I think the reason behind why you couldn't find too many interesting local ads from the UK is because of the extremely heavy regulation. The country was split into regions for TV broadcasting, and each region had a single TV company servicing it, and the region would have covered around 4-5 million people. By comparison, in Australia, cities with 3-4 million people had 3 commercial TV stations, and country TV stations usually each covered populations from 100,000 to 500,000 people (these covered vast geographical areas, too). The large number of commercial networks meant cheap advertising space, and so a lot of unique local ads came about. The limited advertising space in the UK obviously priced out anyone looking to advertise on the cheap, and meant that only companies that could afford to advertise professionally were able to access commercial TV advertising. There are heaps of British ads from the 80s on TH-cam, but they're all from large companies that could afford to advertise like Cadbury and Heinz, etc.
I’m a retro commercial enthusiast. I was actually looking for American public access commercials also more modern. I actually live near Bendigo, Australia. Love all the old retro Aussie commercials. Makes me feel very nostalgic. Keep this up mate, love your work👍🏻
That's actually one of the more subdued Lowel "The Hammer " Stanley commercials. He's usually screaming about bringing the hammer down. He would have made a great 1980s pro wrestler.
Thank you, Ben! The first local commercial episode is one of my all-time favorite Archive episodes. (I can't drive on the Captial Beltway around DC without thinking of that Wheaton Plaza jingle when I see University Boulevard!) To see it get a sequel is awesome!
I remember Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro airing ads in the Rochester, NY market in the 90's. The man in the Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley ads later did ads for Shapiro (early 2000s)
Jim Shapiro was a legend in central NY state. That wasn't even close to the most over the top ad of his... and his ads ran ALL THE TIME on the local TV stations in the Syracuse and Rochester area. You could almost set your watch to them.
9:03 Fun fact: The dude in the Focus Video ad was Adelaide's most famous talk radio shock jock, Bob Francis. That said, he became a shock jock a few years after this ad was made. Sadly, Bob passed away in 2017.
I assumed you had Jim "THE HAMMER!!" Shapiro in a previous Archive entry somewhere, seeing as well-known and infamous his commercials are in the Manitoba/N. Dakota/Minnesota quadrangle. Hell, he could fill an entire entry alone with his sheer bombast. I began seeing them on Fox 12 out of Pembina/Emerson, North Dakota in 1992 while living in Manitoba, and they just get progressively crazier in all aspects as the millennium approached. (Much like life in general, yes? Or no? ...Yesno?) In the background, early CGI ragdoll animation plays a visual medley of misery, as humanoid figures are tossed around by crashing automobiles, fall from ladders, smash through glass panes, and fly into walls, trees, and posts, along with HUGE TEXT BLOCKS, explosions, copious hellfire, raining gold and green dollar signs, and his ubiquitous "foil-wrapped potato" sledgehammer. (While he didn't beat wrestler Greg Valentine to the nickname, the sledge was his visual trademark long before Triple H hefted one.) Of course, he gets LOUDER and ANGRIER, building up a vortex of injustice-fueled rage, then pulls the trigger on his Zeus-like wrath as he howls his holy name and number, unleashing power to shake the heavens and devastate the puny mortals who wouldn't properly settle up for your misfortune. Lo, he shall MAKE them PAY! It's enough of sensory assault to blow you across the room and cause you wicked whiplash...and then, I suppose, he'll take himself to court and SQUEEZE himself for EVERY LAST DIME - for YOUUU. But the strangest Shapiro advert of all ran completely counter to his image. This single commercial showed him as quiet, warm, empathetic, measured, and polite, telling the viewer how he can help. He's seated at his mahogany desk in a book-lined office, with not a lick of CGI and absolutely no aggro. He even refers to himself as "James Shapiro, Attorney", sans "the Hammer". I suppose it was aimed at seniors who would've probably told him, "Your advertisements are simply horrid and filthy, young man! Turn down that awful tone of voice, keep a civil tongue in your head, and don't you dare shake that fist around! You are not a monkey in a zoo!" When he retires, he could make a little additional pocket change by selling DVD compilations of his commercials, along with tracks of candid reflections on life as a (shouting) lawyer.
Kind of like "The Hammer" -- there's also "The Heavy Hitter" which appears to be a nationally available gimmick that can be localized. I've worked in two different TV markets (Albany, NY, and Providence, RI) that have "Heavy Hitters" - they use the same jingle/graphics/music package, just different names/phone numbers.. and of course, the numbers go with the jingle. There's also a set of lawyer ads with David Leisure in them where the voice-over section is really obvious. On a separate note.. I never noticed before how many Rs they drop in Australia. (SO MUCH RUBBAH!) Are they transplants from New England? ;-) Zayre's, Bradlees, Caldor.. ah, the memories..
We have a "hammer" here in Kentucky Darryl Isaacs who is suing someone for 4.5 million for running over him while he was on a bike. He is not his own lawyer in this case.
There's a Walmart were Decorator's Gallery use to be,where Parkdale Plaze once was.The old Woolco building next to it is still there,it's a Sutherlands now.
Summer Laverdure I am still not sure why this even existed. Has the nation really changed that much over the years that Dial a Chicken needed to be gone?
Summer Laverdure I am still not sure why this even existed. Has the nation really changed that much over the years that Dial a Chicken needed to be gone?
Local TV of Britain started out in 1955 with the birth of ITV/ Independent Television. For instance, my areas local ITV station was ATV/ Associated Television in the weekdays and ABC/ Associated British Television (the guys who bought you The Avengers (not the superhero stuff)). Basically, as adverts were concerned, there would be 'ATV TELESPOTS' or 'ABC ALL INCLUSIVE SPOTS' in which you'd find little adverts, usually one still with a voiceover saying something like 'Holiday sales are now on! So come on down because at Stantons Packet Holidays the Price is Right!' And then it would have an address but that was it!
Mini Mort 2 PS: I think it's safe to say that ATV made some of the best British programmes of all time (i.e. The Muppet Show, Tiswas, Beasts, Crossroads, etc). Midlands for the win!
Well, since the commercial are not in film anymore, I think they became obsolete. They were pretty much present in all English-speaking countries, save US and Canada. I saw them on a compilation of South African ads from 1987 (bonus: all of them were in Afrikaans!).
PS: Weekend television is probably the funkiest thing I've ever seen on TV. At the same time, I acknowledge that the glorious LWT wouldn't have existed without it.
Also some of the Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley commercials used the same hammer animation that the Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro commercial did. I guess there must be a stock "Hammer breaks sound block" animation in their crappy editing software....
The reason the attorney nicknames are the same is that there are national marketing campaigns for lawyers. They're kind of like franchises - the nickname and messages are taken by lawyers in various markets.
Steph L Having watched a lot of archives of ads that ran nationally through the 70s and 80s in the UK, I can say that your commercials had catchier songs than ours did stateside. And yes, I am counting our Mentos ad. The Mentos ad I forgot after a couple years, but that damn "Never In a Month of Sundays" song from the Bisto ad will not. Go. Away.
OMG!! I'm from northern California and in 1999 my buddies and I took a road trip to Mexico and in LA we saw this EXACT commercial for Crazy Gideon!!! We constantly joke about it but we couldn't remember what his name was or the store name. Thank God I found this video because I desperately wanted to see this man breaking his tv again
I walked by Crazy Hudson's once when I was younger. It was in LA next to Olvera Street and Little Tokyo. In spite of the heavy advertising it had back in the day there was no cars in the parking lot on Sunday in the afternoon in spite of the fact that it's pretty busy there during the weekend. I regret not walking in when I had my one and only chance.
When he mentioned "The Hammer" I was hoping to see Lowell The Hammer Stanley! I took a class trip to Virginia in 1996 and all I remember from the TV in the hotel was 1) A rerun of Saturday Night Live on WAVY 10 (w/ Foo Fighters) and 2) LOWELL THE HAMMER STANLEY! Jim Shapiro's potato hammer was also used on the ads I saw for Lowell! But I am saddened that the Samman's ad was from "Ben's Private Stash", because I'd love to know what New York area TV station showed that commercial, I don't remember ever seeing any, but with only 2 locations pretty far from the city, that would make it HYPER-local.
I tried to find any ads for Buzzo Music in Geneseo, NY, which would have made a great inclusion, but YT has none. There is other footage, though, of the legendary Buzzo from concerts and such. There might be a Real file of one ad somewhere, if memory serves. Al "Buzzo" Bruno, the Big B, had both new '90 sand vintage '70s "rerun" commercials aired on the same Fox affiliate as the Hammer. Two amazing men, as different as plutonium and pickled beets, in the same commercial break was quite a thing to behold. Buzzo and his ads were simple and loveably quirky. Many spots had a chorus of employees, musicians, and patrons happily chanting "Buzzo Buzzo Buzzo Buzzo" roughly to the tune of "Flight of the Bumblebee", while Buzzo, replete with some of the wildest hippie hair you've ever seen, would list off his wares - from 78s to CDs, reel-to-reel to cassettes, instruments to books. From the store photos in the commercials, it must've been Paradise for music lovers. Picture a new and used record and instrument store of the LP era on a downtown street corner in any city, then multiply the whole enterprise by 100. Wonderfully over-crammed with stuff, like something out of Diagon Alley, and with a Dumbledore-like owner.
I assumed you had Jim "THE HAMMER!!" Shapiro in a previous Archive entry somewhere, seeing as well-known and infamous his commercials are in the Manitoba/N. Dakota/Minnesota quadrangle. Hell, he could fill an entire entry alone with his sheer bombast. I began seeing them on Fox 29 out of North Dakota in 1992, and they just get progressively crazier in all aspects as the years pass. In the background, early CGI ragdoll animation plays a visual medley of misery, as humanoid figures are tossed around by crashing automobiles, fall from ladders, smash through glass panes, and fly into walls, trees, and posts, along with HUGE TEXT BLOCKS, explosions, copious hellfire, raining gold and green dollar signs, and his ubiquitous "foil-wrapped potato" sledgehammer. (While he didn't beat wrestler Greg Valentine to the nickname, the sledge was his visual trademark long before Triple H hefted one.) Of course, he gets LOUDER and ANGRIER, building up a vortex of injustice-fueled rage, then pulls the trigger on his Zeus-like wrath as he howls his holy name and number, unleashing power to shake the heavens and devastate the puny mortals who wouldn't properly settle up for your misfortune. Lo, he shall MAKE them PAY! It's enough of sensory assault to blow you across the room and cause you wicked whiplash...and then, I suppose, he'll take himself to court and SQUEEZE himself for EVERY LAST DIME - for YOUUU. But the strangest Shapiro advert of all ran completely counter to his image. This single commercial showed him as quiet, warm, empathetic, measured, and polite, telling the viewer how he can help. He's seated at his mahogany desk in a book-lined office, with not a lick of CGI and absolutely no aggro. He even refers to himself as "James Shapiro, Attorney", sans "the Hammer". I suppose it was aimed at seniors who would've probably told him, "Your advertisements are simply horrid and filthy, young man! Turn down that awful tone of voice, keep a civil tongue in your head, and don't you dare shake that fist around! You are not a monkey in a zoo!" When he retires, he could make a little additional pocket change by selling DVD compilations of his commercials, along with tracks of candid reflections on life as a (shouting) lawyer.
The R.A Gabriele ad is one from after the "Call R.A. Gabriele" song lost the lyric, "the lawyer who sends flowers." I'm not joking. For years when I lived in the DFW metroplex, that was his tagline. My brother in Virginia refused to believe me on that. HE, on the other hand, introduced me to the ads of Lowell "the Hammer" Stanley.
Ahh ... Gary and Marcy. It seemed like Levine's was going out of business for years. Jake Jabbs came to a party at my house once. No idea why. He didn't bring the lions and tigers.
You are right Bennie that there aren't many local UK commercials around (well on the internet anyway). I remember that in the late 1980s as a young kid growing up in Birmingham we were one of the first places to get cable TV when all of our country had only 4 channels! There were local adverts on this - and some of them were awful, mostly on slides with a voiceover. They seemed to be inserted into broadcasts but my memory is a bit bad at trying to remember what channel they were on. Originally Birmingham Cable was a standalone company, merging with Telewest then eventually becoming part of Virgin Media, making all cable national. Nationally ITV channels (the main commercial broadcaster) has national adverts with some (albeit few) local ones for region, Im in the Yorks and Lincolnshire (middle of nowhere) region and you don't see many locally specific adverts! Wish i would have had the foresight as an 8 year old to record the cable on VHS!
background for Lounge Discounters. They were the bargain version of the local Melbourne furniture chains. Saba furniture was a large furniture warehouse, specialising in large overstuffed lounge suites, they had two cockatoo mascots, Dave and Mabel. Then there was Franco Cozzo, worthy of his own archive episode. He had ads running for decades advertising expensive looking heavy cheap Italian crap, the kind that Donald Trump puts in his guestroom to impress visitors, and having full minute ads saying exactly the same thing in Italian, then Greek, then English, and mispronouncing the name of the suburb "Footscray" as "foot-es-cray" and "Brunswick" as "Brunsawicki", his Brunswick shop being just down the road from our crazy mustache friend in this video. There was also one who did actually cut a lounge suite in half with a chainsaw, but that one sank into oblivion up against the mighty Franco Cozzo, who still has his large furniture store right next to Footscray station, with his mural on the back wall. His son had been convicted of drug smuggling somewhere along the way, that might or might not be related to Cozzo's success.
Lounge Discounters were, going by the address, up the road from Franco Cozzo’s Brunswick store - which explains the owner’s/pitchman’s pop at rivals with poor English skills.
IIRC Lounge Discounters started in Adelaide, until it eventually ended up expanding interstate. The thing is that Ben could make an OA episode featuring nothing but local Australian ads for furniture stores. Lounge Discounters, Franco Cozzo, Mr. Bankrupt... they're just begging for more of the OA treatment.
I know our host is from the Denver area where I am from, too. I still live there, like Ben. I love seeing the Levine's Furniture ad! & Frank Azar! And Jake Jabs!
Unfortunately, I didn't see your Facebook post to mention this in time for you to include it, but for the next one of these videos, check out Norton Furniture in Cleveland. (Including when he returned from a brief absence to introduce the Taco Bell Quesalupa during the last SuperBowl.)
I entered puberty watching a TV ad in the late 70s for GWG Jeans. All it was a sound track of BUM,BUM,BUM, and video of women walking down the sidewalk.
i am sorry but i am a longtime wrestling fan alotta these lawyers commercials sound like the typical screaming ranting and raving kinda promos you would see on an episode of monday night raw lol
I felt as if that Korvette's ad was from Canada at first, as it looked way too late 80s to be from the US considering they went out of business in 1980 here, but were still going as late as 2015 in Canada. Also, Ed Bernstein is in Las Vegas and is still practicing there to this day. Love the toll-free number for if you're not in Clark County, since that was a time when 702 was the only area code in the state, and you probably only had to dial a 1 and the phone number back then for long distance within the area code (something that is long gone, btw).
I have never even heard of any of those stores before! And the only commercial in here that looked in any way familiar was the one featuring the guy showcasing the stereo system for $333 (the one who looked like a cross between Sonny Bono and John Ford Coley), and that's only because I'd seen it before on a local commercial compilation. I'm not sure which channel had it, though, as there are a number of TH-camrs this could apply toward; I'm pretty sure it wasn't MicroJow, though, although he's got some absolute winners. Anyway, I really wish there were more older commercials from my neck of the woods (South Texas) available on TH-cam because I've only ever seen one older local commercial break (a 1980 one from our local CBS affiliate, KENS-TV) and that tiny taste left me wanting more, plus I'd love to see some of the commercials from my childhood, but apparently that's a bit too much to ask.
OMG I know where that hammer Shapiro is from it's from Rochester NY I remember seeing those all the time distinctly because of that 7777 at the end of the number, but it looks like something happened to the other guy because it used to be Shapiro and Shapiro.
I can't believe you used a Jim Shapiro ad and didn't use the *best* one. "I cannot RIP OUT THE HEARTS of your enemies! I cannot hand you their SEVERED HEADS!" Seriously, that's how the one after the one you used started. It's... epic.
16:15 That Crazy Gideons in Downtown LA was a dump! When it closed in 2010 they had CD players, stereos and Pentium PC's from the 1990's all caked in dust. In the early 2000's they still had black and white tube TV's They also had quite a big selection of old porn VHS and Beta tapes from the 1980's. It looked like a e-waste collection/storage area.
when i was a kid....sometimes the tv channel i was watching would go black and show a white grid and looked like the screen on a oscilloscope complete with the curving wave line going up and down...this would last a few minutes and then followed by line after line of what looked like hexadecimal data scrolling down the screen!!!...all of this would last about 2 minutes..then the tv signal would return....sometimes this would happen 4 times a day!!!...this whole mess lasted about 3 years...then one day it stopped and i never seen it again!!!...
Our cable system in Texas had a dedicated channel that had something like that on it back in the 90s. My father (who is a technician) told me that it had to do with measuring cable system signal strength.
Didn't expect to see Ed Bernstein as the first video. He's still a local fixture here in Vegas, though he ditched the "Take the first step." slogan a while ago.
I'm officially going to change my name to Wakko "The Mallet" Warner.
I think the reason behind why you couldn't find too many interesting local ads from the UK is because of the extremely heavy regulation. The country was split into regions for TV broadcasting, and each region had a single TV company servicing it, and the region would have covered around 4-5 million people.
By comparison, in Australia, cities with 3-4 million people had 3 commercial TV stations, and country TV stations usually each covered populations from 100,000 to 500,000 people (these covered vast geographical areas, too). The large number of commercial networks meant cheap advertising space, and so a lot of unique local ads came about.
The limited advertising space in the UK obviously priced out anyone looking to advertise on the cheap, and meant that only companies that could afford to advertise professionally were able to access commercial TV advertising. There are heaps of British ads from the 80s on TH-cam, but they're all from large companies that could afford to advertise like Cadbury and Heinz, etc.
Fun fact, from what I can gather; the Echuca Bargain Centre is now a music store. Quite ironicly, the store's sign is a vinal record.
I’m a retro commercial enthusiast. I was actually looking for American public access commercials also more modern. I actually live near Bendigo, Australia. Love all the old retro Aussie commercials. Makes me feel very nostalgic. Keep this up mate, love your work👍🏻
if you were a judge why would you call yourself "the hammer" and not "stoptimus crime"
I am watching this on my iPad and right when you mentioned how much lawyer ads there is, I walked into my living room and saw an ad for a lawyer
When you're watching daytime trailer trash talk shows, every commercial break is a lawyer or money loan ad. lol
Or a scam trade school
That's actually one of the more subdued Lowel "The Hammer " Stanley commercials. He's usually screaming about bringing the hammer down. He would have made a great 1980s pro wrestler.
Holy crap the sound effects during the Frank Azar commercial had me dying laughing!! Great job with that!!
Thank you, Ben! The first local commercial episode is one of my all-time favorite Archive episodes. (I can't drive on the Captial Beltway around DC without thinking of that Wheaton Plaza jingle when I see University Boulevard!) To see it get a sequel is awesome!
7:30 Those dresses look like they were designed by Mrs. Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances.
It's Bouquet...
AliasUndercover only according to hyacinth.
@@HappySnoutHour Richard says it was "Bucket" before he married Hyacinth.
I remember Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro airing ads in the Rochester, NY market in the 90's. The man in the Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley ads later did ads for Shapiro (early 2000s)
Jim Shapiro was a legend in central NY state. That wasn't even close to the most over the top ad of his... and his ads ran ALL THE TIME on the local TV stations in the Syracuse and Rochester area. You could almost set your watch to them.
9:03 Fun fact: The dude in the Focus Video ad was Adelaide's most famous talk radio shock jock, Bob Francis. That said, he became a shock jock a few years after this ad was made. Sadly, Bob passed away in 2017.
I actually have a tape full of local ads from Tuggeranong (actual name) in Australia's capital
reason I mentioned it was because there's this one ad for a sewing supplies store that's a goldmine
I assumed you had Jim "THE HAMMER!!" Shapiro in a previous Archive entry somewhere, seeing as well-known and infamous his commercials are in the Manitoba/N. Dakota/Minnesota quadrangle. Hell, he could fill an entire entry alone with his sheer bombast.
I began seeing them on Fox 12 out of Pembina/Emerson, North Dakota in 1992 while living in Manitoba, and they just get progressively crazier in all aspects as the millennium approached. (Much like life in general, yes? Or no? ...Yesno?)
In the background, early CGI ragdoll animation plays a visual medley of misery, as humanoid figures are tossed around by crashing automobiles, fall from ladders, smash through glass panes, and fly into walls, trees, and posts, along with HUGE TEXT BLOCKS, explosions, copious hellfire, raining gold and green dollar signs, and his ubiquitous "foil-wrapped potato" sledgehammer. (While he didn't beat wrestler Greg Valentine to the nickname, the sledge was his visual trademark long before Triple H hefted one.)
Of course, he gets LOUDER and ANGRIER, building up a vortex of injustice-fueled rage, then pulls the trigger on his Zeus-like wrath as he howls his holy name and number, unleashing power to shake the heavens and devastate the puny mortals who wouldn't properly settle up for your misfortune. Lo, he shall MAKE them PAY!
It's enough of sensory assault to blow you across the room and cause you wicked whiplash...and then, I suppose, he'll take himself to court and SQUEEZE himself for EVERY LAST DIME - for YOUUU.
But the strangest Shapiro advert of all ran completely counter to his image. This single commercial showed him as quiet, warm, empathetic, measured, and polite, telling the viewer how he can help. He's seated at his mahogany desk in a book-lined office, with not a lick of CGI and absolutely no aggro. He even refers to himself as "James Shapiro, Attorney", sans "the Hammer". I suppose it was aimed at seniors who would've probably told him, "Your advertisements are simply horrid and filthy, young man! Turn down that awful tone of voice, keep a civil tongue in your head, and don't you dare shake that fist around! You are not a monkey in a zoo!"
When he retires, he could make a little additional pocket change by selling DVD compilations of his commercials, along with tracks of candid reflections on life as a (shouting) lawyer.
Never knew that he advertised his legal services in states as far away from the Rochester area as North Dakota...
What the heck did that American Sound commercial do to the Tic Tac Dough theme?
The "What just happened?" at the end of the Lounge Discounters one had me laughing far too hard.
Kind of like "The Hammer" -- there's also "The Heavy Hitter" which appears to be a nationally available gimmick that can be localized.
I've worked in two different TV markets (Albany, NY, and Providence, RI) that have "Heavy Hitters" - they use the same jingle/graphics/music package, just different names/phone numbers.. and of course, the numbers go with the jingle.
There's also a set of lawyer ads with David Leisure in them where the voice-over section is really obvious.
On a separate note.. I never noticed before how many Rs they drop in Australia. (SO MUCH RUBBAH!) Are they transplants from New England? ;-)
Zayre's, Bradlees, Caldor.. ah, the memories..
Oddity Archive has more of what you're lookin' for!
That is gonna be stuck in my head for days.
We have a "hammer" here in Kentucky Darryl Isaacs who is suing someone for 4.5 million for running over him while he was on a bike. He is not his own lawyer in this case.
I used to loathe a lot of these commercials when they came on TV but now I find them very amusing. Snark bait, I guess.
Narm charm
Did that American Sound commercial play a warped version of the Tic-Tac-Dough theme?
That Dial A Chicken had chicken BREASTS.
Freako Funny...
Never heard of chicken breast?
When will I see an animation from you featuring that chicken?
Freako Do it
Furry senses ticking
6:59 Plumbers Don't do Car Commercials
13:20 Ben, you read my mind! Almost every ad looks like an SCTV skit.
5Rounds Rapid Especially the attorney ads
Do you remember the "eagle insurance" TV commercials, from Chicago?
There's a Walmart were Decorator's Gallery use to be,where Parkdale Plaze once was.The old Woolco building next to it is still there,it's a Sutherlands now.
Dial A Chicken is the best thing ever!
Summer Laverdure I am still not sure why this even existed. Has the nation really changed that much over the years that Dial a Chicken needed to be gone?
Summer Laverdure I am still not sure why this even existed. Has the nation really changed that much over the years that Dial a Chicken needed to be gone?
It's a tragic loss.
Have you ever tried talking on the phone with a chicken?
I did once, it was a total cock-up
Best thing I could possibly watch today. thank you!
13:43 Benny Boy, I Knew you were going to say Bob Ross the moment I saw that afro.
You take that joke, and you beat the devil out of it.
Local TV of Britain started out in 1955 with the birth of ITV/ Independent Television. For instance, my areas local ITV station was ATV/ Associated Television in the weekdays and ABC/ Associated British Television (the guys who bought you The Avengers (not the superhero stuff)). Basically, as adverts were concerned, there would be 'ATV TELESPOTS' or 'ABC ALL INCLUSIVE SPOTS' in which you'd find little adverts, usually one still with a voiceover saying something like 'Holiday sales are now on! So come on down because at Stantons Packet Holidays the Price is Right!' And then it would have an address but that was it!
Mini Mort 2 They also had these little (what I believed to be called) opticals in-between commercials, something I wished that American TV also had.
Mini Mort 2 PS: I think it's safe to say that ATV made some of the best British programmes of all time (i.e. The Muppet Show, Tiswas, Beasts, Crossroads, etc). Midlands for the win!
Sadly the optics are quite rare on TV now, they're just not needed. I also know that in Europe they were very common too.
Well, since the commercial are not in film anymore, I think they became obsolete. They were pretty much present in all English-speaking countries, save US and Canada. I saw them on a compilation of South African ads from 1987 (bonus: all of them were in Afrikaans!).
PS: Weekend television is probably the funkiest thing I've ever seen on TV. At the same time, I acknowledge that the glorious LWT wouldn't have existed without it.
Also some of the Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley commercials used the same hammer animation that the Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro commercial did. I guess there must be a stock "Hammer breaks sound block" animation in their crappy editing software....
Caldor, Bradlees AND Zayre?!!!! I'm good, you don't need to make another Archive episode for about another year. #CaldorForever
The reason the attorney nicknames are the same is that there are national marketing campaigns for lawyers. They're kind of like franchises - the nickname and messages are taken by lawyers in various markets.
The Focus Video ad is from Adelaide, South Australia. I think the building is a Chinese restaurant now...
Is that a pre-SNL Leslie Jones in that Franklin D. Azar commercial?
Yes, i was waiting for another part of local commercials :)
The Focus Video advert was a South Aussie business, as the advert said, it was on the corner of West Terrace and Pirie St.
I am a UK viewer and love your channel.You are right about the ads ours are pretty mundane.
Steph L Having watched a lot of archives of ads that ran nationally through the 70s and 80s in the UK, I can say that your commercials had catchier songs than ours did stateside. And yes, I am counting our Mentos ad. The Mentos ad I forgot after a couple years, but that damn "Never In a Month of Sundays" song from the Bisto ad will not. Go. Away.
OMG!! I'm from northern California and in 1999 my buddies and I took a road trip to Mexico and in LA we saw this EXACT commercial for Crazy Gideon!!! We constantly joke about it but we couldn't remember what his name was or the store name. Thank God I found this video because I desperately wanted to see this man breaking his tv again
2 attorneys who have the nickname "The Hammer." I hope they don't sue each other for this.
Video Locomotion is the one video store Minty from Minty Comedic Arts talks about since he's from Australia.
Superior Waterbeds! Been a while since I've seen anything from them. They were a staple of Houston TV ads clear up until the late 90's.
I walked by Crazy Hudson's once when I was younger. It was in LA next to Olvera Street and Little Tokyo. In spite of the heavy advertising it had back in the day there was no cars in the parking lot on Sunday in the afternoon in spite of the fact that it's pretty busy there during the weekend. I regret not walking in when I had my one and only chance.
17:55 Oh my God... this feels like a repressed scene from a porno movie. I could have sworn this commercial was screaming "menage-a-trois!"
Alfredo Rodriguez Reminded me of Boogie Nights!
@@visaman 18:11 Roller Girl!
I remember those Decorators Gallery ads when I was growing up in San Antonio. Whacked out then...whacked out now.
Black lady not paying attention while driving while showing her check. His favorite clients
"I get my deals from Frank Azar and Cal Worthington!"
LOL! On the Bradlees intro! (Yes, the one with the mime.) Great job, Ben. (First time commenting, longtime viewer!)
"IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH A BIG PILE OF CASH?!?"
sirkowski Only if you don't want one!
When he mentioned "The Hammer" I was hoping to see Lowell The Hammer Stanley! I took a class trip to Virginia in 1996 and all I remember from the TV in the hotel was 1) A rerun of Saturday Night Live on WAVY 10 (w/ Foo Fighters) and 2) LOWELL THE HAMMER STANLEY! Jim Shapiro's potato hammer was also used on the ads I saw for Lowell!
But I am saddened that the Samman's ad was from "Ben's Private Stash", because I'd love to know what New York area TV station showed that commercial, I don't remember ever seeing any, but with only 2 locations pretty far from the city, that would make it HYPER-local.
The water bed ad at 13:27 may be the most disturbing thing ever.
Sydneys Lounge Discounters had a number of stores around Melbourne at the time above the Sydney Road Brunswick one.
I lived in Hampton Roads for four years, and Lowell Stanley's ads have never failed to entertain. He is the most recognized lawyer in the 757 area.
"Introducing Cal Worthington and his dog Spot!"
lol !
12:36 Who remembers this from Top Gear UK? When James and Jeremy are building the car for old people?
I do
I tried to find any ads for Buzzo Music in Geneseo, NY, which would have made a great inclusion, but YT has none. There is other footage, though, of the legendary Buzzo from concerts and such. There might be a Real file of one ad somewhere, if memory serves.
Al "Buzzo" Bruno, the Big B, had both new '90 sand vintage '70s "rerun" commercials aired on the same Fox affiliate as the Hammer. Two amazing men, as different as plutonium and pickled beets, in the same commercial break was quite a thing to behold.
Buzzo and his ads were simple and loveably quirky. Many spots had a chorus of employees, musicians, and patrons happily chanting "Buzzo Buzzo Buzzo Buzzo" roughly to the tune of "Flight of the Bumblebee", while Buzzo, replete with some of the wildest hippie hair you've ever seen, would list off his wares - from 78s to CDs, reel-to-reel to cassettes, instruments to books.
From the store photos in the commercials, it must've been Paradise for music lovers. Picture a new and used record and instrument store of the LP era on a downtown street corner in any city, then multiply the whole enterprise by 100. Wonderfully over-crammed with stuff, like something out of Diagon Alley, and with a Dumbledore-like owner.
"Australian invertility epidemic" ffs, dewd, that gem caught me off guard, lol.
Marius du Plessis Cleavage wasn't invented until 1995.
5Rounds Rapid luckily for me just in time (age) for when I started to appreciate women. ;)
I assumed you had Jim "THE HAMMER!!" Shapiro in a previous Archive entry somewhere, seeing as well-known and infamous his commercials are in the Manitoba/N. Dakota/Minnesota quadrangle. Hell, he could fill an entire entry alone with his sheer bombast.
I began seeing them on Fox 29 out of North Dakota in 1992, and they just get progressively crazier in all aspects as the years pass.
In the background, early CGI ragdoll animation plays a visual medley of misery, as humanoid figures are tossed around by crashing automobiles, fall from ladders, smash through glass panes, and fly into walls, trees, and posts, along with HUGE TEXT BLOCKS, explosions, copious hellfire, raining gold and green dollar signs, and his ubiquitous "foil-wrapped potato" sledgehammer. (While he didn't beat wrestler Greg Valentine to the nickname, the sledge was his visual trademark long before Triple H hefted one.)
Of course, he gets LOUDER and ANGRIER, building up a vortex of injustice-fueled rage, then pulls the trigger on his Zeus-like wrath as he howls his holy name and number, unleashing power to shake the heavens and devastate the puny mortals who wouldn't properly settle up for your misfortune. Lo, he shall MAKE them PAY!
It's enough of sensory assault to blow you across the room and cause you wicked whiplash...and then, I suppose, he'll take himself to court and SQUEEZE himself for EVERY LAST DIME - for YOUUU.
But the strangest Shapiro advert of all ran completely counter to his image. This single commercial showed him as quiet, warm, empathetic, measured, and polite, telling the viewer how he can help. He's seated at his mahogany desk in a book-lined office, with not a lick of CGI and absolutely no aggro. He even refers to himself as "James Shapiro, Attorney", sans "the Hammer". I suppose it was aimed at seniors who would've probably told him, "Your advertisements are simply horrid and filthy, young man! Turn down that awful tone of voice, keep a civil tongue in your head, and don't you dare shake that fist around! You are not a monkey in a zoo!"
When he retires, he could make a little additional pocket change by selling DVD compilations of his commercials, along with tracks of candid reflections on life as a (shouting) lawyer.
The R.A Gabriele ad is one from after the "Call R.A. Gabriele" song lost the lyric, "the lawyer who sends flowers." I'm not joking. For years when I lived in the DFW metroplex, that was his tagline. My brother in Virginia refused to believe me on that. HE, on the other hand, introduced me to the ads of Lowell "the Hammer" Stanley.
Ahh ... Gary and Marcy. It seemed like Levine's was going out of business for years. Jake Jabbs came to a party at my house once. No idea why. He didn't bring the lions and tigers.
You are right Bennie that there aren't many local UK commercials around (well on the internet anyway). I remember that in the late 1980s as a young kid growing up in Birmingham we were one of the first places to get cable TV when all of our country had only 4 channels! There were local adverts on this - and some of them were awful, mostly on slides with a voiceover. They seemed to be inserted into broadcasts but my memory is a bit bad at trying to remember what channel they were on. Originally Birmingham Cable was a standalone company, merging with Telewest then eventually becoming part of Virgin Media, making all cable national. Nationally ITV channels (the main commercial broadcaster) has national adverts with some (albeit few) local ones for region, Im in the Yorks and Lincolnshire (middle of nowhere) region and you don't see many locally specific adverts! Wish i would have had the foresight as an 8 year old to record the cable on VHS!
OMG Linda Soundtrak that's a Oklahoma Commercial for sure.
I love all these local commercials. Please do more. 😀😃😎😄😊😉😅😆😇🤗🙂☺
One would think the lady in Frank Azar's ad might learn to use a seat belt!
Funny how there is that exact same Sansui stereo and speaker in a computer lab at my school...
These "hammer" attorney's are nothing. Here in Dallas, we have Jim Addler, The TEXAS Hammer!
THOSE commercials I remember!
I know that a furniture store in cleveland, Ohio called Norton Furniture that has the cheapest looking ads
background for Lounge Discounters. They were the bargain version of the local Melbourne furniture chains. Saba furniture was a large furniture warehouse, specialising in large overstuffed lounge suites, they had two cockatoo mascots, Dave and Mabel. Then there was Franco Cozzo, worthy of his own archive episode. He had ads running for decades advertising expensive looking heavy cheap Italian crap, the kind that Donald Trump puts in his guestroom to impress visitors, and having full minute ads saying exactly the same thing in Italian, then Greek, then English, and mispronouncing the name of the suburb "Footscray" as "foot-es-cray" and "Brunswick" as "Brunsawicki", his Brunswick shop being just down the road from our crazy mustache friend in this video. There was also one who did actually cut a lounge suite in half with a chainsaw, but that one sank into oblivion up against the mighty Franco Cozzo, who still has his large furniture store right next to Footscray station, with his mural on the back wall. His son had been convicted of drug smuggling somewhere along the way, that might or might not be related to Cozzo's success.
And Bendigo is an old gold mining town, with big old fancy buildings in the middle, surrounded by a run down country town.
Lounge Discounters were, going by the address, up the road from Franco Cozzo’s Brunswick store - which explains the owner’s/pitchman’s pop at rivals with poor English skills.
IIRC Lounge Discounters started in Adelaide, until it eventually ended up expanding interstate.
The thing is that Ben could make an OA episode featuring nothing but local Australian ads for furniture stores. Lounge Discounters, Franco Cozzo, Mr. Bankrupt... they're just begging for more of the OA treatment.
I moved to Norfolk, VA in 1995 and Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley commercials were all over the TV. I thought they were the best ads ever.
YES I grew up on those Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley commercials...
I know our host is from the Denver area where I am from, too. I still live there, like Ben. I love seeing the Levine's Furniture ad! & Frank Azar! And Jake Jabs!
I love the editing for the intro
Wow, It’s been along time since I’ve seen an ad for Crazy Gideon’s. They were a staple of KCAL channel 9 here in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, I didn't see your Facebook post to mention this in time for you to include it, but for the next one of these videos, check out Norton Furniture in Cleveland. (Including when he returned from a brief absence to introduce the Taco Bell Quesalupa during the last SuperBowl.)
oh wow you really did take 26 months to make another one of these
Schweig Engel in St. Louis had the most bizarre ads ever. Their output was so vast and odd, you could do a Part 3 on just them.
I entered puberty watching a TV ad in the late 70s for GWG Jeans. All it was a sound track of BUM,BUM,BUM, and video of women walking down the sidewalk.
The IK has LOADS of local adverts.
Just search by ITV region. You'll find plenty to be going on with.
UK land area is about twice that of New York state,
Can you riff the DragonStrike video tape?
i am sorry but i am a longtime wrestling fan alotta these lawyers commercials sound like the typical screaming ranting and raving kinda promos you would see on an episode of monday night raw lol
9:26 -- I love how that store's sign looks like a giant Dymo label...
I live in the area Lowell The Hammer Stanley works in. He's still advertising here to this day.
I felt as if that Korvette's ad was from Canada at first, as it looked way too late 80s to be from the US considering they went out of business in 1980 here, but were still going as late as 2015 in Canada.
Also, Ed Bernstein is in Las Vegas and is still practicing there to this day. Love the toll-free number for if you're not in Clark County, since that was a time when 702 was the only area code in the state, and you probably only had to dial a 1 and the phone number back then for long distance within the area code (something that is long gone, btw).
22:00 Nice acknowledgement of New England, Ben!
As someone who lives in Bendigo there is a good chance that your right.
I miss Zayre. That place is light years ahead of Ames.
please god bring back dial a chciken. I'm so hungry
I have never even heard of any of those stores before! And the only commercial in here that looked in any way familiar was the one featuring the guy showcasing the stereo system for $333 (the one who looked like a cross between Sonny Bono and John Ford Coley), and that's only because I'd seen it before on a local commercial compilation. I'm not sure which channel had it, though, as there are a number of TH-camrs this could apply toward; I'm pretty sure it wasn't MicroJow, though, although he's got some absolute winners. Anyway, I really wish there were more older commercials from my neck of the woods (South Texas) available on TH-cam because I've only ever seen one older local commercial break (a 1980 one from our local CBS affiliate, KENS-TV) and that tiny taste left me wanting more, plus I'd love to see some of the commercials from my childhood, but apparently that's a bit too much to ask.
The UK does actually have some local/regional ads. Even if you couldn't find any, just look for some ASDA ads.
Hey! Old Bear! I haven't seen his ads in ages. Going out of business will have that effect...
OMG I know where that hammer Shapiro is from it's from Rochester NY I remember seeing those all the time distinctly because of that 7777 at the end of the number, but it looks like something happened to the other guy because it used to be Shapiro and Shapiro.
I can't believe you used a Jim Shapiro ad and didn't use the *best* one. "I cannot RIP OUT THE HEARTS of your enemies! I cannot hand you their SEVERED HEADS!" Seriously, that's how the one after the one you used started. It's... epic.
16:15 That Crazy Gideons in Downtown LA was a dump! When it closed in 2010 they had CD players, stereos and Pentium PC's from the 1990's all caked in dust. In the early 2000's they still had black and white tube TV's They also had quite a big selection of old porn VHS and Beta tapes from the 1980's. It looked like a e-waste collection/storage area.
That sounds like some flea markets and thrift stores I've been to. Now I wish I could have went there.
The way you described it makes it sound like a Heaven for old electronics enthusiasts. BTW, the building's now a craft brewery last I checked.
when i was a kid....sometimes the tv channel i was watching would go black and show a white grid and looked like the screen on a oscilloscope complete with the curving wave line going up and down...this would last a few minutes and then followed by line after line of what looked like hexadecimal data scrolling down the screen!!!...all of this would last about 2 minutes..then the tv signal would return....sometimes this would happen 4 times a day!!!...this whole mess lasted about 3 years...then one day it stopped and i never seen it again!!!...
Our cable system in Texas had a dedicated channel that had something like that on it back in the 90s. My father (who is a technician) told me that it had to do with measuring cable system signal strength.
@@fixman88 I actually remembered seeing that on my local system, it was very weird indeed.
Loved it, the OscilloChannel.
Didn't expect to see Ed Bernstein as the first video. He's still a local fixture here in Vegas, though he ditched the "Take the first step." slogan a while ago.
I think Jim "The Hammer Shapiro" is the same guy from the "Conductor, we have a problem!" video.
im pretty sure that the dude at around 3:20 also did a commercial for Shapiro as well, using the 'he might be an SOB but he's your SOB" slogan!
Have the same problem with Lawyer ads here in OKC even to this day!
Clint Boyer being the biggest example. (locals will know)