Selling Stuff

More TV ads from the seventies, when Bruce Forsythe could be found selling Stork margarine.  He wasn't young even then, with his soliciting of young women's phone numbers just making him seem like a dirty old man.   See, it wasn't just Jimmy Savile being creepy back then - they were all at it.  Blatantly at it.  But that was a woman's role back then, particularly in adverts - to be a sex object.  That is, when they weren't cleaning the kitchen floor (just why is 'Vigor' spelt the US way, ehere has the 'u' gone?), or remembering to buy their husband his non-prescription drugs, (albeit the inferior ones: Beecham's Hot Lemon Drink was no match for the rival Lemsip).  Then again, they might be prancing around in their underwear to advertise marmalade, (complete with Robinson's golliwog logo - didn't you know that racism didn't exist in the seventies - it's all leftist revisionism?). 

Advertising tissues - man sized ones, of course - now, that's mans work, as Tom Baker's manly voice over proves.  Just one of many he provided for anyone who'd meet his fees back in those days, (playing the Doctor didn't pay that well).  Which Sun Pat peanut butter clearly wouldn't, preferring a catchy jingle instead of Sir Tom of Baker's mellifluous tones.  I don't ever remember it giving off a radioactive glow, though.  Avon, meanwhile, was going for a more glamourous and upmarket image, it's reps now smart professional women (for selling cosmetics door-to-door was still women's work - men sharpened knives or sold vacuum cleaners), rather than being a part-time job for cash strpped housewives.  Another jingle announces that the seventies had discovered the joys of regular bowel movements courtesy of roughage.  What a picture it paints of British society at the time - all those friendly people saying 'Hi' and policemen not taking bribes or beating up ethnic minorities.  It was such a friendly society that women regularly thrust their breasts at you to demonstrate their non-slip underwear.  That's something you just don't see anymore - TV commercials for women's underwear. They were quite an education for my younger self, as I found myself regularly exposed to 'cross your heart' bras, girdles, non-laddering tights and the like, all modelled by attractive young women.  Dad's Army must have finished by 1977 - it's the only reason I can think of as to why John Laurie was advertising cook books.  Apparently, your milkman could give you one. Having kicked this commercial break off with an old fossil like Brucie, it seems only apt that it wraps up with an ad extolling the virtues of fossil fuels.  How times change - nowadays multinationals like Esso are seen as planet-raping environment polluting bastards.  Back then, they could get away with using an endangered species as a mascot. Ah, the seventies...