Rise from your grave

Once again we are back with some spooky goodness for this site. By the time I post this it should be October which I consider spooky month (or atleast the time when I feel it is acceptable to force spooky on others, otherwise you’d get it all year round.).

One of the things I’ve started doing the last few years is watching compilations of old halloween adverts. Such as this one 70s & 80s Halloween Commercials. Sometimes I’ll actually watch the adverts and sometimes I’ll just have them on in the background to create atmosphere. Either way it’s still one of the things that helps get me in the mood for Halloween. Here are some of my favourites.

McDonald’s gift certificates

So I’m not sure if these were ever sold in the UK or if they were just fazed out by the time I was old enough but I think these are a great idea. A free drink or ice cream without the requirement to buy anything else. Sign me up. I know the idea was that once the kids were attempting to redeem these many would probably buy something else but McDonalds are great. Give me some Mcnuggets to go with my ice cream. I’ll even dip em. This isn’t about the vouchers though this is about the advert.To start there’s a talking pumpkin puppet. I love puppets so instantly sold but he’s in front of what appears to be a spooky house in the dark while appropriate sounds play. To top it all off the ad shows the certificates magically turning into treats using either sleight of hand or special effects to make it seem like magic. So what we have here is practical effects and magic to sell junk food. It ticks so many of my boxes.

Burger Chef

This one just seems plain silly and that’s why I love it

It starts with a werewolf climbing a fast food place like he’s king kong or something only to run in and ask where he can get delicious burgers, like a werewolf wouldn’t be able to smell the meat from a mile away. It then cuts away from being an animated segment to showing real footage of the kids' meals now giving away magic tricks as prizes.It then ends the only logical way with a pun. It’s incrediburgerble. This is just atrocious and absolutely tickles my funny bone because of it. As much as I seem to love these I promise the next one won’t feature a fast food restaurant or magic. Though I can’t promise if I ever do this again it won’t feature then as there are just so many good ones.

Hallmark

From what I’ve seen Hallmark is no stranger to halloween adverts and while they are usually pretty good I wouldn’t normally rate them highly. I would probably feel the same about this one if the implication wasn’t that out there somewhere is at least one weird magical Hallmark store run by a goblin creature that is open exclusively at night. I would kill to go to a magical store run by a goblin.

M&Ms

So apparently before we got anthro M&M mascots Disney’s mouse once advertised the candy. This doesn’t really fill me with that spooky Halloween feeling instead it invokes that Disney magic. Also Mickey is hiding from the parents and magically messing with the kids.

Polaroid VHS

Finally we have an advert for polaroid tapes. What really makes this advert is Vincent Price. He’s sat in a gothic castle in his finery just watching a small tv telling you how bad it is when tape heads get dirty, his skin changing to match the distortion you’d see on the tapes. Honestly I would buy anything Vincent Price sells. Castle or no castle.