70s TV for Grown-Ups

Last Update: November 12, 2004

Commercials directed at adults

• To get you started, here's the classic "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" commercial from 1971. There is a video clip from this commercial here.
• Remember this funloving Levis commercial? It was called Laffin' Levis, and it starts out, "Good Morning, World!" and gets progressively sillier, until the guy is almost yodeling, "Le-he-he-he-he-vis! Haw Haw!" The video for Laffin' Levis is now available!
• You'll remember this famous Calgon commercial. "Ancient Chinese Secret, huh?"
• Is it butter or Chiffon Margarine? It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!
• Chubby Checker tells you about an amazing record offer (The Greatest Hits of Rock-N-Roll), and you'll love the 1973 price: $6.98 for 4 records, $9.98 for 8-tracks.
• Here's another record offer (not sold in stores!), this time it's Elvis: His Great Hits. $4.98 for 2 records, $6.98 for 8-track. So you don't forget, order before midnight yesterday. It's not sold in stores, now find out why.
• If you think amazing record offers were bad, check out this hilarious and unconscionably long ad for a book of sheet music featuring popular songs. Buddy Greco hosts. A very chatty seven-year-old -DeeT hurriedly reads the names of the songs as they scroll by.
• Remember The Garanimal Matching System? On the newsgroup alt.culture.us.1970s, some have theorized that this was devised so dads could dress their kids, too. In any case, ya can't lose: just match the tags and the clothes will match.
• Serta Perfect Sleeper. This is an absolute classic, featuring Joey Heatherton. For two later (1979) versions with Susan Anton, including a super disco-fied one, click here.
• Local TV Ad for Superior Dairies. Unless you're from Austin you probably never heard it. But the values expressed here are so retro (more 50s than 70s)!
• I almost didn't include this one. Please please don't accuse me of being racist. This is a trailer for an incredibly politically incorrect but wholly genuine "blaxploitation" film named (forgive me) Nigger Charlie.
• Here's a much milder trailer for another "blaxploitation" film, Coffy. It starred Pam Grier.
• Kellogg's Rice Crispies, wakin' up, wakin' up. Sing along if you remember it.
• Fragrance ads have always been very emotional and conceptual. This one is also very seventies! I'll bet no one remembers the fragrance, Steven B., but its flowery jingle can now live on.
• The time is right for Pepsi Lite. We put a little lemonnytaste in and tookout half the cal-o-reez.
• You'll remember this cute commercial for Playtex Living Gloves. Aw, Harry...
• In the 70s, when a family was excited about eating Chef Boy Adree for dinner, they'd sing "Boy oh boy ardee!". What would it be today -- "not again ardee"?
• Hey! are you a New Freedom lady? This feminine pad commercial features a very pretty jingle. Hope I said that right!
• Some ads are sheer poetry. Wipe off the grease, wipe off the grime, you're out of the oven in record time! Easy Off makes oven cleaning easier.
• This ad for Hold cough medicine is deliberately noisy and obnoxious, cuz when you're feeling sick you can't handle it.
• Give me the Campbell Life (Campbell's Soup).
• This is a record (or cassette or eight track!) that I never would have bought at the time. By now it would be great fun to have, though. It's Summer '76 (with bonus Sweathogs poster)!
• You'll remember the distinctive psychedelic synthesizer sound used in this short TV Guide spot.
• K-Tel presents one of its best collections ever, Hit Machine.
• This Cheerios commercial will give your memory a pow-pow-powerful good good feeling!
• This is a great Happy Days outro, featuring announcements about upcoming shows. It really takes you back.
• The Playtex Cross-Your-Heart bra will help you "cross over" to a younger-looking figure. Lifts and separates.
• Products come and go, but commercials for douches really haven't changed much in twenty years. Dismiss claims to make you feel fresh.
• Don Meredith isn't just a Lipton Tea taster, he's a Lipton Tea lover.
• This is the very memorable Coke commercial where Mean Joe throws his jersey to the kid. Check out the video clip from this ad here.
• Ricardo Montalban plugs a Chrysler. Unfortunately this isn't the memorable one with "Rich Corinthian Leather".
• Okay folks, you've skipped a few but you must play this one. It's Sammy Davis Jr. for Alka Seltzer from 1978. He sings and everything! This is also featured in a brief video clip here.
• Coke Adds Life
• Aim has flouride. Aim fights cavities. There's definite clinical proof! Proof? Proof!
• Starkist: Sorry Charlie. This might not be the original voice of Charlie, but it's certainly true to the tradition of "Sorry Charlie" spots.
• Ultrabrite toothpaste wants to proposition you! (What? Right here?)
• You'll remember this little tune from a 1978 ad for the Hartz 2-in-1 Plus collar for pets.
• Doug Henning for Minolta Pocket-Pak cameras.
• How'd ya like a nice Hawaiian Punch? (Shore!)
• Imperial Margarine taste test. dun dada DAAAAAH!
• Here's an amazing familiar 70s voiceover introducing the movie Jaws 2. The voice is that of black actor Percy Rodriguez.
• Outro from the game show The Joker's Wild.
• Life Savers commercial. "A part of living."
• Here's to good friends: Lowenbrau, 1978.
• Maxwell House. Cora says it's good to the last drop. As the commercial says, if you find something that works, you stick with it. This was certainly true for Maxwell House, still running this time-tested ad campaign in 1978.
• News bites from 1978. Patty Hearst returns to jail, and more.
• Ad for Monroe shock absorbers, with a generous sprinkling of phallic imagery. Do you measure up?
• Take the Nestea Plunge... aaaaah!
• You probably won't remember this until you play it and then you'll squeal "Oh Yeah!!!" when you hear it. It's a very cute musical production pushing the Payroll Savings Plan. I'm signing up...
• This is a classic Bounty ad, featuring Rosie and the Quicker Picker Upper.
• Phillips Petroleum: The Performance Company
• This one is memorable. Whole commercial is line-drawn. A yodeling box of Cheerios won't come out until a boy yodels "Cheer-i-o-i-os!" back at it.
• Crunchy wheat. Nicely sweet. Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats. "People take sides." Very memorable.
• Good for you, Special K, good for you!
• After all these years, Wendy's still cooks up those hot and juicy (and square) hamburgers. My namesake, Dave Thomas, is sorely missed.
• American Express, with our favorite spokesman, Karl Malden
• Renowned housekeeper Anne B. Davis for Miracle White. In this ad, she plays the character "Schultzy", for neither the first nor the last time. Previously she had played the part of Schultzy in The Bob Cummings Show which ran on NBC and CBS from 1955 to 1959. She brought back the character one more time in the 1995 movie, The Very Brady Movie.
• Datsun: We Are Driven (and check out the waka-chaka scratch guitar in the background)
• Here's a memorable spot for Freshen-Up Gum.
• ABC promotional spot for upcoming shows. The Love Boat and more...really takes you back. I had thought the voice might be Don La Fontaine, but it is actually the late Ernie Anderson, the "Voice of ABC".
• Here's another fun promo spot featuring the fabulous voice of Ernie Anderson, from the fall of 1979. Delta House, Love Boat, Fantasy Island... oh yeah and some president thing.
• Remember when beer drinking was associated with "gusto"? Here's an excerpt from a Schlitz spot from 1979.
• Cling Free Sheets (it's Lisa's fault!)
• Chill a Cella! (Featuring "Aldo")
• Here's a very disco-fied ad for Ford Futura.
• You'll remember this one for the Hershey chocolate bar.
• Would you wear one leg of Sheer Energy pantyhose sewn to one leg of the other leading brand? Hey, let's go for two different colors while you're at it!
• In this unforgettable commercial for Paul Masson's Emerald Dry, Orson Welles turns down a stereo, then compares a good wine to a Beethoven symphony. At the end, he intones, "We shall sell no wine before its time." If you don't remember it yet, play the sound bite and I'll bet it comes back to you. There is also a video clip from this commercial here.
• McDonalds took the "Quarter Pounder People" song and mixed it with "We Do It All For You" to form this unique and memorable ad.
• Holiday Inn is number one in People Pleasin'. This music is very pretty!
• Start with Ultramax Shampoo and your hair's gonna do whatcha wannit ta do. (cute song)
• Do you remember 1979? Take the biz quiz!
• Rosie and the Quicker Picker Upper are at it again. Here's another Bounty commercial from 1979.
• "...and all you bring us is beer?" This is a memorable ad for Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull.
• Taste the High Country! This is a great ad for Coors beer from 1979. Remember all those great phrases like "high rocky mountain springwater" and "it's no downstream beer"? This is the one!
• Another Coors ad, nearly identical to the above, but you get to hear more of the music and less talking.
• "Oh, no! I left that chicken soaking in Crisco Oil an hour."
• Never let it be said that -DeeT's isn't helping the liquor industry. This web site offers at least a dozen beer commercials from 1979 alone... can you dig it?? Anyway here's another one: Schlitz Light. Check out the giggly girl at the end. They would never insult women like that in beer commercials today.... (cough!)
• This is a K-Tel book and record set, Let's Disco. Are you ready to Boogie?? Go ahead.. how long does that take?
• McDonalds Spots Mugs. "Grimace stuffs the net!" (No, not the internet. That I'd love to see!)
• Mrs. Butterworths (syrup) takes her own sweet time.
• Wanna hear another ad featuring Orson Welles? 'Course you do. Here's one for Perrier.
• You awake with the worst breath of the day. But it's not mediciny. Yup, it's Scope!
• "Edgar....Edgar! This is your Tummy, Edgar! Edgar, it's boring down here. Quit swallowing commercials from the 1970s and get me some Malt-O-Meal."
• A later TV Guide short spot, again featuring that can't-miss-it synthesizer sound.
• Does your soap leave a film all over your body? How about all over the surface of this tiny model bathtub? I remember thinking this commercial was a lie until 1993 when I finally used soap to wash my new eyeglasses. Anyway, here's the Zest Bathtub Test.
• This might creep into the 1980s a little, but the music is still very late 1970s. Coke Is It!

70s TV shows

• And then there's Maude, the only woman who could get the better of Archie Bunker.
• I think this originated in the sixties, but here's the theme to Love, American Style, which ran during the early seventies. I'm told this song was originally sung by the Cowsills, but that someone else sang the version that was used on the show.
• This one's off a record, courtesy of Gary Larkin. It's Sammy Davis Jr. singing the theme to Chico and the Man from 1974. The theme as played on the actual show was sung by Jose Feliciano. That show was really ahead of its time and Freddy Prinze will be missed. I understand that Freddy Prinze Jr. and -DeeT's 70s Page hail from the same town: Albuquerque, NM.
• A fortune in fabulous prizes ... it's The Price Is Right. Bob Barker's hair was nice and dark in those days!
• The Brady Bunch Here are some clips from the TV show The Brady Bunch.
  • This is the music you hear just before a commercial break. (I'm told this is called a "bump". No, you don't have to do a certain seventies disco dance to it!)
  • Here's one of the little "bump" tunes they played as the show returned after a commercial break.
  • Brady Bunch outro, featuring memorable exit theme, and a voiceover promotes Jacques Cousteau, next. Don't miss the Paramount musical interlude at the end.
  • Word on the street is that the Brady Bunch albums are all out on CD. But here is a snippet from one of their songs, recorded off the air in 1974.
  • This is the "tiki" sound from the Hawaiian Episode. Don't play the sound clip, it's bad luck!
• We've come a long way since Sanford and Son, but the theme music still holds a certain charm. It's by Quincy Jones. (I've since found out the name of the song is Chump Chase.)
• Here's the very urgent sound of EMERGENCY!
• Theme song from the cute game show Musical Chairs
• Donny & Marie! Special thanks to my wife, April, for digging up audio tapes of two whole shows. Here are some fun clips.
  • The opening number: Boogie Fever, the way only Donny & Marie could do it!
  • Donny said this in every show: "Cute, Marie, real cute."
  • She's a little bit country...
  • May tomorroooooow... be a perrrrr-fect dayeeeee...
• Here's the end of a Hollywood Squares show that featured Big Bird and Oscar The Grouch as guests.
• Come and knock on our door! It's the original Three's Company theme, from back when there was Mister Roper (1977).
• Carter Country is the first sit-com to use the name of a current U.S. president in its title.
• Remember Match Game? Yup, Richard Dawson was on this episode, too.
• Remember The ABC Friday Night Movie? These sound bites will really take you back.
  • Introductory music and announcement (voice of Dick Tufeld)
  • Musical interlude ("bump") played before and after commercial breaks
  • "Bump" played in the middle of commercial breaks, when there were still a few commercials to go.
  • Later and more disco-fied version of the same music
• There was also the CBS Late Movie, with these memorable musical bits. You'll remember the prominent french horn when you hear it.
  • Music played when promoting a future show.
  • "Bump" music for the start and end of commercial breaks.
• The best known bass on television (until there was Seinfeld) came from the Barney Miller theme.
• Here's a very lame Brady Bunch spin-off, called The Brady Brides. The theme music is pretty disco-fied!
• One bad spin-off deserves another. Here's The Brady Kids.
• These Happy Days are yours and mine.
• Laverne and Shirley has one of the nicest TV show theme songs ever. Copyright 1976 Hossenpfeffer Incorporated.
• Here's the Love Boat theme, taped straight off the air. I also have the theme and lyrics from the record, on the The 70s On Vinyl page, and a video clip here.
• This is the theme song from Three's Company as it sounded in 1979, with Don Knotts instead of Norman Fell.
• Robin Williams is a genius, and the world really got to know that when he starred in Mork and Mindy. Here's the glorious theme music.
• Just before the Benny Hill Show (and many others) came on, a little picture of a building in front of water would appear, with the word THAMES, and this little tune would play.
• Linda Lavin sang the theme to Alice herself. She's got a provocative style.
• Trapper John, M.D. Cool theme.
• Gary Larkin sent this one in from the record. It's the classy and memorable theme to WKRP In Cincinnati.
• This WKRP ending music was taped off Nick At Nite in a decade that shall remain nameless. "Johnny Fever" talks over most of it, but right at the end there you can hear the inscrutable lyrics and the extremely memorable guitar chord and Mary Tyler Moore signature meow.
• Here's Match Game again, one of the most "seventies" of all the seventies game shows (does that make any sense?). Believe it or not, Richard Dawson wasn't on this time. Here's another sample from the end of the show when they try to sell tickets for future shows.
• Try this one on your friends. Play them the music and they'll go crazy racking their brains but they'll never remember it was $10,000 Pyramid.

70s Commercial Matching Game

Go to -DeeT's 70s Page.