What it was like Growing Up in the Eighties (1980s)
  • Tue. Mar 19th, 2024

Classic TV Commercials of the 1980s

Best quotes and slogans from the 1980s television commercials

  • Wendy’s “Where’s The Beef?” (T-shirts, general hysteria over this)
    • starring Clara Peller
  • Meineke – “I’m not gonna pay a lot for this muffler.”
    • Drill sargeant
  • Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers
    • “Thank you for your support”
  • McDonald’s Big Mac
    • “two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese – pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun”
  • Seagram’s Golden wine coolers
    • “it’s wet and it’s dry”, starring Bruce Willis
  • Apple’s Orwellian 1984 for the Macintosh
    • “why 1984 won’t be like 1984”
  • Joe Isuzu
  • Mr. Baseball, his boys, and Miller Lite
  • McDonald’s “double-double cheese-cheese burger-burger please-please”
  • M&M’s Easter ad (high-pitched kid saying “Thank you Easter Bunny.” – followed up with “Bwok, Bwok!”)
  • Keebler Tato Skins
    • “Cheddar cheese and bacon, sour cream and chives, tasty baked potatos you won’t believe your eyes”
    • “Tato skins got baked potato appeal, cause they’re made with potatos and skins that are real. Tato skins from Keebler, baked potato appeal!”
  • My Pet Monster! (OHHHH MAN!)
  • Morris the Cat / 9Lives cat food
  • California Raisins (figurines, general hysteria)
    • “I Heard It Through The Grapevine…”
  • Pepsi Challenge
  • FedEx fast talker
  • Pantene shampoo (starring Kelly LeBrock)
    • “The Pro-vitamin B formula…”
    • “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful”
  • Sizzilean
    • “Move over bacon, here comes something leaner!”
    • bacon goes away and Sizzilean comes floating down to the plate
    • “Why sizzle fat when you can SizziLEAN!”
  • Bonkers candy (huge fruits would fall from the sky and knock out the eater)
  • Heinz ketchup
    • guy (Matt LeBlanc [Joey on Friends]) sets a bottle of ketchup on the ledge of a tall building, runs down to street level, and catches the super-thick ketchup on his hot dog at the hot dog stand
  • Polly-o string cheese
    • kid goes into a pizza parlor and orders a pizza with nothing
    • “Hey Charlie, give me a pizza with nothing” “Nothing???”
  • Burger King’s “Where’s Herb?” promotion (if you saw Herb in a BK, you won)
  • Spuds Mackenzie for BUD beer (associated hysteria and propaganda)
  • “I’ve fallen… and I can’t get up!” Med*Alert beepers
  • Calgon (“Calgon take me away” “ancient Chinese secret”)
  • Mod-Mod-Modifiers (little hotwheels-type cars that you could modify)
  • Dr. Pepper (with the guy dancing all over the place)
  • cheezy board game commercials that always seemed to end with someone exclaming “I WIN!”
  • $1,000,000 McDonald’s promo contest, following song distributed on those square vinyl records – if you won, it said so at the end of the song
  • Apple’s “1984” ad (1984)
  • Band Aids ads “I am stuck on Band Aids cause Band Aids stuck on me!”
  • Bartles and Jaymes “Thank you for your support” ads
  • Big red gum ads – “Just kiss a little longer…longer with Big Red!”
  • Bonkers candy ads where the old people got crushed by giant fruit.
  • Bounty paper towel ads with Rosie and the “quicker picker upper”
  • Bubble Yum Thieves commercials
  • Budweiser’s Spuds McKenzie commercials
  • Burger King commercials with an actual Burger King
  • Burger King’s Herb promo/contest – we would win something if we found him at a Burger King.)
  • Burger King commerical with the girls at a slumber party and they scream at the mention of fried McDonald’s patties.
  • “Calgon, take me away!” ads
  • California Raisins claymation ads
  • Calvin Klein ads with Brooke Shields – “Do you wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins…..NOTHING.”
  • Captain Crunch contest/ads – “Where’s the Captain?” (BTW, he was in the Milky Way)
  • Cheer’s “Diva” ads – man in tuxedo puts laundry, Cheer, and ice water into cocktail shaker. (1988)
  • Chips Ahoy’s ads with people trying to bite a Chips Ahoy cookie without biting a chip
  • Cookie Crisp commercials with the wizard
  • Crest toothpaste’s Cavity Creeps ads
  • Dr. Pepper ads – “I’m a pepper, you’re a pepper, she’s a pepper, he’s a pepper, wouldn’t you like to be a pepper too?”
  • Diet Pepsi ad with Michael J. Fox running through rain, over car hoods, and through traffic to get a DIet Pepsi for his girlfriend (1987)
  • Dominos Pizza’s Noid
  • Dow’s bathroom cleaner’s scrubbing bubbles
  • Dunkin’ Donuts’ classic “Time To Make The Donuts” ads (1982-1997)
  • Eastman Kodak’s “Daddy’s Little Girl” ad (1989)
  • EF Hutton ads – “When EF Hutton speaks, people listen”
  • Eggo waffles ads – “Leggo of my Eggo”
  • Federal Express ads with speed talker, John Moschitta Jr.
  • Fretter appliance store commercial where the kid is supposed to be playing piano, so he puts on a reel-to-reel of the song and climbs out the window to play football.
  • Fritos ads – “Luncha buncha luncha buncha, Fritos go with lunch!”
  • Hershey breakdance commercial
  • Hershey ad with people and Looney Tunes dipping their chocolate in peanut butter
  • Hershey chocolate syrup’s Messy Marvin ads
  • Honeycombs cereal’s Honeycomb Hideout ads
  • Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum showdown with cowboys
  • IBM PC Jr. ads with Charlie Chaplin lookalike
  • Impulse body spray for women ads – “When a man you have never met before gives you flowers, that’s Impulse.”
  • Isuzu’s Joe Isuzu/Liar ads (1985)
  • Jordache Basics
  • Kibbles and Bits ads – “I’m long for my kibbles, I’m long for my bits, I’m long for my kibble and bits and bits!”
  • Kit-Kat commercials – “Gimme a break! Gimme a break! Break me off a piece of that Kit-Kat bar!!”
  • Kool-Aid Man
  • Levis commercials where there was this cartoon levis logo that would open up and all these little people and stuff would come out of it?
  • Macintosh 1984 (“Why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984’”)
  • Mc Donald’s Mac Tonight ads (moon playing a piano to the song “Mac the Knife”)
  • Mc Donald’s Big Mac Ads – “2 all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese….pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.”
  • McDonald’s “double double cheese cheese burger burger, please” ads
  • McDonalds’ McDLT ads – “keeps the hot side hot, and the cool side cool”
  • MCI’s “Parents’ ad – elderly parents reflect on talking to their son long distance, all teary-eyed, and then start crying when they see their phone bill (1982)
  • Meow Mix ads with singing cats (“Meow meow meow meow…”)
  • Michelob Beer commercial with Genesis.
  • “Milk. It does the body good.” ads
  • Motts Applesauce cups “Tony, I got the Motts” ads
  • “I want my MTV!” commercials
  • “Nair for short shorts” ads
  • Palmolive ads – “Madge, I soaked in it!”
  • Pantene “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” ads
  • Pepsi commercials with Michael Jackson and his brothers, promoting their “V” tour
  • Pringles Potato Chips jingle – “I’ve got the fever for the flavor of the Pringles (CRUNCH!!)”
  • Purina Chuckwagon dog food ads with the little chuckwagon zipping across the kitchen past the dog
  • Push Pop ads – “Don’t push me. Push a Push Pop
  • Reese’s Pieces ad with the short blue alien
  • Seagrams Golden Wine Coolers ads with Bruce Willis
  • 7-Up ads with the black man wearing all white who says “Never had it. Never will.”
  • Shasta soda/pop ads – “I wanna pop-pop-pop… I wanna… Shasta!”
  • Skippy’s ads with Annette Funicello
  • Smith Barney ads with John Houseman saying “Smith Barney. They make money the old fashioned way. They eaaaaaarn it.”
  • Starkist Tuna ads – “Sorry, Charlie, Starkist wants tunas that taste good, not tunas with good taste!”
  • Sunbeam bread ads – “I like bread and butter, I like toast and Jam. I like the taste of Sunbeam Bread, its my favorite brand!!”
  • Sunkist “Good Vibrations” commercials
  • Sure deodorant ads – “Raise your hand! Raise your hand if your sure!”
  • Sweet Pickles ads (with the big animals in the Sweet Pickles Bus)
  • “I don’t wann grow up, I’m a ‘Toys R Us’ kid…”
  • Toffifay’s “Toffifay, it’s too good for kids”
  • Trix cereal “Will the rabbit get some Trix?” (kids voted against it)
  • V8 ads – people hit themselves in the head and say “I could have had a V8!”
  • Vlassic pickles ads with the stork that delivers pickles
  • Arrid Extra Dry commercial – “Get a little closer. Now don’t be shy!”
  • Welch’s Grape Juice ads with children’s clothing turning purple on them
  • Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” ads (1984)
  • Wendy’s “Russian Fashion Show” ad with the same fat, ugly Russian woman keeps coming out on the runway with the same grey outfit on, and various props. (1985)
  • Ernest P. Worrell ads (as in “Hey Vern!”)
  • “Don’t wear it if you don’t mean it.” ad for Exclamation perfume
  • Reeses Peanut Butter Cups ads – “You got peanut butter on my chocolate!” “No, you got chocolate in my peanut butter!”
  • big mac, mc dlt, a quarter-pounder with some cheese
    fillet-o-fish, a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a happy meal
    mc nuggets, tasty golden french fries, regular and larger size
    and salads, chef or garden, or a chicken salad oriental
    big big breakfast, egg mc muffin, hot hotcakes and sausage
    maybe biscuits, bacon, egg and cheese and sausage, danish, hashbrown too and for dessert hot apple pies and sundaes three varieties
    a soft serve cone, three kinds of shakes, and chocolately-chip cookies
    and to drink a coca-cola, diet coke, an orange drink, a sprite,
    a coffee (decaf too) a lowfat milk also an orange juice
    i love mc donald’s good time great taste
    and i get this all at one place!
  • BUD Light
    • “Gimme a Light.”
    • “No, a _BUD_ Lite”
  • McDonald’s “Double double, cheese cheese, burger it’s back” follow-up to the original campaign (list in the good section)
  • Talking Pee-Wee Herman doll
    • “No TV, No TV. What now? New talkin’ Peee-Weee is really nuttty. (He’s cuckoo)”
    • Chimps playing with Pee-Wee doll, mom dressed up vacuuming
  • GLAD storage bags (“Hefty Hefty Hefty wimpy wimpy wimpy”)
  • Domino’s Pizza Avoid the Noid (even a video game for the IBM PC)