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March 28, 2024, 05:32:58 PM

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Foreign ads' ideas of Britain

Started by George White, December 31, 2020, 04:09:19 PM

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George White

Just become obsessed with foreign ads set in the UK and Ireland.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H3h-PK6edU The Fig Newton ads seem to be set in this weird period never-neverland.

See also the various Grey Poupon ads - with initially Ian Richardson and Paul Eddington, then Trevor Baxter and Peter Cellier. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmOHeWrr9V4&mode=related&search


A rare US adspot of the Welsh, Bernard Fox doing the accent of his birthplace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HnUSJfL870


The Irish Spring ads fascinate me - because they seem to be full of 80s sci-fi starlets doing their worst Oirish.

Lora off Tron - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjSNrg7T0Wo
Dale Arden - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVI7PW1Ylbo

Junket Pumper

Surely they're all knowingly exaggerated parodies playing up to British stereotypes.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Junket Pumper on December 31, 2020, 04:21:21 PM
Surely they're all knowingly exaggerated parodies playing up to British stereotypes.

Not the Irish one.

bgmnts

The Kellogs one was manic, barely had time to advertise the product it went by so fast.

Makes sense with the Kellog=Ceiliog connection though.


George White

#5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-4m1qlmngY This ad clearly done in the US, thanks to perennial Hollywood Brit Ian "Mr. Pitt" Abercrombie

Also did this Cockney dad Call of Duty ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RPxJvy5CfM


The Irish Spring ads for a while did have a genuine Irish spokesperson - Bryan "Trevor Jordache/cousin Shifty off Bread" Murray riffing on his character Flurry from the Irish RM, which was a PBS Masterpiece Theatre hit over there.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHPLoU8PmAA

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: George White on December 31, 2020, 04:09:19 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H3h-PK6edU The Fig Newton ads seem to be set in this weird period never-neverland.

Yes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango!

Grey Poupon. Fuck my hat, Wayne's World makes sense now. Thank you George.

Attila

It's buried in the rant, but 'that fancy green soap you get from America' gets a shout out in this from the Funny Boys -- went out as part of the wonderful Television Parts that Michael Nesmith did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NJv4M-qkEc

My dad used to use Irish Spring when I was a kid growing up in the '70s. No one else was allowed to use his 'special, expensive soap.' It had a very distinctive fragrance, and all the ads used to show the Oirishman carving through it with a knife to show that the green streaks ran all the way through the bar.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Toxteth OGrady on January 02, 2021, 10:49:58 PM
Grey Poupon. Fuck my hat, Wayne's World makes sense now. Thank you George.

It was years before that scene made any sense to me too. It still doesn't work because nobody in the UK eats Grey Poupon or knows what it is, while English mustard is A Thing which exists. I suppose people used to eating American mustard wouldn't enjoy a bit of Coleman's on a hot dog though.

On second thoughts, the British Guy from Wayne's World does look bemused, so maybe that's the joke.


mothman

Quote from: George White on January 02, 2021, 12:21:40 PM
Also did this Cockney dad Call of Duty ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RPxJvy5CfM

YouTube then recommended this (it breathlessly informs me) BANNED video featuring an American delivering the same lines, albeit with more explicit double entendres. If it was indeed BANNED, was the dialled-back Cockney version a replacement? Will Americans only accept sexual innuendo in a foreign accent? Or was the British version for the British market (who are used to coy sexual references) and the American for the US (who don't like to admit sex exists)?

https://youtu.be/9SOBdkwDgPo

Ferris

Nothing to add, except that I love those terrible Grey Poupon ads.

Attila

Not Britain, but Ireland: anyone who grew up in the 1970s thought everyone in Ireland used Irish Spring soap (my dad used it, and wouldn't let anyone else in the famly touch because it was 'expensive'. To this day I can't stand the scent of it because it reminds me so strongly of my dad.


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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVI7PW1Ylbo (Says the uploader: "Beautiful actress Melody Anderson appears in this 1978 television ad for manly deodorant soap Irish Spring, which once again proves that at every festive activity in Ireland there's a guy hanging around armed with a knife and a bar of soap."

Looking at them now, they all look like a cod-Irish version of Parts: The Clonus Horror.


The Funny Boys subverted it in their 'Irish Language Lab' ('That fancy green soap you get from America!')
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NJv4M-qkEc

(Yep, that's the lovely Michael Nesmith introducing the sketch. -- if you have an hour or so, get lost in the sketches his posted from his incomparable Television Parts short-lived tv show. Sorority Girls from Hell is a standout.)

dissolute ocelot


popcorn

In Japan I met a guy who had done a stint working at a "British hotel" somewhere in the country. (Japan, I mean.) I think it was called an "academy". The videos on the website were incredible. I wish I could find it now, will have a proper look in a bit.