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Terrible Commercials of the Past

Filed under: Imported

I�ve just read Leonard Maltin�s The Great American Broadcast: A Celebration of Radio�s Golden Age, and I recommend it to any fan of OTR (Old Time Radio). It�s a very well-researched book-- his chapter on sound-effects and the men who made them is especially enlightening-- and Maltin was able to talk to many of the medium�s best writers, directors and actors before most of them passed away.

While I share many of Maltin�s enthusiasms for these old shows, we part company when it comes to the commercials of yesteryear. If anything, they were even more loathsome than their television counterparts, and they are unequalled when it comes to the hard sell. For years, I�ve routinely hit fast-forward every time one intruded on a show I was listening to. (About 20 years ago, I read a statistic that shook me: by the age of 50, the average American will have spent two years� worth of his or her life soaking in commercials! I haven�t sat through one willingly since.) But now, thanks to Maltin�s book, I�ve been inspired to let them play. Amazingly, they�re even worse than I remembered.

Here�s an especially wretched one for Kix breakfast cereal, from an early �50s show called Defence Attorney. Keep in mind when you listen that all of the instruments and musicians producing this nonsense were in the studio only for this one spot-- since shows were done live, the ads were, too. After you listen, I think you�ll agree with me: what a waste!

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 1, 2004 3:44 AM

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