Nostalgic For My Childhood - More Comic & Magazine ads
Following on from the last blog (which you can read here), I thought now would be a good time to look at more of those ads we found in the comics and magazines of our youth, for toys and sweets, books, games and badges.
As before, there's a certain charm to the imagery - most of which is hand-drawn - and a sense of innocence too, a time of postal orders and things costing pennies, along with - it has to be said - an odd way of selling shoes...
Here, then, are a few more ads of our childhood, I hope they spark some memories for you...
1976
Terry Scott, dressed as an over-sized schoolboy, selling a chocolate bar that cost 3p in the 70s! I still have one of these Flip'N Fly things, there's a little tab you put in a notch on the side of the disk and use to flick it. I don't think me or Tracy ever got it into a glass, I think we often ended up shooting each other instead.
1977
Years later, while sorting through my old car toybox, which Mum & Dad kept and gave to me when Dude was born, I found some of these. They still stood up.
1977
Yo-Yo's were a big deal for a while, when I was a kid (as they were a few years back for Dude) and Trebor were obviously keen to ride the trend. But even better than a dragon playing with a Yo-Yo, check out the 10p coin to cover postage and packing! I don't think you can buy a lot of those sweets listed these days (chewy cigarettes are now candy sticks), more's the pity...
1978
As evidenced by my Star Wars At 40 thread, I was a big fan of the film back then and can imagine the stress I caused my parents on seeing this ad...
1978
1p per piece of gum - ah, the days when a 10 penny mix-bag meant you could get up to 20 items in it (if you were smart and went for the half-penny chews)... I tried to explain the concept of half-penny chews to Dude a little while back but gave up...
My parents bought me this Star Wars annual (which I still have) before we went on holiday (my sister & I were always bought a magazine to read on the way, usually the Summer Special of whatever comic we liked at the time). I loved it.
1978
The Barratt ad in the last blog was a competition to win a trip in a hot air balloon. This time, we have the opportunity to get a lot of Tom & Jerry badges.
1978
A bright spark at the ad agency realised Menzies could latch onto the then huge Star Wars market without actually including any Star Wars merchandise in the advert! To this day, I have never played Othello.
1979
Before Ceefax, Teletext or the Internet, there was the phone (and Buzby). Reading this, it feels like another age altogether, doesn't it? If there's ever another post in this sub-thread, I'll find an ad for Dial-A-Disc!
1979
10-year-old me opens his magazine, looks at this and says "Here, take my pocket money..."
1979
Proof, if it were needed, that even the most mundane of items (Jif dessert toppings!) can win by associating with current trends (space and sci-fi in this case - Star Wars was still burning up the box office, Moonraker had just opened and The Empire Strikes Back was waiting in the wings). I'm not entirely sure how this would have worked but for £1 (yay, it's a postal order!) it can't be too much of a computer...
1980
"Do you need to get petrol Dad?"
"We're going on holiday son, I imagine we'll need to get some at some point."
"Good. There's a new Smurf out..."
1981
This was a big deal at the time and I remember sending off for a pack and putting this poster on my bedroom wall (I like the Superman films).
1982
I was thirteen and already a fan of Brian Bolland (from his work on Judge Dredd) and horror films and Forbidden Planet was a shop I was desperate to go to. I didn't realise that ambition for a few more years though (and then, 30 years later, I'd be signing a book there - see my post here)
1984
Whilst it might seem odd now, somebody in 1982 decided it would be a good idea to have Weetabix advertised by a gang of bovver boys (and a bovver girl) wearing white t-shirts, drainpipe jeans and braces. Comprised of five members - Dunk was the leader, Brains was the smart one who wore glasses, Crunch was the beefy one, Bixie the girl and Brian, who just said "OK!" in the TV ads - the group was very successful, raging against “titchy breakfasts”, “airy-fairy cereals” and “breakfasts fit for sparrows”. The ad campaign ran through until 1989 and was so popular Weetabix even started a club for them.
1985
Me and my friends were 16 and for those of us not staying on for Sixth Form, work and college beckoned and the adult-making step of having to open a bank account. Midland (now known as HSBC) tried their hardest to tempt us with this little lot, though most of us would never have use for a maths set ever again.
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