Honey You, Are My #ThrowbackThursday…

Don’t you go away!

When I was planning my commercial offerings this week, being that we’re in the lead up to Valentine’s Day, I had already picked out two commercials. However, I was randomly thinking about a different commercial, that even though it isn’t about Valentine’s Day, it still has a nice “Valentine” vibe to it. So, with that in mind, one of the commercials will be a bonus weekend offering, and the commercial that randomly came to me…is today’s Throwback Thursday commercial.

It is one I remember airing around, of all times, the Christmas holiday season, and turns out to be much more “recent” than I remembered. I swore this commercial was from 1998-1999, but in actuality, it is from 2003. And that works well, considering that 2003 is the high end of my cut off for “nostalgic” commercials. For me, 2003 still has the trappings of late 1990s nostalgia, based on technology and retail offerings. We still relied less on the internet for shopping needs, and cell phones still weren’t smart (we had Palm Pilots for that!). But our camcorders were evolving, and now recording onto mini DVDs, as evidenced by today’s offering from Sony.

…and child voyeurs everywhere!

She’d argue she’s the next great filmmaker, but she’s actually quite the little sneak.

Find out what she “documents” in this funny, if not slightly sappy, commercial for Sony’s newest Handycam!

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So dead.

The Handycam has been a Sony product since 1985, beginning with the Video8 camera, which replaced the brand’s Betamax-based models, with an emphasis on its palm-sized design, and smaller videocassettes. The DVD-based camcorder was introduced to the market in 1996, with Sony introducing their DVD Handycam (DCR models) model in 2003. The discs were 8 cm (think the size of a Nintendo GameCube disc), and could be played in Sony DVD players and recorders manufactured after 2000, as long as the disc was finalized in the camcorder. I can’t find much about the camcorder and its life, but it was more than likely discontinued sometime in the mid-2000s. I bought my camcorder in 2006, and it used Mini-DV cassettes. I don’t remember the disc cameras being available at the time.

As for the song/pickup line, that is courtesy of The Manhattans, and their 1980 hit “Shining Star,” not to be confused with Earth Wind and Fire’s 1975 hit. This “Shining Star,” from The Manhattans album After Midnight, reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, and saw a release just in time for Valentine’s Day, in February 1980. After Midnight was the group’s eleventh album (they formed in 1962 upon discharge from their service in different branches of the military). All but one of the original members have passed away, and “Shining Star” appears to be one of their biggest hits.

You know what else was a hit? The sappy and sentimental footage of a boy and girl serenading each other with a song they’re probably not old enough to even know.

The look on his parents’ faces is priceless.

His reaction to who filmed it, however…

She’ll never film another thing again…until the next time her brother and his girlfriend sing sappy love songs to each other.

Have a great Throwback Thursday!

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