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10 Awesomely vintage comic book ads

Posted in advertising, comic books, pop culture, Rubik's Cube with tags advertising, comic books, pop culture, Rubik's Cube on April 20, 2010 by Paxton

I collected comic books from about fourth grade through high school. And even into college a bit. So I’ve got a pretty big collection of comics in my garage right now. I had dipped into the collection the last few months to look for any comics having to do with werewolves as that will be this year’s Halloween theme. While I had some of my favorite issues out, I started scanning the covers and putting them up on my Flickr Photostream. I also started scanning some of the advertisements found within the comic books. Many times, these are even more memorable than the comic book itself. Many of the toy and video game ads are awesome, but you also see many other ads that showed up for decades within many different comics. Many of them are pretty crazy awesome, if you know what I mean.

Here are some of my favorite comic book ads that I’ve come across in my collection. Click any of the images to make them BIGGER.

Charles Atlas – One of the most famous comic book ads in existence.This ad introduced the “98 pound weakling”, named Mac, who birthed the cliche of having sand kicked into his face by a bully. It’s a classic ad that also got a sequel where a new “weakling”, Jack, is bullied at a school dance instead of a beach.

Sea Monkeys – Another ad that EVERYONE on Earth knows about because it was just that popular. Sea Monkeys. On the left you see your normal Sea Monkeys ad from 1972. On the right, however, you can see a 1978 ad for Super Sea Monkeys. These aren’t your average, every day Sea Monkeys, these bitches are SUPER. They grow twice as fast (and probably die twice as fast, too). I bet the inventor of the Sea Monkeys is right now livin’ the good life in Tahiti drinking umbrella drinks and partying with butt-naked freaks.

Cube Lube – This ad is like a flaming hot supernova of AWESOME. Cube. Lube. “We’ve got what it takes to really move your cube!!!” I’m speechless.

Spalding Street Ball ad – Originating in the ’70s, this ad could be found in comics all the way into the mid ’80s. One of my favorite ads that’s on the back of at least 75% of my comic book collection. I also love the artwork. Probably because it’s drawn by Mad Magazine superstar Jack Davis. Check out Davis’ awesome Back to the Future cover for Mad Magazine #260. I don’t want to burst Mr Barry’s bubble, but there is NO WAY that jump shot was a 30 footer. It doesn’t even look like it’s a 3-point shot. He’s lucky if it’s a 20 footer. A 30 footer would be from almost half court.

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Cola Wars: Awesome Vintage Pepsi commercials

Posted in 80s, advertising, commercials, Michael Jackson, Pepsi, pop culture, soda, TV with tags advertising, commercials, Michael Jackson, nostalgia, Pepsi, pop culture, soda, sodapalooza, TV on February 25, 2010 by Paxton

Pepsi and The Hoff

Shawn Robare over at Branded in the ’80s is reviewing his trip to the World of Coke in Atlanta and it got me thinking about the Cola Wars of the ’80s. More specifically, soda commercials I loved during the Cola Wars.

I love the battle between Coke and Pepsi during the end of the last century. So much awesome merchandising and memorabilia come out of that time period it’s mind boggling. Both Coke and Pepsi unleashed on our consciousness oodles of celebrities, pop songs, commercials and advertising that sculpted our current pop culture consciousness and is still remembered today.

Let’s take a look back at some of Pepsi’s best soda commercials.

Just this past weekend I watched Michael Jackson’s This Is It on Blu-Ray and loved it. The man new how to perform and he had SO MANY good songs. In the ’80s Michael was a pretty big spokesman for Pepsi and made several commercials (one in which he famously caught on fire). For me, one of the best, if not THE best, Pepsi commercial ever made was Jackson Street (clip above), which premiered on the 1983 Motown 25 TV Special. I still get goosebumps when I watch it. This commercial featured an unbelievably catchy jingle-version of Billie Jean. It also starred a young Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). See another Pepsi commercial MJ made called The Chase.

Ray Charles’ “Uh-Huh” commercials were all over the place in the early ’90s. They had 6 or 7 versions of them including Ray in a courtroom and playing his twin brother, Irv. My favorite version came in 1993 which showed other celebrities (Charo, Tiny Tim, Bo Jackson, Jerry Lewis) auditioning for Ray’s singing part.

Around the time Michael Jackson was a Pepsi spokesman, another Michael (J. Fox) was also signed on. Fox starred in several commercials, mainly for Diet Pepsi, that are considered classics. The commercial above is one of his first featuring him in the library trying to be quiet while buying a Pepsi from a vending machine. See another Pepsi classic called My New Neighbor here in which Fox tries desperately to find his hot, new neighbor a Diet Pepsi.

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Movie Flashback: Back to the Future Part II 20th Anniversary

Posted in 80s, advertising, Back to the Future, movies, pop culture with tags advertising, Back to the Future, movies, pop culture, Time Travelogues, video games on November 24, 2009 by Paxton

Man, this year has been crazy with pop culture anniversaries. We had the 10th anniversary of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, the 31st anniversary of the Star Wars Holiday Special as well as Star Trek the Original Series’ 43rd anniversary. Now, it’s time to celebrate the first sequel to one of my favorite movies of all time, Back to the Future. Yes, Back to the Future Part II turned 20 years old on November 22, 2009.

The original Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies of all time. I saw it over 12 times in the theater the year it was released (1985). The theater by my house played $1.95 movies on Monday nights (as a promotion with the local radio station I-95) and my dad would take my brother and I almost every week. And every week I’d go see Back to the Future again and again. Then when Back to the Future hit VHS, I had my dad go to Blockbuster the day it was released to rent it. I watched it that night, and you can only imagine the moment the final screen on the VHS popped up:

To Be Continued...

I nearly crapped my pants in excitement after letting out a shamefully, girlish squeal of delight. HOLY CRAP! THERE’S GOING TO BE ANOTHER BACK TO THE FUTURE MOVIE!! My 13-14 year old mind couldn’t comprehend something that awesome. It nearly shut down. What I didn’t know is that it would be another few years before the sequel would be released.

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Photoshop gone bad: 8 Atrocious DVD Covers

Posted in advertising, movies, pop culture with tags advertising, movie posters, movies, pop culture on August 25, 2009 by Paxton

Adobe Photoshop Tuesday is the day studios traditionally release their DVD offerings to stores. So I thought this would be the appropriate time to discuss a problem I have. Why do many studios refuse to use the movie poster on the cover of the DVD? It makes no sense. Many times, they commission another “poster” that includes all the major actors as “floating heads” with the title and some random scene from the movie. It’s ridiculous. Sometimes they even cobble together head shots of the actors, photoshop them on body doubles, and create some insane, nonsensical situation that many times has nothing to do with the movie. Here’s a funny video mocking the phenomenon of the “floating head” movie poster.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, here are a few of the DVDs that are the worst offenders in the “WTF did they not use the movie poster” awards.

footloose_dvd
Footloose — Hey, Kevin Bacon. Stop staring at me, Kevin Bacon. Stop it. I’m serious. I don’t care how blue your eyes are. If you keep staring at me like that, you’re gonna see me kill you. I would much rather have the famous poster for this movie on the DVD than have to kill you for eye-ballin’ me, Kevin Bacon. Also, your cover looks like a Lifetime movie. Footloose: The Town that Never Danced: The Kevin Bacon Story.

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Real Genius — This is one FUGLY cover to a great movie. WTF happened here?! Are the electrical shocks being administered to the side of Val’s head what’s keeping his hair up like that? Who approved this? There is no way Val Kilmer signed off on this. The original movie poster was BAD ASS. Why not use that? Cause that would make sense, and Hollywood doesn’t play by the rules of the natural world, that’s why.

weird-science
Weird Science — I love this movie. But by not using the awesome theatrical poster for the cover of this DVD, Universal Studios may as well have dug up the body of recently deceased John Hughes, kicked the corpse in the groin, pissed on it, walked around the cemetery “Weekend at Bernies-style”, then re-buried the corpse head down/ass out back in the dirt. I get the idea of using images of Gary and Wyatt with bras on their head, but WTF is up with the picture of Kelly LeBrock? Is that even a scene from the movie? Is she ballroom dancing? Conducting a seance? WHAT?! And what’s with all the clouds? I don’t remember any part of this movie taking place in the sky.

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Glorious Glass: A look back at some of my favorite collector’s glasses

Posted in advertising, comic books, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek, Star Wars, Superman, The Flash with tags advertising, Burger King, comic books, glasses, McDonald's, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek, Star Wars, Taco Bell on July 28, 2009 by Paxton

Fast food joints used to give out the best swag back in the day. At the top of this swag list was commemorative collector glasses. These were glasses made from ACTUAL glass (not f’n plastic) with kick ass graphics all over it usually given away as a premium with a purchase of food or drinks. Actually, collector glasses didn’t just come from fast food joints. The convenience store 7-11 as well as soda giants Coke and Pepsi both created collector’s glasses that were distributed in stores, gas stations, supermarkets and/or fast food joints. The heyday of collector glasses was in the ’70s and ’80s, but glasses were also released in the ’50s, ’60s and ’90s. Burger King recently revived the collector glass (real glass!!) tradition in May 2009 with their four glass set for the new Star Trek movie (Thanks, Michelle for finding those for me).

So without further ado, here are a bunch of my favorite collector glasses from the ’70s and ’80s. You can click any of the below images to see it bigger.

Burger King Star Wars/Empire/Jedi Glasses (1977, 1980, 1983) — The most famous of all commemorative glasses, the Star Wars Burger King collector glasses are what everyone thinks of when you mention “collector glasses”. A set of four were released for each movie. Surprisingly, it is not very hard to complete a set of all 12 as they made a crap-ton of them. Here’s a pic of the Star Wars set. Here’s a pic of the Empire Strikes Back set. Here’s a pic of the Return of the Jedi set.

Glasses for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom by 7-Up (1984) — This is probably one of the more obscure glass sets. Made by 7-Up to commemorate the second Indiana Jones movie, the glasses were only released to certain local fast food chains so getting a full set is extremely hard. I don’t care about a set, but I would love the Mola Ram glass (far right hand side) with him holding the still beating flaming heart. That is BAD ASS. A year earlier, in 1983, there was a set of three glasses created by Coca-Cola for Raiders of the Lost Ark but the set was never released. Check those glasses out here.