Classic Creepy Commercials, Volume 8!
I adore the Halloween Countdown for a thousand reasons, but here’s one of the big ones: I get to bring back my Classic Creepy Commercials feature. Yay!
If you’re new to the site, know this: I love old TV commercials, but I especially love old HALLOWEEN commercials. Growing up in a time when our preferred forms of entertainment weren’t always at our fingertips, spooky commercials were absolutely essential parts of the Halloween season.
After all, without that ad where Ronald McDonald and the sentient Chicken McNuggets goofed off in Dracula’s castle, late September afternoons may have only felt like late September afternoons. See, we needed these commercials. They turned one night into a whole season.
Each volume of Classic Creepy Commercials collects (at least) five scary commercials from the ‘80s and ‘90s. Some will be directly Halloweeny, while others may only have the barest possible link. Either way, all are excellent mood-setters.
Some of these are from my collection; the rest come from our pal Larry P., who scraped the barrel one last time to give us this year’s ammunition.
Coca-Cola “Thirst Buster” Commercial! (1985)
This isn’t a Halloween commercial, per se, but since it features a Cokeized version of the Ghostbusters theme, I think you’ll give it a pass.
In 1985, Coca-Cola introduced its three-liter bottle. Since Ghostbusters was still majorly hot, they gave it the nickname of “Thirst Buster.” Afraid that customers wouldn’t make the mental leaps necessary to connect that to Slimer, they hired Ray Parker, Jr. to sing a special version of his magnum opus.
“When you come in first… with a real big thirst… who ya gonna call? THIRST BUSTER!”
If you ignore the fact that Bill Cosby pops up for a last-second cameo, it’s pretty much the perfect television commercial, filled with neon colors, erratic dancing, and the vague notion that three-liter bottles of Coke were in fact quantum tunneling spirits. Read More…
Kellogg’s 2015 Halloween Cereals!
If one determines a Halloween season’s value through its goofy and spooky edibles, 2015 is a banner year. While lacking an obvious smoking gun — like 2013’s Fruity Yummy Mummy or 2014’s Ghostbusters donuts — this year is making up for it in sheer volume.
Need proof? Okay! Shown above are just three of at least eight different Halloween cereals available in 2015. (And yes, all of them will be featured on the site in due time.)
This trio, made by Kellogg’s and corralled together as their “for kids” branch of spooky treats, was an incredible surprise. It’s been several years since Kellogg’s fully embraced the season, and boy, they are really making up for lost time. Read More…
Dino Drac’s Halloween Bonus Thingy, #1!
A few weeks ago, I floated the idea of doing extra “mini posts” during the Halloween Countdown, where those who were interested could chill, chat in the comments, and basically have an extra space to “be Halloweeny.”
So, let’s give that a shot! I’m not sure how often I’ll be doing these, or even if I’ll do a second one. Really depends on how many folks seem to get some use out them!
The scene: You’re home alone, and it’s super late at night. You head downstairs to the ostensible “den,” which is really just a place to pile unwanted electronics and dirty clothes. On the bright side, that old couch is hella comfortable, and you’re armed with a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Yes! Read More…
Yes, Slimer Toothpaste was a real thing.
The lasting appeal of The Real Ghostbusters owes to many things. Sure, “people still really like Ghostbusters” is the easiest explanation, but it’s also one that robs the cartoon series of its due praise. That was a plainly fantastic show, with themes, jokes and pure imagination that was — as it turns out — decades before its time.
As I’ve mentioned in prior articles, The Real Ghostbusters may have been the only truly teflon cartoon of the ‘80s. Everything else had its lovers and haters, but everyone loved RGB — at least for the first several seasons. Other cartoons just felt like cartoons, but this one maintained “event status” for the bulk of its run. No matter how many times you saw it, your serotonin spiked two seconds into the opening credits.
So popular was the adaptation that the merchandise push went far beyond action figures and mere “toys.” There was a Real Ghostbusters version of everything, from dinner trays to play tents to a mofriggin’ Hi-C flavor.
Hell, it even scored a toothpaste!
Seriously!
Slimer Toothpaste, from Perio, was the rare “character toothpaste” that truly let our imaginations run wild. Think about it. Toothpaste is a sort of slime, and Slimer was all about slime. It’s hard to position “brushing your teeth with Ecto-Plazm” as a positive, but if you’re a second grader in 1986, IT IS. Read More…