Let it steep a while! Edward G. Robinson for Maxwell House coffee

This is one of those great old ads I remember from my childhood. I wasn't old enough to remember Edward G's gangsterish heyday in the '30s and '40s, so by the time this ad came out, he was a retired gentleman with an aristocratic, if Bronx-ish manner of speaking. For some reason the part I remember most is "let it steep a while to develop the full flavor" - not knowing what "steep" meant, of course, and even at that age wondering why he was using INSTANT Maxwell House to "brew" a pot of coffee. Of course, no one makes a pot of coffee out of instant any more, just as no one "percs" their coffee - which is too bad, because the wood-block theme for the Maxwell House coffee percolator was a classic. And it did smell good, though tasting it was another matter. Anyway, I have a poignant memory of Robinson's very last movie role, performed while he was frail and terminally ill with cancer. Soylent Green is one of my favorite dystopian movies, in no small measure because of the rapport between Charlton Heston and Robinson. He was also in a bizarre but moving death scenario where his body was soon to be transformed into FOOD. "Soylent Green is PEOPLE!" Heston cried, almost as memorably as "Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"

MUSICAL COFFEE POT! Classic Ad for Maxwell House

This is one of those GENIUS ads for Maxwell House coffee. Along with the "cup and a half of flavor", this one was unforgettable, with those simple, effective visuals, the warm voiceover, and the coffee-perk tune on the woodblocks. 

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Just listen!

There is something perfectly intoxicating about these early Maxwell House coffee ads. Whoever came up with that coconut-clopping or block-striking or whatever-it-was-that-made-that-perc-ing-sound was a genius, for it's forever associated with coffee that TASTES AS GOOD AS IT SMELLS. Which is funny, because as I recall, "perked" coffee smelled terrible, gaseous and burnt, like the stuff that collects under the burners of an old stove. What it tasted like, I'll never know, because I wasn't drinking coffee then. I wasn't even drinking amniotic fluid then, folks, because I wasn't conceived yet.

What a concept.

This was one of the more magical illusions of my youth. Really, it still is pretty impressive. I made a YouTube video out of this, and millennials gasped over it because they'd never seen it before. How did they do that?? It was nearly as magical as the Hertz Rent-a-Car ad which showed a couple being lowered down into a moving convertible. ("Let Hertz put YOU in the driver's seat. . . TODAY!")

It does seem ironic to me that, though I remember coffee smelling gaseous and burnt, Maxwell House was sold mainly on "aroma", with consumers whiffing it up as if it was some sort of intoxicant. People even smelled the steaming beans, as if they'd ever have the opportunity to whiff massive mounds of coffee beans. Back in my youth, there was a fad of eating the roasted beans (and you can still get them, chocolate-covered for sissies). Though you'd think they would send you into orbit, it seems to me that the brewing process was what brought out the caffeine. But it was a quick pick-me-up if you didn't have time to brew it.

I have no idea of the provenance of this eagle emblem. At first I had an awful feeling it might be Nazi, but I don't think so. Are those stars and stripes on the emblem? It looks a bit like a cheese grater, or one of those old Afro combs. Are those arrows in its talons? Who knows. Handsome cup, but I am not sure what it means.

Special Bonus Gif! Looking at this old ad again, I'm impressed by how good it looks. Apparently they  reversed a shot of the couple being pulled out of the car - but how exactly did they do that? How to attain the precise angle needed, how to keep the background steady while the car moved? There's a magic here, magic that has been lost in this era of CGI and computerized, photoshopped trickery. 

"Put a smile in your smoking!": 1950s TV advertising

 

See, hear, smell, taste: feel?

Perked and jerked: sexual innuendo in coffee commercials

This blog is quite gif-heavy, but probably you've noticed that. If they work all the time, your computer is better than mine. I keep trying to cut back. It's just that I find so many sublime images in early TV advertising. Once the ad execs had broken out of the prison of "radio with pictures", it was full-on seduction. 

This lady, I've seen her before somewhere, and it looks to me as if they slipped a little something into her coffee before filming this. Back when I could make gifs in slow motion (Gifsforum, come back to me!), this one reeeeaaaaaallllly looked strange. 

Only in cigarette ads do you see this kind of bliss. In fact, coffee and cigarettes usually go together in these things. I just saw one depicting a man and his wife smoking at the breakfast table. The announcer intoned, "Ahhhhhh, the first cigarette of the day!"

1950s ads had a certain kind of zany, almost surreal animation in them. This one has just a tinch of Georges Melies in it, a celestial quality. The zooming-in-to-your-face quality of early TV advertising is very much in evidence here. Things had to explode on the screen to get your attention.

I think this is simply beautiful! Maxwell House had some of the most innovative ads, especially the early ones before the celebrities took over. The plain white oval coffee cup was their trademark, but panning down the row of gleaming, steaming, brimming cups is a stroke of genius.

But that's not what this post is all about. It's a Compare and Contrast. This is from  a Maxwell House ad trying to convince the consumer that Instant Maxwell House tastes just as good as "perked" coffee. (And if you remember that stuff, you should get a lobotomy to forget it.) 

These two are for Pream coffee creamer. There were dozens of Pream ads, and I've giffed a lot of them simply because I love them so. But this one - I can't really comment, except to say ad execs back then must have thought it was perfectly innocent. Do we have dirtier minds now? I just don't know.

Spurting coffee is one thing. Even spurting coffee splashing out at you and hitting the glass and running and bubbling its way down. But spurts of Pream in a bucket are just too explicit. If this is meant to represent someone milking a cow, then it goes against the laws of gravity! A cow's udder spurts milk, all right, but unless the teat is twisted around backwards (poor cow!), the milk goes DOWN, not sideways. The second image is, in some ways, worse. It just begs for certain questions: why is an elephant like a Seiko watch? Oh, I won't answer that one, but it has something to do with coming in quartz.

Some very weird shit going on

It's like cuz, see I was like, there's this coffee I was trying to drink, and the coffee's like, "UH", and I'm like, "yah", and the coffee's like, "BLUH", and I'm like, "aaah," and

and it's like I can't get any coffee and I'm like come on. And the coffee's like

So I'm like, when am I going to get my FUCKING COFFEE??

This is just some kind of weird shit.

Post-blog note. In case you think my entire blog has been taken over by bizarre reversing gifs, you'd be right. Mine are just so-jesusly-much better than the ones you steal off of Google Images. I ought to sell these, except that they aren't really mine.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Nattering Nabobs

Life is hard enough. Isn't it? But when something you really liked, even loved, suddenly turns bad. . .

This happens with marriages, and jobs, and friendships, and even (incontinent, age-ing, vet-requiring, slobbering, stinky old) dogs.

But when it's something inconsequential, yet still significant, it really gets you. It's a small pleasure withdrawn, perhaps forever.

I've bought the same coffee for at least ten years. A nice, middle-of-the-road roast and grind, nothing fancy, but at its best, oh boy is it good, and dependable. It has that richness and complexity of flavor that any decent coffee should have. It's the same with the decaff. You zip open the can and hear that little rush of air, and the aroma jumps out at you. You shovel the grinds into the basket, pour in the water, and wait.

Just a small thing, of course. Until it turns bad.

It's been several cans now. Hell, maybe six! My coffee has turned bad. Turned watery and bland, with a bitter, even sour undertaste and a nasty whiff of tar.

It's the same brand. Same brand I've used for years, for so many years now it's like a goddamn marriage. Of course I won't name it here, but it starts with an N, and ends with a B, and has an ABO in the middle.

What has happened to my Nabob coffee? I'm buying exactly the same kind, same roast, same grind. Brewing it exactly the same way. Storing it in a cool, dry, dark place.

It's just crap, all of a sudden, and I can't fix it.

The only difference I can see is all the very loud and public ballyhoo about "sustainability", printed on the can and all over the web site. I'm not sure what this means because it goes on for about 500 pages, and we're supposed to read it and go, "Oh, I guess it's worth drinking a sour, lifeless cup of coffee, so long as we have SUSTAINABILITY."

I had to complain. Not because I hate the product, but because I love it! Because I want it back with every fibre of my being. But, of course, there was nowhere to complain, just literally hundreds of FAQs like, "Can I make coffee cake out of my coffee?" and "Can I store turkey giblets in the can?" I had to scrabble around web sites all morning to find a "legal stuff" page with a mailing address that turned out to be wrong, in that the postal code said MJB (ironically, the name of a kind of coffee!) instead of M3B. Had I sent them my (snailmailed) complaint with the wrong postal code on it, it never would've reached them.

The page also assured us we could always "just send them an e-mail". Oh, sure: mjb@badjava.ca?

Hmmmmmmmmm.

So what is going on here? Where is quality control? I think we're just supposed to go on drinking it, and pretending there's no difference, or that it's us, somehow, that we're doing it wrong, or that our tastebuds have collapsed with age.

I've sent customer complaint letters before, and I usually get a form letter back (if anything), and coupons for more of the same product I hate. More, more, more bad coffee! It's almost like the hundreds of writing rejections I've received, though they don't send you coupons. (And no, I don't paper walls with them. I throw them away.)

If they had a taste panel, well? If they had any quality control at all, WELL?? I wonder now, since I wrote to the "legal stuff" address, if they will sue me just for wanting a good cup of coffee.

Or for wanting it back. For wanting that dependable jolt, that aromatic reverse sigh, that roasty-toasty, almost wheaten taste, not just in the morning when I really need it, but any time in the day when I want a lift.

Get with it, guys. Sustainability should apply to taste, too.

(And there's nothing living inside my coffee maker. I do clean it, stinky vinegar fumes and all.)

Blurple, blurple, blurp, blurp

Herewithin and forsooth, my absolute, all-time favorite TV ad, something worthy of Mad Men's Don Draper on a good day. I've analyzed it frame-by-frame, and I'm still coming up with things I didn't see or hear in it before.

We hear almost before we see - a hesitant, then more self-assured sound, a coconutty sound of something blipping and blurping appealingly in a funny sort of tune. Then we see a trio: a suggestion of breakfast in the upper left corner (on circular plates, the first of many circular motifs), and, dominating the picture, an old-style (then standard) "coffee perc", the kind that produced a burnt, tongue-dissolving brew.

The camera loves this pot, for soon it's zooming in, tight, then tighter. The top of the perc, the blippy part, suddenly fills the screen in a closeup that can only be described as intimate. It appears to be repeatedly ejaculating into the little glass dome. By now the merry coconut theme has accelerated and is clopping away, something only a musician could compose. ("Hey, let's put some sound effects in the background. You know, the sound of the coffee perking.")

Meantime, we have a shot of the pot exuding, nay, gushing steam, in a sensory blast that dares us to inhale. The next shot is so brilliant I swoon when I see it: the wide, round, white cup poured full of black coffee sits in the very back of the frame, surrounded by nothing. Nothing! Just the cup. Then a giant male hand comes out from the right-hand side, picks up the cup and lifts it up and forward so that the black coffee fills the entire screen.

Jesus!

Some giant is drinking this coffee! Then comes another arresting shot: the cup and the coffee can standing next to each other, two circles, with the dominant image on the right. It's said that Mickey Mouse is so appealling because he's made up of circles, maybe because they're non-threatening and remind us of ova and baby's heads.

One more split-second shot of the coffee being poured, a sort of review. (This is like some sort of mini-drama in one minute: it's crammed with images, but somehow seems leisurely.) Then in the next shot (every one is significant in this ad), someone is holding up the round can to face the camera. The rich-looking ground coffee is literally shoved in our faces, and on the left-hand side there is a small avalanche of coffee that might just have happened by accident, and was kept in for sensory value.

I haven't even mentioned the voice-over, which is equally brilliant: see, smell, taste the coffee flavor! As with most early ads, there is a lot of repetition, but in this case it's more hypnotic than annoying. The name Maxwell House is mentioned five times in one minute. "Taste", as in "tastes as good as it smells" or "taste the coffee flavor", is mentioned six times. This ad appeals to every sense (listen, look, smell, taste) except touch, but that's why that big hand comes into the frame, almost erotic.

When you first watch the ad, none of this registers. You have no awareness at all of the fact that you're hearing the brand five times, or that "tastes as good as it smells" (the slogan) is being drilled into your subconscious. Some guy in a rumpled suit with a hangover came into the office, plunked himself down and said, "Well, guys, I've got it."

"How's that gonna work? It's too simple."

"But that's just the point. We want nothing but straight, clean, simple images, with circles, tight closeups and a lot of repetition. We want those idiots at home to listen, look, smell, taste the coffee flavor, whether they want to or not! We want them to hear "tastes as good as it smells" so often, they go numb."

"But what's going to happen at the grocery store?"

"Nothing. But faced with a few varieties of coffee, their hands will gravitate. They won't know why. In their subconscious, they're going to hear that blurple, blurple, blurp, blurp. . ."

"Hey, I've got a better idea. "You get a cup and a half of flavor. . . "

Let's slip away, shall we?

OK, was everything really brown then? Like it is right here?

I don't remember it being brown, but then, I was sitting in the middle of the floor sucking my fist (and come to think of it, I was probably sitting on something brown). Shadows of those early memories still pass across my neurons. They went like this: "SEE the real coffee flavor." "SMELL the real coffee flavor." "TASTE the real coffee flavor."

When I see these things again, and I just saw a slew of them on a not-very-good DVD compilation (too much repetition: do we really need 15 ads with Mr. Whipple squeezing the Charmin, or '60s color ads so degenerated you can't tell what they're selling?), it shakes something loose. I have a reaction. Maybe infantile,

I don't know.

When I saw that classic Maxwell House ad with the coffee percolator, geez, I could smell the goddamn coffee. It's probably the most brilliant ad ever made: starts with a very close shot of the top of a "coffee perc" (the only way to make it then), with that sound to represent the percolation, a sort of coconut-shell melody in irresistable intervals. The type of jingle that fries itself into your brain.

Then the voice-over telling us we WANT TO SMELL and TASTE that coffee. A shot of a very wide, round white cup on a saucer, surrounded by a lot of empty space, slowly being filled.

Then, total genius: a shot of someone picking up the cup and bringing it up to their lips, so that the steaming black coffee gradually fills the entire frame.

I won't tell you the rest. Lots of repetition. The use of circles (ask Walt Disney: that's why everyone loves Mickey Mouse). Clean, uncluttered images. Simplicity. This ad is fucking incredible, and I watched it maybe five or six times, then made my husband watch it while he shook his head at me.

Oh, and then! There were others. "Meet the Swinger, Polaroid Swinger." This was probably the first instant camera. They were "only nineteen dollars, and ninety-five". I don't know if I had one of these, or my brother did. The ad had Ali McGraw in it before she was anyone, and the camera ate her alive. I remember how you had to pull off a disgusting layer of goopy plastic film when the picture had developed, and the warnings not to get it on your skin.

Then this, oh yes: "It's new! It's now! It's flash cube!" This was an incredible invention that allowed you to take four pictures before you had to change the bulb.

Gear.

Beer tabs. This was announced as the greatest invention since the wheel. No more need for those pointy openers (all right, I know you've never seen one). You just - watch this - zip this strip off the top. The woman was left holding a 3-inch, curved, razor-sharp blade. People later reported ripping their feet open on these things. It took the industry a while to get them right. Once they were made smaller, people dropped them inside the can, then swallowed them. You can imagine.

Oh, and this was maybe my favorite. I love those old bubble-shaped cars out of the '40s, what I call Popeye and Bluto cars, bulbous and low-slung. Huge, by today's

standards.

By the '50s, cars had turned ugly. O-o-o-o-o-gg-leeee. I don't know how they ever got so ugly, and fins began to develop and gradually enlarge like mutant

appendages.

I sat through an awful lot of these ads, but the one that made me bark with disbelief was one that began, "They'll know you've arrived - when you drive up in the 1958 EDSEL!"

For those too young to know, Edsel was the white elephant of the car industry. Named after Edsel Pretzelgruber, it was considered to be a can't-fail deal.

Nobody bought it, and no wonder. This car was ugly enough to scare your mother. Enough said.

I liked this one. It was called Slip Away, and at first I thought it was sort of like Pam. It was an aerosol that you sprayed all over your frying pans to make food slide off. But something strange was going on here. You had to bake them in the oven for half an hour. Yes. Bake them. The coating would stay on "for months", though they later described it as permanent.

Well, we know why: the spray was made of Teflon. That's right. In those couple of months, your family would eat the Teflon right along with their fried Spam. This gave a whole new meaning to "permanent".

Various celebs popped up, and most of them were boring, but there were some incredible 15-second spots for Hefty Bags starring Jonathan Winters. These were weirdly funny, like Winters, but most of all they extolled the marvels and obvious virtues of plastic bags.

They were all good! And they kept the place clean and sanitary. This philosophy caught on too well, to the point that we're now having a spot of trouble keeping the planet clean.

Another fave little chuckle: in an ad for Bounty paper towels, a woman's trying to get some ketchup to come out of the traditional glass bottle, and it sprays all over the place. "Ohhhhh! I wish someone would invent ketchup that goes where you want it

to."

Well, dear, hm, yah, maybe, just maybe they've done that, but at what cost? Billions of plastic ketchup bottles sitting for centuries in landfills.

But a small price to pay for hitting that hot dog bang-on.