Chicagoist Wayback Machine: Xmas Ads!
By Karl Klockars on Dec 24, 2007 7:00PM
Nothing screams nostalgia like advertising. It's not entirely clear why the commercials from our youth take us back the way that few other things can, but that "588-2300" animation (without the "1-800" tacked onto it) combined with a Charlie Brown-sized Christmas tree makes us all fuzzy inside for the 80s.
After the jump: Cheap holiday chow from Jewel, the aforementioned Empire ad (featuring absolutely no computerized carpet guys!), a Chicago auto-dealer ad, spots for stores no longer with us, and another little something to make all of us remaining Marshall Fields torch-carriers misty once again.
Youtube user gtp2day brings us this Empire Carpet classic from 1987. It's not the one where the Empire Carpet Guy is all dressed up like Santa - anyone else remember that? The famed Carpet Guy only gets a few seconds of screen time and a quick voiceover at the end, but hey - people have carpet to buy.
Gtp2day also brings us this automotive memory - get your post-holiday car shopping galoshes on! What does Al Piemonte have to do to put you in this kickass Mercury Lynx today? How about this Chevy Cavalier? Only about a hundred bucks down, and a hundred bucks a month. How about some late-80's local TV production values? Priceless.
Fuzzy Memories TV deserves credit for bringing us a couple of these ads - more are available at their website as well. There they've got a treasure trove of old Chicago broadcasts, including this Jewel ad circa 1981. 88 cents for ten pounds of potatoes? 39 cents a pound for chicken? Sold.
Marshall Field's gets most of the attention when it comes to retail-outlet nostalgia, but does no one remember McDade's? In our memory, it was where you stopped right after checking out the prices at Service Merchandise when they still had outlet stores as well. Check out the prices on these awesome VHS recorders and players from 1982.
It wouldn't be a look back through advertising time if we didn't find something from Field's. This not-so-old Marshall Fields ad isn't from a time that's completely gone by yet - note the portable DVD player - but the logo just makes us feel all sorts of things. As in: Remember when we lived in a city that had a Marshall Fields? Yeah, thems were the days.