Do you want vintage commercials with vintage TV programs? (1 Viewer)

[Randy_M]

Hi,

I was just watching my new disc of One Step Beyond episodes from 1959 - 1961, and was thinking it would be cool to have commercials from the period where they would have been on the original broadcast.

Do any have this feature? Would anyone like to see it?

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I've always wanted to get old TV shows EXACTLY the way they were first broadcast, commercials and all. With DVD they could be set to play with or without the commercials. I have several old tapes recorded from 1978-82 and often watch them just to see the commercials. For a while I was always opting to tape anything I wanted off the air rather than wait for a pre-recorded version to come out, however ever since the networks started putting their logos over the picture, I've gone completely in the opposite direction. I taped many of the first episodes of "The Simpsons" before they ruined it with the Fox logo onscreen, now I no longer watch it so the past few seasons I'll see for the first time when they finally come on DVD.

Commercials are a necessary evil and are fun to watch as they get old, but putting a logo onscreen during an entire show serves no purpose except to ruin the picture.

 

[David Lambert]

Heck, why not just have them put out a "your favorite commercials" disc? That'd be fun, sorta. Paying for the solicitations!

 

[Brian W.]

I'm with Randy. I've always wanted this feature on vintage TV shows/movies. Criterion did it on their "I Love Lucy" laserdisc years ago -- but those were all Philip Morris commercials. For most TV shows, it would be a licensing nightmare, so I don't think it's likely to happen.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The funnniest thing. Japanese commmercials are some of the greatest around. Hilarious stuff. There are many stores that carry Japanese TV shows for rent in the US, you know who sued? The COMMERCIAL owners! NOT the program! I'm guessing that for anime the commercials would cost much more than the show to license!

Incidentally this lead to the creation of TV Japan on Dish Network.

 

[Kajs]

I watched a Wonderful World of Color show "Disneyland Goes to the World's Fair" at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago and it included all the original commercials. Most were for Kodak and their pavilion at the fair, one included Betty White. Another was for the RCA Pavillion and how they showed lost children on TVs around the fair. It was some stuff relevant to the show, but I doubt Disney will ever release the show with it.

 

[James_M]

Yeah, some of those old 80's commercials are pretty funny to watch sometimes. I wish they would've included those old commercials on the G.I. Joe DVD. But man, PAYING for commercials??? I just can't get over that concept. They should be given away for free.

 

[Mark Lee]

I live pretty close to the L.A. branch of the Museum of Television and Radio (the other's in NYC), and a couple of months back, they had a series entitled "Hello Goodbye," where they screened first and/or last episodes from various beloved series, like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers, St. Elsewhere, The Odd Couple....it was great!!!
Anyway, while watching the final episode of The Odd Couple, I was startled to see the original commercials being shown as well -- there was a Burger King commercial (with the smiling BK drones all wearing poofy hats and singing "Hold the pickles, hold the mayo, have it yooouuur waaayy!!!" ) and various cleaning products/automobile commercials. Quite a kick to see how simplistic the production values of those commercials of yore compare with today's CGI/pyrotechnic extravaganzas.
Anyway, if any HTF'ers in SoCal haven't yet gone to this museum, it's definitely worth a stopover (they have a huge database of old TV shows that you can view at little booths, like in your old school library).
http://www.mtr.org/

 

[Rachael B]

I bought a tape of commercials from Rhino some years ago of old commercials and inserted them into two episodes of the original Star Trek TV show. I stille watch them occasionally. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is....

 

[Kurt N]

The 4 discs Image has put out of The Howdy Doody Show (which I cannot recommend highly enough) include the ads done during the episodes by the cast. They're among my favorite parts of the shows. The fact that Wonder hamburger buns are pre-sliced is a big selling point. Ah, the things we take for granted these days...

I doubt we'll see this too much due to different owners, etc. However, if I owned Burger King (or Coca-Cola or Budweiser or whatever product) I'd certainly be happy to think that thousands of people were sitting down in 2002 and DELIBERATELY watching commercials that had been paid for years earlier.

Were Rhino or Something Weird to release discs of just commercials, I would buy them. Maybe theme collections: auto ads, cereal ads, candy ads, (dare I say) cigarette ads, etc.

Years ago, I rented a video tape of Star Trek bloopers which, at the end, included some commercial BLOOPERS, a couple of which included nudity. I'd pay dearly to get those on DVD.

 

[Chris Bardon]

I really hope that Rhino includes the original toy commercials on their upcoming Transformers season 1 set. If they stil exist, it'd be great just for the nostalgia...

 

[Scott_J]

I own a disc with a couple episodes of the Abbott & Costello Show that has the live commercials that were done during the shows.

 

[Scooter]

At my local Odd Job store..they had sets of DVD with The Beverly Hillbillies..Andy Griffith..and some others with all the old commercials intact. Also a coupla Grade Z movies with old commercials too. The discs were 5 bucks a piece.

Might want to check that out.

Seems I have an LD or 2 with commercials as well as 2 VHS tapes.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

The DVD of the 1960's Nancy Sinatra special "Movin' With Nancy" has the RC Cola commercials made for the show; the liner notes by Nancy say she wouldn't have put this out without them. It also has the NBC "In Living Color" intro, with the old-style peacock (which does NOT stay in the corner of the screen through the entire show!!)

 

[george kaplan]

It would be nice to have commercials, but either as seamless branching, or as their own chapters so they could quickly and easily be skipped over if desired.

 

[Douglas R]

Warner's DVD of The Searchers includes 50s TV material about the film which includes original TV commercials. I think they are great fun to watch.