'Clunk Click'

Old TV commercials - we haven't done them here for a while and I really can't be arsed to put any real effort into to today's post.  This batch of ads, from 1971, largely fall into the category of 'stuff you don't see advertised on TV anymore'.  It features not one, but two ads for different shirt brands, one for ties and another for tights. In an era when TV ad breaks seem to be geared more and more to promoting services, like equity release, insurance or pensions, it is often startling to look back to a time when actual, specific goods are being advertised.  Nowadays you might see commercials promoting a whole range of clothes, but not so likely to come across specific items of clothing being pushed.  Deodorants are, of course, still being advertised, but not this particular brand, which long ago vanished.  

The celebrities, as ever, are in evidence.  The Harry Worth ad, (for an electrical goods chain that even I can't remember being on the High Street) is short and sweet, including his trademark schtick with the window.  I say 'trademark', but who (apart from me) remembers Harry Worth nowadays?  Back in the day, though, he was one of this country's most popular comics, featuring on both radio and TV with his own series.  The elephant in the room, though, is that public information ad with Jimmy Savile.  It seems hard to believe now, but back then he was seen as a trustworthy figure who could sell the public safety message of the benefits of wearing a seat belt.  Just as Rolf Harris was seen as the right man to encourage kids to learn how to swim.  Still, back in 1971 we just thought that Jimmy Savile was a creepy fucker, rather than actually being, s we now know, a creepy fucker who sexually molestedkids on an industrial scale.