Category: 1980s

Jason Alexander sings and dances for the McDLT

Jason Alexander (born September 23, 1959) is a television, cinema and musical theatre actor, best known for his role as George Costanza on the hit television series Seinfeld.

George Louis Costanza is a fictional character on the United States-based television sitcom Seinfeld (1989–1998), played by Jason Alexander. He has variously been described as a “short, stocky, slow-witted, bald man” (by Elaine Benes), “Lord of the Idiots” (by Costanza himself), and as “the greatest sitcom character of all time”.

The McDLT is perhaps best remembered for its marketing, which focused on variations of the theme “Keep the hot side hot, and the cool side cool.” A fairly well-remembered 1985 commercial released to market the new sandwich featured a young Jason Alexander, and has obtained a minor following on the web.

For more McDonalds commercials, check out Video Ichiban.

Atari Video Computer Spiele

Atari continued to scoop up licenses during the shelf life of the 2600, the most prominent of which included Pac-Man and E.T. Public disappointment with these two titles and the market saturation of bad third-party titles are cited as big reasons for the video game crash of 1983. Suddenly, Atari’s growth meant it was losing massive amounts of money during the crash, at one point about $10,000 a day. Warner quickly grew tired of supporting the now-headless company, and started looking for buyers in 1984.

Discover Atari

The original Atari was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company’s products, such as PONG and the Atari 2600, helped define the computer entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid 1980s.

Centipede is a 1981 fixed shooter arcade game developed and published by Atari, Inc. Designed by Dona Bailey and Ed Logg, it was one of the most commercially successful games from the golden age of arcade video games and one of the first with a significant female player base.

Super fruity Bonkers fruit candy makes a big hit

Bonkers was a candy offering from Nabisco in the mid 1980s. It consisted of chewable bubblegum-shaped candies with a fruity outside and an even fruitier filling. The candy came in a large rectangular package with several of them individually wrapped. Common flavors included grape, orange, strawberry, watermelon and chocolate.

The first use of “Nabisco” was in a cracker brand first produced by National Biscuit Company in 1901.

Mongo grabbed my Timex

Timex Group B.V. is an American watch company. Timex’s U.S. headquarters are located in Middlebury, Connecticut, and it has substantial operations in China, the Philippines and India and full scale sales companies in Canada, the UK, France and Mexico.

Adult [male gorillas] range in height from 165-175 cm (5 ft 5 in-5 ft 9 in), and in weight from 140-200 kg (310-440 lb).

Max Headroom interviews Pepsi for New Coke

Max Headroom is the name of a fictional artificial intelligence, known for his surreal wit and a stuttering, distorted, electronically sampled delivery. The character was created by Peter Wagg, Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton and performed by Matt Frewer.

The [Max Headroom New Coke] campaign was launched with a memorable television commercial, produced by McCann-Erickson New York, with Max saying in his trademark stutter, “C-c-c-catch the wave!” and referring to his fellow “Cokeologists”. In a riposte to Pepsi’s televisual teasings, one showed Headroom asking a Pepsi can he was “interviewing” how it felt about more drinkers preferring the new Coke to it and then cut to the condensation forming on the can. “Sweating?” he asked. It was a huge success, and surveys likewise showed that more than three-quarters of the target market were aware of the ads within two days. Coke’s corporate hotline received more calls about him than any previous spokesperson, some even asking if he was married.