Cavalcade of Awesome

Merry Christmas Eve!  Tomorrow is Christmas, let’s celebrate by looking at some awesomely vintage Christmas movie advertisements.

I’ve spoken before of my love of the newspaper movie section. One of the coolest things about this long lost section of the ever fading newspaper is that the ads would be spruced up for whatever holiday was current. But most especially for Christmas and New Years.

So, let’s take advantage of the fact that it’s Christmas Day and look at some vintage Christmas newspaper advertisements for movies that aren’t actually Christmas movies.

Showcase Cinemas Holiday Hits (Dec 16, 1983) – Welcome to “Christmastime at the Movies” in 1983.  A full page of movie ads for Showcase Cinemas featuring their “Holiday Hits of 1983”. Not one of which is a Christmas movie.  And the majority of which aren’t even remotely family movies.  Christine? Scarface? Sudden Impact? DC Cab?  Ok, well, who doesn’t love DC Cab, especially during the holidays?  But Christine and Gorky Park are filled with murder.  Sudden Impact?  Rape and murder.  Scarface? Cocaine and murder.  Yentl?  Barbara Streisand.  Not one of these movies would I take a child  or a family member to.

Back to the Future Part II – From Dec 16, 1989, this ad is a particularly fun variation on the second of the famous Back to the Future posters. They’ve added Santa. I don’t know if this modification exists outside of this ad, but I hope and wish that it does.

Star Wars – For the 1977 Christmas season the newspaper ad for Star Wars was modified to include “in character” holiday greetings. I love the sh*t out of this.

Airplane II: The Sequel – Here are two great newspaper ads for the second Airplane movie.  Both have been modified for the Christmas season.  In the first ad on the left (Dec 10, 1982) the space ship is pulling Santa’s sleigh.  In the second ad (Dec 24, 1982) on the right the space ship is wrapped up like a Christmas present.  Actually, I could probably do an entire article on all the different variations on the Airplane II poster.  Several other versions have party goers and a skier following the space ship.

Three Men and a Baby -From Christmas Day, 1987.  The studios festively Photoshopped Santa hats on the cast.

The Man with the Golden Gun – James Bond wishes you Season’s Greetings.  I’m surprised they didn’t put the wholly British phrase, “Happy Christmas!” on the top.

Since tomorrow is Christmas, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy one.  See you on the other side.

This entry was posted on December 24, 2012 at 8:00 am and is filed under Back to the Future, Christmas, holiday, movies, Star Wars with tags advertising, Back to the Future, Christmas, Held Over, holiday, movies, pop culture, Star Wars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.