David Hasselhoff advertising Farm Foods

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I would like to read a thorough document outlining the chain of events that led to Sylvester Stallone making an advert for Warburtons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2N_TVdrhTI

Even more so than yer man Harvey Keitel, Stallone still has an active and successful film career. He's a multi-millionaire living legend with no vested financial interest in flogging bread. It makes sense from Warburtons point of view, they must've been thrilled to get him, but what did Stallone get out of this? A lifetime supply of free Toastie loaves?

[Goldentony]

I don't know what Rod Hull did with the money from the Clover adverts, but I suspect it was directly responsible for him clambering up onto his roof that time.

He reformed and joined Public Image Ltd with the cash

[RedRevolver]

When I moved to Chorley, having grown up in London, I didn't really know what Farm Foods was. We'd be going to ASDA (right next door) and I'd pipe up with 'Oh, why don't we go in here for vegetables? What kind of farm shop doesn't sell vegetables?'. He'd laugh at me, and I'd swiftly forget that Farm Foods was a bastardised Iceland (traumatised, you see). We repeated this a few times before I decided to be brave and remember it even existed.

That said, Farm Foods in Chorley has possibly one of the fastest checkout assistants I've ever seen, so I can respect that. I guess I'd want to get the typical clientele out of my face as quickly as possible, too. But then, I'd be quite happy to see the entirety of Chorley flattened with a Little Boy, so I might be a bit biased.

[buttgammon]

On describing Farm Foods to my girlfriend, who has never seen one, I called it "a downmarket Iceland."

Should've saved it for the desolation thread, really.

[biggytitbo]

Ratko Mladić tried to cash in on his notoriety by doing those adverts for Um Bongo didn't he, the tosser.

[Shit Good Nose]

Al Pacino doing Sky adverts

Not so long ago Dustin Hoffman doing them seemed like bottom of the barrel stuff.  He probably wishes he could do those now...

[Gregory Torso]

Where does Heron Foods fit into all of this? Is it a Midlands thing?

[Blue Jam]

Those John Lydon butter ads were probably a bit grim to some people?

Nah- John Lydon making a fast buck and not giving a shit when people wailed "wah wah he's selling out"? That was so him, and it was hilarious. He also looked like he was having a bloody good laugh wearing all that lairy tweed.

Bleakest thing has to be all those former England cricketers adverting hair transplant clinics.

[Blue Jam]

Keitel has had yer actual serious film career, so him flogging insurance seems absurd, unless he lost all his money in some kind of Ponzi scheme.

Isn't that what happened to Kevin Bacon, and the explanation for why he's now flogging broadband for EE?

[Brundle-Fly]

Isn't that what happened to Kevin Bacon, and the explanation for why he's now flogging broadband for EE?

There's a new EE advert that is a bit half cocked. Kevin Bacon is playing himself again but David Mitchell is in it portraying a character with grown-up kids. Why didn't they get just an unknown actor in to play the father? The surprise of seeing Mitchell screws any comedy happening as both famous people cancel each other out.

Lydon can advertise chemical weapons as far as I'm concerned. He always makes me smile that he doesn't care what old punks think of him.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Wasn't there a series of them Bacon adverts where you could tell they'd gotten a little bit carried away with the de-aging software.

[Blue Jam]

Has there been a mention of Iggy Pop advertising car insurance yet? "I love mah wheels, maaaaaaaan".

Why does that one feel so much less forgiveable than John Lydon advertising butter?

[The Culture Bunker]

Where does Heron Foods fit into all of this? Is it a Midlands thing?

There's one in Whitehaven (West Cumbria), so presumably not entirely.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Has there been a mention of Iggy Pop advertising car insurance yet? "I love mah wheels, maaaaaaaan".

Why does that one feel so much less forgiveable than John Lydon advertising butter?

Wasn't Snoop Dogg doing that for a while as well?

[Goldentony]

Where does Heron Foods fit into all of this? Is it a Midlands thing?

There's a Heron here in Liverpool there's loads of them, and the other day it was the only shop open out of that and Tesco and it was a fucking nightmare. I was off the shop to get fruit and something for a sandwich and then you're faced with miscellaneous reformed ashtray meat and 17 chicken steaks for two bob

[Brundle-Fly]

I was surprised to see Miranda Richardson do those naff hair product commercials last year. Needs must.

[biggytitbo]

I always thought Heron frozen food was a Hull based franchise like Skeltons.


The Iggy pop ads were definetly worse than Lydon, the feeble way they tried to make it edgy when he was just gobbling off the man.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm always a little disappointed in how Steven Fry manages to pretend to be a genius yet will also say anything for money.

I know John Lydon knows fuck all about butter, he probably thinks it comes straight out the cows tit, but Fry saying things like DAB radio is a good technology is downright misleading.

[buttgammon]

The one that gets me is Gang of Four letting them use one of their songs (in which they talk about "the problem of leisure/what to do for pleasure") in an Xbox ad about ten years ago. It's not only something that goes against the ethos of the band, but something that goes against the ethos of the song itself.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Jim Morrison was a right old wally, but I've always liked the story of him rebelling against the other three members of the Doors for allowing Light My Fire to be used in a Buick commercial.

They signed the deal in his absence, so when he found out he called Buick headquarters and threatened to destroy one of their cars with a sledgehammer on television if the commercial ever aired. Knowing what we know about Morrison, he probably would've whipped out his wanger and pissed on the trashed vehicle for good measure.

Hats off to Jimbo on that occasion, I say.

[Mister Six]

The one that gets me is Gang of Four letting them use one of their songs (in which they talk about "the problem of leisure/what to do for pleasure") in an Xbox ad about ten years ago. It's not only something that goes against the ethos of the band, but something that goes against the ethos of the song itself.

To be fair, the work probably dried up after they were denounced by Mao.

[petril]

Where does Heron Foods fit into all of this? Is it a Midlands thing?

I dunno. Heron always looked the most grim of all freezer shops. Maybe it's the logo looking very 80s and the décor and shop front looking like the last time they were touched was the 80s. Based on my recollections of Middlesbrough and Sheffield about 10-15 years ago.

At least Lee & Herring's Farm of Foods (because of the circled f on the doors they used to have) had a friendlier looking font, and updated their look a bit over time.

[Thomas]

I laughed.

Do you reckon Stewart Lee will ever sell his soul to the advertising industry? Maybe a sly advert for Crusha or Branston Pickle?

It's possible. For Now That's What I Call Incomprehensible Jazz Vol. I, perhaps.

Even Chris Morris did at least one ad once, a creative radio bit for The Times's university guide in 1993, and Armando Iannucci and Peter Baynham worked together on some Pot Noodle ads.

Ol' Bowie flogged his faces for bottled water in 2006.

[biggytitbo]

That bowie one is a bit dispiriting isn't it, although at least he had the good sense to do it outside of his home territory:

[Gregory Torso]

I always thought Heron frozen food was a Hull based franchise like Skeltons.

I was in the Broadmarsh Centre in Nottingham in February and I looked into a Heron Foods as I passed it and immediately 4 complete Desolation posts formed in my mind. It has become my muse and I hope one day to see it again.

[NoSleep]

Mike Reid and David Hasselhoff advertising pig's milk (and cornflakes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q8fRy00F5Q

[biggytitbo]

Mike Reid also advertised onion rings.

[monkfromhavana]

Nah- John Lydon making a fast buck and not giving a shit when people wailed "wah wah he's selling out"? That was so him, and it was hilarious. He also looked like he was having a bloody good laugh wearing all that lairy tweed.

Bleakest thing has to be all those former England cricketers adverting hair transplant clinics.

Doing that and Big Brother for money is fine. Listening to some people I know banging on about him somehow "subverting the medium" was tedious.

[hermitical]

The one that gets me is Gang of Four letting them use one of their songs (in which they talk about "the problem of leisure/what to do for pleasure") in an Xbox ad about ten years ago. It's not only something that goes against the ethos of the band, but something that goes against the ethos of the song itself.

Au contrair! They argue that it is an extension of their ideological integrity

When King sang, "Ideal love a new purchase/A market of the senses," in the stuttering, stun-gun funk classic "Natural's Not in It," he probably never thought it'd be used to help peddle a consumer item for one of the world's biggest businesses, but these capitalist-­critiquing blokes recently sold the track to Microsoft for a Kinect ad. "The Xbox people approached us to use 'Natural's Not in It' for a TV commercial," Gill explains. "Ten out of ten! If we'd ever been asked to define a dream scenario for this song, the first lines of which are 'The problem of leisure/What to do for pleasure,' this would be it.
"Just like in '79, [when we were] about to sign to EMI, some people were outraged, saying we should be with an indie, but our music really makes sense being with this company that is a global distillation of capitalism. The use of ['Natural's Not in It'] in a Microsoft gaming-console commercial would be an extension of our ideological integrity. We are interested in exploring the anxiety of consumerism. And we did so not out of scorn for those who fuel the capitalist machine, but to acknowledge our own complicity in it."

Of course they are interested in exploring the anxiety of consumerism

[buttgammon]

I knew they'd have said something like that! It's true that they were always self-aware in that regard, but I think your explanation of the Xbox advert is much more convincing...