…and while you’re at it, “Eat FRESH!”
I had promised a follow up to my jaunt into the retro toy vault a few weeks ago, when I embraced the idea of Wrinkles (the cuddly kind). I mean, Bea Arthur wants them, and Punky Brewster’s snobby friend Margaux Kramer relied on their live action puppet-driven help in one of those dime-a-dozen direct-to-video toy marketing tie-ins. In fact, that’s what I planned on for my next article.
And well, it got away from me.
I need to tie myself to a chair long enough to actually watch the video, take some screenshots, and you know, write the actual article. But I figured, why not have a good old-fashioned Flashback Friday commercial block as a placeholder? We love Flashback Friday, and we love commercials, right?
Right?!
It depends. How do you feel about…2006?
My rules be damned, I’m pushing a little further forward in time, dipping my toes into the pool of 2006 commercials. Today’s swim comes from April 29, 2006, and a recording of Saturday Night Live: “The Best of Saturday TV Funhouse,” which was a compilation of the finest moments of the first ten years of that Robert Smigel-produced animated segment that usually fell somewhere in the first 45 minutes of Saturday Night Live pretty much every week. From parodies of popular children’s shows to animated depictions of real audio clips, to X-Presidents to Darlene Love singing of Christmas Day and how those of the Jewish faith celebrate (a la Rankin-Bass), Saturday TV Funhouse always had something funny, interesting, and well, animated. When I was still watching the show (I stopped in early 2017), the segment was always one of my favorites, especially in the early seasons of the segment’s life.
Hosted by Ace and Gary, the heroes of the OG Saturday TV Funhouse segment The Ambiguously Gay Duo, this one left no stone unturned when finding some of the very best the segment had to offer.
But between those specially-cultivated clips, there were products, services, and movie studios – heck, even NBC itself – vying for your time, attention, and money.
Commercials like:
We’ve got grapes for Yoga balls, things you don’t want to do with the Burger King, hair as the literal bird’s nest you always feared, cars with high side impact ratings, and the rare and elusive teenage smile, courtesy of Royal Caribbean Cruiseline. We’ve also got candy that claims it is “The Greatest Candy Bar Ever” (just ask its website!), music on your cell phone (!!!!), Master Thespian hocking Subway sandwiches (my how the mighty have fallen. I wonder what Baudelaire would say?), and mid-2000s cell phones, coupled with early 2000s wireless revolution-era wireless carriers that are now part of another carrier, but were at once the second-largest in the market.
They raised the bar, only to slip short of it and fall into the competition’s pit of wireless coverage.
Such sadness on this Friday!
But no worries! We have movie promos, television promos, mid-2000s technology, and we even have some of the greatest SNL bumpers ever!
One can NEVER say I don’t give them anything nice! Though Sexy Olive Oyl will haunt my dreams. That’s not a gift my friends, that’s a terrible curse.
Onward, friends! The commercials await you!
So, while intended to be a placeholder, this is not the worst way to wrap up the week.
Perhaps I will finally get to watching that Wrinkles video.
But until then, and next time, have a fantastic Flashback Friday, and a great weekend!