Since I know that many of the people who read this blog are over 45, I have a feeling that headline caught your attention. But, this is a family-oriented web site and I suspect you’ll find a lot racier stuff online than I’ll show you here.
For today’s Fun Friday, I point you to this collection of about 45 minutes of commercials from the 1970s.
As promised, it does start with a shampoo commercial starring a quite young Kim Basinger with no apparent clothing, But folks, this was 1970s TV and I think you know what you’re gonna see, and what you’re not.
It’s fun and it also reminds you…
the world sure has changed. Most of these brands aren’t even in business anymore and others, like Continental Airlines, were snapped up by bigger brands.
You won’t find much that’s racy by today’s standards, but it’s surprising that you’ll find a lot of things you wouldn’t expect. People under 18 in their Underoos, for example. A harrowing commercial about drug use. Bill Cosby acting trustworthy. It’s here along with so much more.
It’s easy to say that we were all exposed to this, and more, and we all grew up just fine. Sure, today’s kids have it easy, with playground equipment that doesn’t rust, plenty of supervision, and toys that are more than dead hunks of plastic. And maybe we had to work a little harder back then, but we also had fun in those quick breaks between television programs.
Commercials coming back?
It seemed for years that commercials were a dying breed. DVRs nearly killed the commercial, and broadcasters did their part by squeezing up to 18 minutes of commercials into every hour of broadcasts. Of course we wanted to skip them!
But, it seems like commercials are coming back thanks to streaming cost overload. The average cord-cutter pays a lot for what they get. This article estimates that cord-cutters pay between $58 and $105 per month for the content they get. That sounds more like an old-fashioned cable bill than a savings opportunity. So, really savvy cord-cutters are turning to antennas for live TV — nothing more to pay once you buy one — and services like Hulu and Pluto TV for everything else. Pluto TV is one of the fastest growing streaming apps because it’s free. 100% free as in free will, free beer, the whole thing. But, there are commercials. There are about 9 minutes of commercials per hour on Pluto content, whether it’s live streamed or on demand. That’s half of what broadcast TV gives you and that’s probably something you can live with.
And, of course, it gives the video sharers of the future the opportunity to create compilations of 2010s commercials. I’ll be featuring them in a Fun Friday article, shortly before I retire.
