The Biggest Loser

I volunteered on Saturday for 7-1/2 hours and came home and slept for 19-1/2 hours. My volunteering muscle is seriously out of shape.

I’m a Pepper

I woke up today with a song in my heart. Well, it was actually in my brain and it went like this, “Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t. Almond Joy’s got nuts. Mounds don’t.” My subconscious knew what day it is: Super Bowl Sunday, aka Commercial Appreciation Day.

Even though I’ll be watching the big game with my family, I know very little about it. If I were to dedicate this blog post to today’s Super Bowl, it would end after this sentence: Super Bowl XLVIII: The Seattle Seahawks are playing the Denver Broncos at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and I’m rooting for the Broncos because I like seeing Peyton Manning in commercials (even though I can’t recall what he is selling), and I think it’s cool that he and his brother, Eli, are NFL quarterbacks.

That wouldn’t make for a very compelling post, so I think I’ll stick with what I know: commercials. Tonight, we’ll see clever, witty, touching, extraordinary, hilarious, meaningful, and beautifully shot and written commercials. We won’t remember many of them after we discuss our favorites tomorrow.

However, I still hear people mention commercials from ten, twenty, thirty, or more years ago. Those commercials were truly memorable.

Who can forget the image of Smokey the Bear warning against causing forest fires, or that owl who wanted to know how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop? I remember licking and licking until I reached a number. I can’t remember what the number was, though.

How about the crying Indian (I think he was crying about litter, but I’m not sure).

And remember those jingles that, once heard, were never forgotten?:

“I am stuck on Band-Aid ’cause Band-Aid’s stuck on me,”

“I’m a Pepper, He’s a Pepper … Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too?”

“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there,”

“I’d like to buy the world a Coke,”

“You deserve a break today, so get up and get away to McDonald’s,”

“Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar.”

I also recall this line from an ad, even though it wasn’t sung: “How can I have a nutter Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookie, if I haven’t had any yet?”

And, everyone knows that “Choosy mothers choose Jif.”

If I were a commercial-maker, I’d go old-school and try to come up with memorable characters, jingles, and sayings. People will remember them, and maybe even the brand that went with them. I know that nobody’s going to be talking about turning into Betty White when you need a Snickers bar, in thirty years.

What old commercials do you remember? Feel free to share your favorites as soon as possible. I need something to do tonight while I pretend to watch the game.