Episode 23 - Commercials Then and Now

In this episode, Liz and Heather talk about their favorite childhood commercials then and now.

ANNOUNCEMENT – Our next book for the Book Club is Dark Disciple by Christie Golden. This is one of the new Star Wars (canon) books, but is just an awesome book, even if you have never read a Star Wars book. Check it out, as it will be released in a few weeks.

And back to our regularly scheduled commercials! Heading back to the 1980s, when we were barely born (ahem), the commercials were incredibly memorable. To this day, we can remember the songs and jingles even more than the actual products. Some of our favorites are:

Byyyy Mennen
I’ve fallen, and I CAN’T GET UP!
Cereal commercials (Mikey, Lucky Charms, Apple Jacks, etc.)
Toys R Us
Bop It and Skip It, Pogo Ball
My Buddy and Kid Sister
He-Man vs. She-Ra (early feminists revolt)
Clappers, Chia Pets, and other As Seen on TV items (bought in the store and/or the TV)
Zest Soap
Public Services Announcements – This is your brain on drugs; Cocaine addiction commercials; and I learned it from watching YOU!
[Things that make us feel really old]

Commercials Now: Not near as cool, since most of us have DVRs, Netflix, Hulu, and things that we use to avoid commercials all together. Branding and marketing is genius. No one looks for a “copy machine,’ they look for a Xerox. In Texas, a Coke could mean any variety of soda.

How do you get our attention in three seconds before we can fast forward through the ad? And now, our old people commercials are looking a lot less old than we remember them looking, thereby making us feel old. And Super Bowl commercials? Forget it. We can watch the Puppy Bowl instead and catch the commercials worth watching tomorrow on YouTube.

Recommendations:

Heather: The Martian (movie) – Who knew that Matt Damon could act? An excellent movie and highly recommended as a good science movie (doesn’t have to be sci-fi).
Liz: Tarkin (book) – Star Wars canon book with the backstory on Grand Moff/Governor Tarkin – Tarkin and Vader take a Bro-trip across the galaxy.

Bitch of the Week: People talking to Heather in the morning. Stop talking to us before we have had our morning coffee or pink drink or whatever. Heather is smart enough to use the Do Not Disturb function on her phone. “Good morning” before coffee is a lie.

Random Tweets – “According to all maxi-pad commercials, all women are full of windshield wiper fluid.”

Annoucement – We now have an open and active Zazzle store to sell our Nerdy Bitches Podcast merchandise! Thanks to our own Nerdy Bitch Heather and our friend Ofelia for the awesome designs! Here is Liz showing off our logo t-shirt:

Check out all of the NERDY BITCHES PODCAST store options! Make sure you turn your content filter OFF so that you can actually see more than the kid shirts. But, we also have a kid-friendly line.