrow on Flashback Friday!

Have a great Throwback Thursday!

 

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