For my birthday last year, I dipped into a batch of network TV ads aired two days before I was born, on June 1, 1999, and picked out ten favorites to show you in particular. I really enjoyed it, and I only grow an extra number once a year, so let’s make it a tradition.
I have another batch of off-air commercial highlights from that day courtesy of OptimumPx, just as before, but whereas those were seen on WCBS-TV, a network station, these all aired over TNT, a cable channel. If you’re not from the US, you might not be appraised of the differences, but back in the 80s and 90s, cable and network TV were much different worlds. Network TV was over-the-air, antenna TV, free to view, and subject to much stricter regulation than cable TV, which as a result carried a reputation for being less…cerebral.
These ads definitely bear that out, though I think they’re still pretty warm and fuzzy. At the very least, they’re slightly less loud and technicolor than what we’ve got today–though some make it up with the dutch angles and shakycam. Have your seasick pills ready.
10-10-321: Big savings without switching
Diving right into the nostalgia! Long distance calls used to be ass expensive, so in the late 90s, phone carriers you could dial up and make your long distance call through for much cheaper became a competitive market. You’d first dial a carrier access code, or a “dial-around code” as they’re sometimes called since you’re bypassing your own carrier to connect to another. The original ones all had this “10-” and later “10-10-” prefix, which is why they look funny.
Part of the reason these numbers became so notorious is because of the huge ad blitz (this batch of ads had two competing ones!) with huge celebrities these companies invested to get you to remember and use this number. Nowadays, long distance calls are basically a non-issue, and rates went way up and stopped being subsidized by these companies by the early 2000s. 10-10-321 still exists as of writing this, but from what I can gather, expect to pay 30ยข a minute.
Cellasene: The one that works
Ads targeting the insecurities of aging men and women appear all throughout this batch, and the women get it first with this Cellasene ad, a dietary supplement to reduce cellulite. You gotta love any commercial that says it’s clinically proven before immediately showing you in small text that the FDA doesn’t cosign on that. In fact, about a year after this airing, the FTC went after Cellasene for false advertising, stuff like “it fights cellulite at the source”. In reality, Cellasene is just ginkgo biloba and a couple plant extracts. It’s not gonna do anything. Sorry.
Bob Janiszewski: He’s making Hudson County work(?)
Strap in for this one, kids, because this is nuts. On the surface, you’ve got a fairly standard, cheap, local re-election ad about a guy creating jobs and schmoozing with his constituents. They still look like this, basically. What isn’t apparent until you look him up is that this ad is from shortly after Bobert started taking six figures in bribes to guarantee contracts for state services would go to various private entities. Bob is apparently still alive, now 80, and now completely out of the public spotlight, having served a couple years in prison and a halfway house for extortion and working with the FBI as an informant on other cases of government corruption. No honor among thieves.
Vinnie’s III: The best in Italian dining
Okay, this has all been a bit depressing so far, so who wants pizza? This is another local ad for a pizza and seafood place weirdly called Vinnie’s Pizza III. Another cheap charmer, honestly. One thing that struck me is that they prominently say they deliver, which might sound obvious for a pizza place, but given that delivery from any random restaurant is currently in vogue, part of me wants to say they were ahead of the curve. Vinnie’s III is also still in operation as of writing, still at 431 Danforth Avenue in Jersey City, and still with the exact same phone number seen in the ad.
America Online: So easy to use, no wonder it’s #1
Oh yeah, now this is the good stuff. This was during the peak of AOL’s carpetbombing people with install discs and mass campaign to get AOL keywords on the back of every gigantic piece of media there was. There’s actually two AOL ads in the batch, full of swirly soft shapes and people at funny angles on green screens touting the email, the buddy list (“all my friends are on it!”), the 24-hour customer service (availability may be limited, especially during peak usage), and most amusingly, both a wife and a son saying it’s so easy, even their shitass spouse/dad can use it. That strikes me as double-dipping, AOL. You mean to tell me these aren’t real testimonials?
CN8: Connected to your world
Another local ad, but this one’s kind of an odd duck! Comcast used to be a lot smaller, before it bought NBCUniversal and thus a third of the entire planet, but it still had that voracious spirit of winning by default by buying everything. The Comcast Network tried to posture itself as a national cable channel and did so through Comcast gobbling up various local telecoms to spring CN8 onto their subscribers, but in the end, its shows were all local sports and PBS-type local programming, and it wasn’t a thing outside of the Eastern Seaboard (twelve whole states!). CN8 shut down in 2017, but not before giving us a good hit of people talking in front of screens filmed with aggro zooms and drunken camera careening. Oh, I do love the 90s.
Morningstar Farms: Enjoy eating better
Veggie burgers! I associate that stuff with the present day, so imagine my surprise seeing not only an ad for vegetarian burgers and corn dogs here, but learning Morningstar have existed since 1975 and were pioneers of the mock meat world. They’re still around, too, as one of Kellogg’s brands. Can’t say I’ve ever wanted a veggie corn dog, and I’m not convinced they’re magically better for you than meat, but we appreciate the effort.
Spring Water Dial: Doesn’t that feel better?
I’ll be honest, I had no idea Dial soap ever advertised on TV before seeing this. I’m fond of the new age-y black-and-white slow camera jazz-backed nature look, though I gotta say, less fond of it being used to depict kids bathing in public and it explicitly being described as “innocent”. I need a shower after seeing this. Anyone else, or just me?
IKEA: Imagine the possibilities for your home
Have you ever wanted to watch Devo decorate a bowling alley?
Massachusetts: Take a real vacation
This one is literally just an ad for visiting Massachusetts. I suppose it makes sense if this aired in New Jersey. I do love the state trooper with the funny accent asking me “what’s that smell?”. Whatever you’re imagining is funnier than what I could put down here.
This is also partially an ad for CVS, as the travel guide for Massive Two Shits that gets hawked immediately after the spot is said to be obtainable for free at your local CVS. I’ve seen places around where I live have travel guides for Pennsylvania, but never another state. I feel like each state would be too competitive for each other’s tourism dollars to share like that.
And now, a word from our sponsors
It was hard to narrow down my ten this time! There was a funny one from Denny’s featuring implied chicken sex, there was a Farmers Insurance ad pre-jingle which was jarring to see, and Caby found the Teledyne flexible water massager incredibly sus when I was going through the ads in the same room as her (“anywhere you want it to go!”). Maybe I should’ve included that one. Hm.
These ads are a funny contrast to the WCBS ones from last year. Looking at the ad list, they’re on the surface the same sorta stuff–cosmetics, cars, food and restaurants, some show promos in there–but there’s something distinctly more, I dunno, life in the fast lane about these. The WCBS ones are all Buicks marketed at families, Microsoft targeting the ever-analytical small business owner, over-the-counter pain relief tablets and maybe some hair dye. These TNT ones, the cars go faster, the tech is cutting edge, the cameramen are all drunk, and the meds are all FTC complaint fodder for cellulite and virility. It’s not super skeevy, I suppose (Cellasene and that Dial one aside), but you can tell it was for a different audience.
The local ads are ironically more prominent in this batch as well, despite WCBS being a local affiliate and TNT being a national channel. There’s that re-election campaign for Bribery Bob up there (and another batch of TNT ads I’m saving for another year from the following day has an election ad for a different guy), there’s the Vinnie’s Italian and seafood place, and technically the CN8 ad despite the marginally higher production values. Maybe it’s because I live so close to the New Jersey border, but all this feels very comfy and home-y to me. I vaguely remember The Comcast Network, but I’ve definitely seen its successor around, and we eat at a place not unlike Vinnie’s a couple times a year.
Anyway, that’s it. No great point here, just some ads I found neat. I wrote you this thing for my birthday, now, what did you get me? :marf:
