This week, the Basement brings us a selection of ads (some appropriately Halloween-themed) from WNEV-TV (CBS) on October 23, 1987.\r
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0:00 to 0:30 - Mounds and Almond Joy (this is one of those ads that makes you ask What show is that from?)\r
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0:31 to 1:01 - Nabisco Fruit Wheats (feat. Transformers Victor Caroli. Does the kid ever find out how fruit gets into Nabisco Fruit Wheats? The world may never know, since it doesnt look like anyone on the Internet has uploaded the conclusion. We can only imagine what must have been a fantastical Bildungsroman, fraught with peril, wonder, mystery, and beauty, cresendoing to a denouement that, while resolving the storys ostensible conflict (however cursorily), showed us how the Boy becomes the Man. \r
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…or the kid just went to a Nabisco factory and saw a pastry injector array put fruit paste into each wheat nugget, and the nice line manager gave him a free box at the end of the tour. You can only do so much in thirty seconds, after all.\r
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Made from 1987 to 1992 (the year Nabisco sold its breakfast cereal division to Kraft), Fruit Wheats was exactly what it looked like in the ad: shredded wheat with fruit paste inside. These days, you can get the basic idea of what it tasted like with Kelloggs Frosted Mini Wheats Touch of Fruit.)\r
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1:02 to 1:31 - York Peppermint Pattie\r
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1:32 to 1:34 - CBS Spirit interstitial (silent)\r
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1:35 to 1:45 – AIDS (if you wrote to that address, you would receive back a copy of the Surgeon Generals Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, the text of which can be found here \r
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1:46 to 2:16 - Lady and the Tramp VHS (to give you an idea how expensive this was, this VHS would have cost you $61.44 in 2014 dollars!)\r
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2:17 to 2:32 - A1 Steaksauce \r
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2:33 to 2:48 - Fig Newtons (The song being parodied is Frank Silver and Irving Kohns 1923 novelty song “Yes! We Have No Bananas Today” Said to have been inspired by a banana shortage caused by a Panama Disease outbreak that eventually wiped out the Gros Michael banana cultivar in the Western Hemisphere, the song has been used as a protest song in Depression-era Northern Ireland, as a slogan outside British grocers during WWII-rationing, and appeared in 1954s “Sabrina” and in 1996s “The English Patient”.)\r
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2:49 to 3:18 – Oreo\r
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3:19 to 3:33 - Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown sponsorships - Oreo, Mounds and Almond Joy \r
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3:35 to 3:46 - Garfields Holiday Adventure promo (dont have a lot to say about this one, but I did find this 2013 AV Club interview with Jim Davis about the special that I thought was interesting and this roundtable discussion is worth a read l \r
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3:47 to 4:07 - Dallas/Falcon Crest promo\r
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4:08 to 4:18 - What a Party! CBS Saturday Morning - Mighty Mouse \r
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4:19 to 4:23 - CBS Interstitial feat. sound of paper and maybe some jimmies rustling\r
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4:25 to 4:55 - McDonalds salads (if youre wondering why McDonalds was accepting losing scratch tickets as salad coupons…so am I. Im guessing either litter prevention, promotion of healthy eating habits among the generally poorer customers of the Massachusetts State Lottery, or Whitey Bulger--- involved. And Im only half joking about that last one.)\r
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4:55 to 5:24 - New England Telephone feat. classic jingle (those outside New England, and those in New England who are not of a certain age, New England Telephone was one of the Baby Bells borne out of the breakup of AT&T in 1984. Their commercials would always end with the sung jingle over a view of New England from space. After a series of mergers with ever larger telecommunication companies, NET is now part of Verizon.)\r
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5:24 to 5:29 - American Bandstand promo\r
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5:32 to 6:02 - McDonalds Scared Silly (talking, anthropomorphic chicken nuggets make their own dipping sauce.the horror…the horror…)\r
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6:02 to 6:31 - Wrigleys Spearmint Gum (“have Casio keyboard, will travel”)\r
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6:34 to 7:04 - McDonalds The Fry Step\r
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7:05 to 7:35 - Super Golden Crisp (the tune of the song Sugar Bear sings at the end is taken from a pre-Civil War era spiritual called “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho”. I am not making this up. \r
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7:35 to 8:05 - New England News/CBS Evening News Promo\r
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8:06 to 8:07 - Top of the Pops (GAAAAAH!)\r
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8:08 to 8:12 - CBS Spirit Interstitial\r
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8:14 to 8:44 - Crispy Critters Cereal (this one again)\r
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8:45 to 8:58 – Certs (8:50 - Pee Wee Herman: The Later Years)\r
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8:59 to 9:14 - 9Lives Cat Food feat. Morris the Cat\r
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9:15 to 9:25 - My Sister Sam promo (feat. Rebecca Schaefer (RIP) at 9:20)\r
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9:26 to 9:36 - Beauty and the Beast promo
