It Came From the '90s: Ads That Make You Go Hmmm...

This series looks back at the 1990s and its influence on the generation of people who came of age during the decade.

There was no other choice than to start this post with a vintage Teen Spirit ad.

This post came to be because I needed a break from the usual bloviating about the 1990s that goes on in this series. So this will be light frothy, a quick read, with lots of amazingly dated pictures to look at. So sit back, relax, and bask in the warm glow of a few of the decade's cheesiest advertisements. After all, Generation X was the first generation of children that advertisers targeted specifically with ads designed to send kids running to mom and dad to buy, buy, buy them stuff, all the stuff. This started in the 1970s and 1980s, meaning most of us didn't know a world where companies weren't relentlessly vying for our parents to spend more of their income on crap for us.

I remember a few of these ads. I bet you do too. The brief commentary under each is intended to make you nod in recognition and chuckle, "Ha ha, yeah, that's so '90s!"

Nostalgia bomb!

Technically, one or two of these Konami ads are from the late 1980s. Doesn't matter. They feature the sort of voluminous hair that every girl I knew had during that overlap period in the late '80s/early '90s. Konami's ads looked like they were created on a shoestring budget in someone's basement. Those pitch meetings in the Konami boardroom must've been insane.

"Call Brad from accounting—he does community theater and still has a vampire costume from last year's Halloween party!"

"Let's use a soft focus lens for the 'Dead Eye' spot, to give it a real Silk Stalkings vibe!"

"We've already got the machine gun in Jim's office from the Contra ad, right? Hmmmm, Gina up in marketing has killer gams—*snaps fingers*—I've got it! Get her down here, now!"

Michael Jordan was everywhere in the '90s. The consummate pitchman. Not a full quarter off franks, oh no, only .23 cents because that was MJ's jersey number. Gee, thanks?

Nothing says the '90s like United Colors of Benetton. Nothing.

I never wanted to hear Ray Charles sing "You Got the Right One, Baby" again after, say, the first several hundred times I saw this commercial in the early '90s. I still don't want to hear it now, either.

Anthony Kiedis in Gap jeans: so '90s it hurts. Why were our pants so baggy back then? Why can't Kiedis ever wear a shirt?

Not only is this ad guilty of retrograde gender politics—it basically reduces women to sex-object accessories to a video game system—but it's also a veritable cornucopia of unmitigated '90s excess. Super Nintendo? Check. The era-defining teased hair? Check. Half-shirts and high-cut thongs? Check and check. Innuendo-laden slogan + models who forgot their pants but remembered their heels = "Hey adolescent gamers, if you buy our product these women will sleep with you"? Check, check, and check. Gratuitous use of exclamation points? Check. A radical sounding yet vaguely mysterious device known as "the spellbound adaptor"? Check. That last one leads to several questions, actually. What the hell is it? How does it work? Wait, are the women the spellbound adaptors? I'm so confused.

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Paul SApril 25, 2018 at 1:07 PM
Love the 90s, love the adverts, love your sense of humour... you're funnier than most paid comedians!
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