Old adverts featuring comedians - good for a laugh (or a cringe)

[Nelson Swillie]

I've been plundering the rather wonderful www.arrowsarchive.com and I've unearthed the following gems for you all to enjoy.

Ronnie Barker funding his tax dodge year in Australia with a 1977 advert for Sekonda watches...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=286295

Benny Hill's mate Henry McGee and Honey Monster sing 'Sugar Sugar' (1977)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=286252

Rodney Bewes utters four words you will never, ever forget (1977)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275587

John Cleese for Accurist watches (1979)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275882

Roy Kinnear and Leonard Rossiter (on voice over) promoting home improvement grants for the Central Office of Information (1979)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275983

"Naffin' 'eck, Godber!" (1979)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275935

Ronnie Barker promotes his very own Unbroken British Record on the K-Tel label (1979)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=276031

I hope James Bolam got well paid for this one (1979)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275936

June Whitfield in a forerunner of the Two Ronnies' 'Pinocchio II - Killer Doll' sketch for Bird's Eye pies (WARNING - contains a strangely disturbing not-so-special effect) (1979)

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275641

Speaking of which...the Two Ronnies promoting the Austin Morris (1979)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275906

The sublime Spike Milligan for the English Tourist Board (1980)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=276485

OVERLOAD! Tim Brooke Taylor and Graeme Garden on voice duties, Bob Todd and Julia Breck (Q series regulars) in the ad itself...for Jaffa grapefruits! (1980)

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=276159

The Goodies flogging Ronson lighters and pens (1980) in a vaguely futuristic setting...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=276368

Warren Mitchell babysits a young 'un who loves Walls sausages (1980)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=276141

"Well, why don't you follow what John Cleese says on television?" (1980)

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=276455

More to come...

[Lfbarfe]

Rodney Bewes utters four words you will never, ever forget (1977)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275587

"He's bold."

I hope James Bolam got well paid for this one (1979)...

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275936

What he did to the neighbour with that sander after the cameras stopped rolling has been hushed up ever since, but the actor in question now makes Simon Weston look like a male model.

[CaledonianGonzo]

OVERLOAD! Tim Brooke Taylor and Graeme Garden on voice duties, Bob Todd and Julia Breck (Q series regulars) in the ad itself...for Jaffa grapefruits! (1980)

Ideologically suspect citrus fruit alert!

[Uncle TechTip]

Great find, thanks!

[Queneau]

Tony Hancock....The Egg Commercials, 1965

[Nelson Swillie]

Jack Douglas and Neil Innes...together at last! (1990)

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=281387

Michael 'On the Buses' Robbins for Oven Chips (1981)

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=276698

Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier for Wispa bars (1982)

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=277425

Advert for Ladybird children's clothing that uses Milligan's Q series theme

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=282884

[Edible]

I was thinking of starting a "I'm surprised he/she did an advert" thread after stumbling across this one last night:

Madeline Kahn - Diet Coke Commercial

Edit: I was surprised to see peter cook in the advert, not Madeline kahn, whoever she is.

[ColonelVolestrangler]

"Well, why don't you follow what John Cleese says on television?" (1980)

http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=276455

Ooh, so that's where the cover for the 'Golden Skits of Wing Commander Muriel Volestrangler' book came from. Hadbn't realised the shot wasn't taken specifically for the book.

Sadly, no sign of the Frankie Howerd Typhoo Tea ad - 'You only get an OOOOOOOH with Typhoo' - but still a great find, Nelson.

[Uncle TechTip]

I order all the bitches who slagged off Mitchell & Webb for doing an advert to sit and watch every clip on this website until they get the message that every notable comedian since the beginning of time has done the same.

Here's Pope and Mulville in a very poor Guinness ad where Pope is cast as some kind of 'fun police'. Not hard to see why the brand's marketing went down the mysterious and surreal route. http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=278034

[madhair60]

Unfortunate in retrospect: 'chicken feasts'

[Lucille Ballbag]

Billy Connolly, extolling the virtues of alcohol-free lager.

Kaliber Billy Connolly

[Catalogue Trousers]

Ah, ColonelVolestrangler, I wish that Typhoo Frankie Howerd ad was available as well! Mind you, I hadn't realised that he also advertised other beverages...


Boddingtons advert starring Frankie Howerd

[Maybe Im Doing It Wrong]

I order all the bitches who slagged off Mitchell & Webb for doing an advert to sit and watch every clip on this website until they get the message that every notable comedian since the beginning of time has done the same.

To be fair, most of the comedians in that archive had a very large body of critically-acclaimed work behind them when they made the ads, which is why people didn't begrudge them making a few bob from them, whereas Mitchell and Webb were still relatively wet behind the ears when they leapt (some would say with unseemly haste) to exploit their comedy characters for the advertising man's shekel. That's the difference.

[Mark X]

A few from 1977:

Warren Mitchell, again promoting Walls bangers, this time in the guise of a shop steward: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=286261

Brian Wilde goes Christmas shopping for his wife: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=286276

Another inhabitant of Slade Prison, this time Brian Glover, and a dilemma very much of the age in this Hamlet advert: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=286279

Brian Murphy (sans Mildred), insisting on Formica: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=286289

Ronnie B at the pickpocket's convention: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=286296

Fred Emney and James Hunt demand on Texaco Havoline : http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=286299

Cleese and the actor who was the janitor in Grange Hill and Labour PM in The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer but whose name I forget now and can't be bothered looking up, General Accident: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=286300

[gepree]

Charlie Chuck flogging Double Deckers:
Charlie Chuck Double Decker AD

[Mark X]

It's well worth going through the old Heineken adverts on Arrows Archive. Such as:

Charlie Drake Kenneth Williams, and comedy campness (1978) http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275594

Heineken riffs on ITV's pain, the year after the 1979 strike: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=276224

Joan Sims, Celia Imrie, Josie Lawrence, 1991: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=308534

Susie Blake reprising her continuity announcer from Victoria Wood As Seen On TV, 1989: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=280747

More Susie Blake, preceding "Lip Sync Drama", 1989: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=280746

From April 1st 1986, "Compressed Molecules": http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=307756

Harry Enfield takes a potshot at Beastie Boys fans in 1988: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=280061

Heineken, Leslie Philips, Charles Hawtrey, Reflexes, 1979: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=275697

Nick Hancock at goes for a job at The Probe newspaper, 1992: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=306431

Nigel Planer and Leonardo Da Vinci, 1987: http://www.arrowsarchive.com/asset.pl?asset_id=279191

[Ignatius_S]

Some great ones there!

To be fair, most of the comedians in that archive had a very large body of critically-acclaimed work behind them when they made the ads, which is why people didn't begrudge them making a few bob from them, whereas Mitchell and Webb were still relatively wet behind the ears when they leapt (some would say with unseemly haste) to exploit their comedy characters for the advertising man's shekel. That's the difference.

If someone did say it was 'unseemly haste' then it reveals more about them then the actual issue. Mitchell and Webb had been in comedy for well over a decade before they did the Apple adverts - by this point, Peep Show had been going for four years. Rather than taking to adverts with reckless speed, I think there's a better argument that they were slow off the starting blocks.

Personally speaking, I would like prefer to see highly-paid, successful performers do good work in the field they are known for, rather than appearing in another bloody advert. It's not as if these people actually need the money and it used to be the case that adverts were a way of struggling actors to eke out a living, but celebrities are making that harder.

Going back to those Apple adverts, they were based on the American advertising campaign - the characters in the American adverts are essentially the same ones that Mitchell and Webb, and others, played in foreign versions. The characters are easily associated with the Peep Show characters, so it made perfect sense to use them. The adverts were very popular in the States, so when Mitchell and Webb did agree to do them, it could be argued that at least they were doing an UK version of a successful campaign.

[PaulTMA]

No sign of Bob Mortimer's Fruit Burst advert out there, then?  That one made me LOL, the one time it got seen.