This awesome animated short has been floating around the net for a few weeks now, but hasn’t garnered a fraction of the views it deserves. Space Stallions was created by a group of students from The Animation Workshop attempting to capture the essence of 80’s cartoons like Voltron, Thunder Cats, and so on. Personally, I think they hit the nail on the head. The music was dead on with everything from sequenced arps and laser toms to its poorly written chorus. Visually, they touched on everything you’d expect to see like several of the characters rocking a mustache, Unicorn space-bikes, oh and a keytar sword. While I don’t think I’d ever want to sit through an actual episode should they ever make one, I have to applaud their awesome efforts here. Oh, and if you want to buy a copy of that theme song, you’re in luck. It’s available via BandCamp.

The latest season highly anticipated season of Mad Men is set to open this weekend so we decided to take a look at the time honored tradition working at a fictional ad agency. Once upon a time ad agencies didn’t have much of a place in pop culture but the book that changed all of that was Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy in 1963. The year before Ogilvy got on the cover of Time magazine and as the 60s progressed so did the golden age of advertising agencies. And television shows picked up on this new career path for the smart set:

The Twilight Zone: A Stop at Willoughby (1960)

This classic Twilight Zone episode depicts the plight of Gart Williams who works at a very stressful New York City ad agency where his boss Oliver Misrell tells him that this is a “push-push-push” business! On his commute home to Connecticut Williams dreams of a more time — and by the end of the episode he’s received his “golden parachute” from the agency.

Bewitched (1964)

The ad agency of McMann and Tate is where Darrin Stephens works, although what’s interesting about him is that his charming wife Samantha also happens to be a witch. I always felt sorry for Darrin not because he was second banana to Samantha but because the orgibal actor Dick York was later replaced by Dick Sargent. Of course Darrin lacks any personality when put next to his partner Larry Tate who was played by the amazing character actor David White.

Bosom Buddies (1980)

It only ran for two seasons but this is the television show that gave Tom Hanks his big break. The series featured Kip who’s a graphic artist and his creative partner Henry who’s a copywriter who work at the ad agency of Livingston, Gentry & Mishkin during the day — but at night they live an apartment building that’s just for women. To pull this off they must dress in drag, although they seem to really enjoy it. By the second season of the show Kip and Henry start their own agency which has the much hipper name of Sixty Seconds Street. What’s interesting about this show is that it showed the creative side of the agency business and reflected the vibe of NYC in the late 70s.

Thirtysomething (1987)

An alternative title for Thirtysomething could have been Those Damn Annoying Yuppies — yet despite that there was something very addictive about the cast and characters in this show. This was the first time that the drama within an ad agency took center stage in the plot of a television series. The series starts with the two main characters Michael Steadman and Elliot Weston working at their own ad agency which is eventually taken over and called DAA. Of course the coolest character is this series is Miles Drentell who was actually based on the famous graphic designer William Drenttel. Although the character I had a crush on was Melissa Steadman who was a photographer who lived in an amazing loft (although the episode where she dated Miles sort of freaked me out).

Melrose Place (1992)

Least we think that only baby boomers can be annoying Melrose Place showed off the self centered aspects of Gen X with a bit of California flavor. The two lead characters Amanda and Alison work at an ad agency called D&D (and no that doesn’t stand for Dungeons and Dragons). And by the sixth season Amanda who was played by Heather Locklear started her own agency. The show as created by Aaron Spelling and above all else it was a soap opera — and as a nod to Spelling his formula was so good that a revived version of the show went on the air in 2009.

Mad Men (2007)

What makes Mad Men so brilliant is that it’s the only show that doesn’t attempt to depict a modern age ad agency, but did a retro take on the theme. The show is set in 60s and at first takes place at Sterling Cooper which later becomes Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. And while the critics and public applauded the show it earned perhaps the highest level of praise by getting a parody of the series on Sesame Street:

Trust Me (2009)

Trust Me takes place at the fictional ad agency of Rothman, Greene, and Moore in Chicago. Although the ad business is a tough one and sadly the show was cancelled and never made it to a second season. I guess TNT didn’t trust the audience to return…

This humorous segment of one of two episodes from Sesame Street in 1980 that feature C-3PO and R2-D2 (scene 4 of episode 1396 to be exact). Other scenes featured Bob singing about the alphabet with the droids (and of course some kids to help out).

There’s nothing quite better than 70s kung fu films that focus on the theme of revenge! The Thundering Mantis (Hao xiao zi) was directed by Yip Wing Cho in 1980 and stars Leung Kar Yan as Ah Chi. As you may have already guessed Ah Chi is a martial arts student that is expelled from his school after a fight with some henchmen. Not to give away a spoiler, but here is the final showdown scene from the end of the film:

I always assumed my love of tech was natural, but looking back at this early 80s advert you can see the pressure on every young member of Gen X to grow up and be the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. The funny thing is that these early computers struck me as being clunky at the time because my expectations were set by watching science fiction TV shows where computers were much larger but did cooler things. The commercial above and below feature a later version (from 1980 on) of the Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer which was lovingly renamed as “The Trash 80″ because it was in competition with cooler machines like the C-64 and Atari 400 which were cheaper and better.

By the way the earlier versions of the TRS-80 were even cruder featuring monochrome screens and painfully slow audio tape drives for storage. But what’s amazing is that despite this track record for poor quality Radio Shack did manage to sell this line of computers until 1991 — although that may have been due to the sheer marketing power of selling to somewhat clueless parents now that I look back at it. In fact it’s somewhat sad to think that back in the day that Radio Shack was once an industry powerhouse on the level of an Apple or Atari — yet now they’ve been relegated to the place where you get your battery recharging stocking stuffers before Christmas.

By the way despite what you’re seeing in these ads with mom smiling about her “organized recipes” the reality was that back in the day Radio Shack seemed to be designed to scare away ladies more than a comic book shop. The place was a notorious recruiter of non-social nerds in training lording over a wide selection of every miscellaneous electronic part that ever existed. Of course sadly today the shack has lost all of its old world charm — but there was once a lost golden age when corporate America would dare to feature a science fiction writer in their ads:

Ah yes the early 80s! Strangely while I’m very nostalgic about my lost youth, Isaac Asimov and the new wave music of that era I still don’t miss the crude state of that technology and my mismatched expectations one bit at all…

Special thanks to Bryan Costin for the image of the TRS-80 Microcomputer News and to Steve for his Isaac Asimov ad.

I hadn’t realized just how geek focused the early advertising for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups was until I came across these two spots: The first advert above is from 1980 and has a bit of a Star Wars feeling to it, while 1982 commercial below is inspired by the first generation of home videogames.

Speaking of nerds I had no idea that the original commercial that launched the brand featured Donny Most who would go on play Ralph Malph on Happy Days:

Hint: If you’re at a party in the year 1980 and people are passing around an issues of Games Magazine — run! By the way it’s interesting to note that this magazine was first published by Playboy in 1977 until 1990. Later it was resuscitated by another publisher and is still in business today.

Many think of robocalls a recent phenomena, but this ancient 1980 Trix cereal commercial showcases this old campaign technique. I love how the little girl needs to defend her extreme political point of view that Trix are somehow part of a “nutritious breakfast” not to mention her anti-free market views that the poor bunny should be denied a bowl of his well earned fruit-flavored corn puffs.

The Right Stuf is releasing the classic 1980 anime film Toward the Terra on DVD just in time for Christmas. Back in the day as a 80s fanboy this was one of my favorite flicks, and it still holds up well today judging by the trailer above. Firstly the story line is A+ if your any sort of science fiction fanatic as the plot is very similar to A.E. van Vogt’s famous novel SLAN. Next you have the look of the film which holds up very well some 28 years later!

The character designs combine the look of the groundbreaking shouju manga with just a dash of classic Tezuka. The other thing that I noticed with this trailer was that I forgot just how good the soundtrack was — there’s a real magical quality to it. Also the mecha design for the film was amazing, you have two civilizations whose technology looks very different — in fact the contrast of the organic look of the Mu spacecraft captures the difference between them and the brave new world that they are feeing. 

The other nice thing is that if you order the film in advance it’s only $15 which is a real bargain (perfect timing for a recession). My only wish is that Right Stuf would release the title on Blu-ray as I’m pretty sure the film had to be shot on at least 35mm which wouldn’t be the case for a TV from that era. Maybe if enough folks order the film that will give the American distributor enough encouragement.