Retro Ad: You Could Learn A Lot From A Dummy

  It's a Saturday morning some time in 1985 your all excited to catch up with He-man, the Autobots and G.I. Joe's but, Just as Cobra Commander's dastardly plan is about to succeed, they cut to a commercial and you see...

 Two crash test dummies that make safety education fun? This has never happened before, usually seat belt safety public service announcements were dull and depressing but, now you had two cool new mascots that you could look forward to just as much as He-Man or Optimus Prime. Vince was the more seasoned half of the duo having been a Dummy for years, he was tired of being torn apart to teach about safety belts because he believed no one was paying attention. Larry was the rookie, always optimistic and always believing he was making a difference.

   The commercial above is not actually from 1985 but, that was the first year they ran. Created by Jim Ferguson and Joel Machak for U.S Department of Transportation under the production of Leo Burnett. The original idea Ferguson had was that living dummies are hiding from the horrors inflicted on them, and are dragged out and forced to test the cars. Machak suggested a more lighter comedy approach. Ferguson wrote the commercials and Machack worked as creative director. Burnett hired Wanda Watkins to design the costumes and, hired William Dear to direct them.

  Of course if your going to have an ad campaign that you want to catch on, you have to have great voice talent behind the characters. Comic legend Jack Burns who wrote many episodes of both Hee Haw and The Muppet Show was hired to voice Vince. Famed voice actor Lorenzo Music the voice of Garfield and Peter Vankmen in The real Ghostbusters was hired to voice Larry.

   With everything else in play they needed a rememberable  slogan and Jim Ferguson came up with the icing on the cake, "You Could Learn A Lot From A Dummy, Buckle Your Safety Belt."

   The ads were an instant success. The early ones just focused on Vince and Larry in the crash test center crashing cars but as the commercials went on they would be put into different situations and places.They played hockey, hosted game shows, rapped, sang the blues and, even had an infomercial. These dummies really did do everything but, no matter what they were doing they were always teaching us the dangers of not buckling up.

   With the success of the commercials it was not long before celebrity guest stars started to appear in them.There was a celebrity roast commercial that included many popular older comedians including Joan Rivers. There was a Commercial featuring Iron Maiden. There were a couple of commercials that had clips of the Andy Griffith show so that Vince and Larry were being pulled over by Barney Fife (Don Knotts). There was even one with Ray Charles. I would bet good money there were other celebrity guest star commercials but, finding information on these ads is almost impossible, trust me I have been researching for years.

   Besides on t.v.  Vince and Larry were everywhere, there were radio ads, news paper ad's, banners that hung in malls, billboards, they were printed on plastic grocery bags, they had t-shirts and, anything else you could think of, with not only the normal slogan but, any play on words they could come up with. They sure were very creative when it came to coming up with new slogans.

Vince and Larry in there Crash Car from Tyco's toy line
released early 1991

  By the early 90's they had already become pop icons and in 1991 Tyco rolled out a toy line based on Vince and Larry. Vince and Larry, the Crash Dummies consisted of several vehicles and dummies. Most of the dummies in the line appeared in one of the commercials. The line included Vince, Larry, Daryl, Spare Tire, Skid The Kid and, Hubcat & Bumper, (A cat and a dog). The were two cars both coming with a free exclusive dummy. The red car featured in most commercials came with  Dash and the blue version that was made up to be a student driver car that, was also seen in one of the commercials came with Axel. There was also two motocycles.

   With the release of the toy line t.v. stations were less willing to air the commercials not wanting to promote the toys, that along with the fact that the toys were a chocking hazard, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration pulled the rights from Tyco. Tyco renamed the two main characters and changed there colors, dropped Vince and Larry's name out of the tittle and the line continued, becoming one of the best selling toy lines of 1992, spawning several video games and even one of the first computer generated cartoon pilots. Had the line not quickly declined in popularity in 1993, we would of seen a theatrical motion picture. even though there names got changed this line only did as well as it did due to it's tie with the popular commercials.

   This toy line is how I came to love the dummies I may have been born the year the line was released but the fact that the figures were peg warmers at K.B Toys and Toys "R" Us for years insured I got most of the series. I may have never had a Vince or Larry to play with but I was still excited every time one of there commercials would pop up on t.v.

Vince and Larry T-shirt

   The entire campaign along with the characters Vince and Larry were retired in 1999, fourteen years after there first debut. They had a great run, they reached a kind of popularity that is almost unheard of for a series of commercials. Of course the campaign that replaced it was dull and depressing but, in there time Vince and Larry did make a difference. During their run seat belt usage went from only 14% to 79%. The dummies are acknowledged to have saved around 85,000 lives.

  Considered historically important enough for Roger White an associate curator for the Smithsonian to hunt down the costumes and props used in the commercials and in 2010 Vince and Larry were officially conducted into the National Museum of American History collections so, that they will always be remembered for what they accomplished in there 14 years.

   But does Vince and Larry really have to be just another relic in a museum? With so many 80's properties being rebooted today, is it time to bring them back? Seat Belt safety may not be a huge problem any more but, we do have lots of accidents due to texting. You can't tell me there isn't anything they can do with that. I mean if Jem and The Holograms can get a new movie in 2015, why can't we bring back Vince and Larry?

Do yourself a favor search out the old commercials, have a good laugh and remember,
                     
                                           "YOU CAN LEARN A LOT FROM A DUMMY,
                                                       BUCKLE YOUR SAFETY BELT."

Bad Reboot: Sexy Hamburglar

  In this modern world of adult orientated fast food places that all look like a coffee house instead of somewhere I go to get something off a dollar menu There is no place for the Hamburglar, or so I thought. Turns out it is not only movies that reboot classics to make them more hip and modern. No, no because McDonald's is doing it too.

McDonald's Land Supporting cast 1980's

  We where all once kids and we all once loved the McDonald's Land characters. I mean the best part of McDonald's was McDonald's Land. McDonald's Land was the name of the play area (In the 80's) and of the fictional magical place, that had citizens made of Hamburgers and fries that ate nothing but Hamburgers and fries. Seems a little cannibalistic but who cares? Of course every land needs there Bad Guy and McDonald's Land had the Hamburglar, A human that would go around doing exactly what his name imply's, stealing Hamburgers.

The Hamburglar as he originally appeared

Hamburlar 1980's

The Hamburlar originally appeared in a commercial in 1975, four years into McDonald's Land existence. He was originally a pretty ugly adult looking Character and was redone in the 80's to look more like a pudgy child. No doubt you remember this look and if your a 90's kid you probably remember the giant Banner with him on it that, hung alongside Banners of the other remaining McDonald's Land characters.

Hamburglar in the Wacky Adventures
of Ronald McDonald

  I used to love the commercials for McDonald's that Aired when I was a kid. In the late 90's they released a VHS series called the Wacky Adventures Of Ronald McDonald, that featured a Hamburglar that looked like he was straight out of a 90's Nickelodeon cartoon. I never liked those tapes but, my friends did. 

  In the 2000's the McDonald's Land Commercials were sadly discontinued in favor of the "I'm Lovin It" slogan commercials, though the character's Image could still be seen at the Play Places in most McDonald's.

Sexy Hamburglar 2015

  Meet the sexy Hamburglar, He may look like something out of someones 50 Shades of Grey / McDonald's fan fiction but, he's the new Hipster Hamburglar for 2015. He is even a family man with a wife and kids! Some one explain to me how the chubby puppet kid grew to be a completely human adult? Does nobody else find this creepy? He's the Hamburglar he steals food. Is there going to be a series of commercials of him stealing from McDonald's. A kid stealing hamburgers can be funny, a grown man stealing hamburgers, just seems like some sort of weird fetish, I don't want to eat at a place with a mascot with a food fetish.

  This leads me to wonder if we will get modern up dates of other classic McDonald's characters like, A sad drunk Ronald McDonald, Or a Birdie the Early Bird that Frames her husband for her murder? Seriously for a place trying to distance it's self from it's child friendly past, it just seems weird to pull one of these characters out of retirement but, what do I know? Maybe next time you go to McDonald's they'll be building a Play Place for adults only... .

  

Forgotten 90's Cartoons: WILDC.A.T.S

  There was a time in the early 90's when comic book cartoons were huge. Batman The Animated series and the X-men cartoon premiered in 1992 to critical and commercial success, spurning  out long running toy lines and countless other merchandise. Of course by 1994 other cartoons were hoping to match that success. Marvel dropped 3 new cartoons on various networks and CBS aired WILDC.A.T.S.

  Based on the Jim Lee comic of the same name that launched in 1992, published by newly founded Image Comics. "WILDC.A.T.S: COVERT ACTION TEAMS" was a success upon release like most of the early Image titles. Later in the series run comic great Alan Moore (WATCHMEN) would take on writing duties.

 The choice to turn this series into a cartoon is most likely due to the fact that the designs in the X-men cartoon were based on Jim Lee's designs and CBS was hoping to cash in on his popularity. The tone and story telling in the episodes were clearly trying to copy the style of The X-men series. It aired alongside "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Skeleton Warriors" as part of the CBS' Action block.

From top clockwise. Maul, Grifter, Warblade, Spartan, Zealot, Voodoo. 

Void and Marlowe.

  The cartoon retained the same team of characters from the comics. There was Spartan the cyborg leader, Maul the purple/green dude that got bigger and less intelligent the more angrier he got (Sound familiar?), Void the android, Voodoo the telekinetic that had her stripper back story stripped away, Grifter the gunman, Zealot  the samurai, the cartoon's rookie character Warblade with the ability to change his hands into different kinds of blades and Jacob Marlowe who was an imp in the comics is now just a regular human.

  Everyone on the team besides Marlowe were descendants of an ancient alien race called the Kherubim. the Kherubim have been in a centuries long war with the evil aliens the Daemonites. The Daemonites where lead by the evil Lord Helspont whose diabolical plan was to use his army to take over the world, OF COURSE!.

  The cartoon only lasted one season with a total of 13 episodes. Most episodes focused on one character to establish personality's and back story while, continuing the season long arc. The writing was not as good as say Batman The Animated Series or the X-men 90's cartoon but it was still a decent show in my opinion.

Grifter Action Figure

  Like most cartoons it had a toy line. The toy line was produced by Playmates Toys, who were already having a huge success with there Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line. The WILDC.A.T.S set included all of the main characters and some of the side characters. Every figure came packed with a trading card if you were lucky you might find one of the cards signed by Jim lee. I was never that lucky though I frantically searched. There were several vehicles and even jumbo figures. The design of the figures were very different from the normal Playmates design as most of Playmates' figures were done in the squatting Pose of the TMNT figures, these instead were done in in a more realistic style and made at a 6 inch scale, not yet an industry standard as most figures of the 90's were a 5 inch scale.

  Though the cartoon did not last this was always a personal favorite of mine and I remember always being excited to wake up Saturday mornings to watch this show. It may not be great but it was fun, if you like 90's cartoons, superheroes, or both give this show a try. As for me I'm still dreaming of owning the Jumbo sized Grifter, that my parents said was too expensive, yes $10 used to be high price for an action figure.

Any way "WILDC.A.T.S HO!"... wrong series.

The Greatest Soda There Ever Was

  We have been drinking soda for over a hundred years and most of the classics are still around in one form or another but, not the greatest soda there ever was. Mr.Pibb is gone. You are probably thinking, "What?, you can still get Mr.Pibb you fool." No, that is Pibb Extra and if you think they taste the same then you never drank the holy nectar that Was Mr.Pibb.

1970's Can

.

   Mr.Pibb was created in 1972 by the Coca-Cola company to rival the success of Dr.Pepper. The name was chosen so that consumers would know that the taste was in the same ball park as the good doctor. The chosen slogan was "It Goes Down Good". That is not the slogan I remember, "Put it in Your Head" the hip 90's slogan is what I remember.

   If you grew up in the 90's no doubt you have seen that commercial. Now why am I writing about this soda, why is my first nostalgic article here on Neon Arcade on a mostly forgotten beverage? Well, because I miss it. I loved this soda as a kid and I have never forgotten the joys of MrPibb.
  Shakey's Pizza and McDonald's used to always have it on tap. My pizza and Happy Meals where always sweeter when they where topped off by the cool and smooth Mr.Pibb.
   I still remember when Pibb Extra first came around in the early 2000's. To think Pibb turned Extreme after the 90's ended, the decade of Extreme. It was good but it was not as good as it's contemporary.
 Now imagine my horror when I discovered the the good old mister would be replaced by this new Extreme version. I was heart broken. This soda was more than a soda he was a friend, a very delicious friend and he was going away. I thought it would last forever but, all great things must come to an end.
   While most people who are to young to remember Mr.Pibb may only know of it as that soda that American Dad did an entire episode on.

Screen Shot of Stan Smith as he try's to save Mr.Pibb in an episode of American Dad.

  I will always remember MrPibb's. sweet god like flavor. Seriously anyone reading this that never drank a Mr.Pibb I feel sorry for you. You may think you have it good with your Pibb Extra but, you would be wrong.
  Just remember if you find an old can or bottle of Mr.Pibb,
 "PUT IT IN YOUR HEAD".