Christmas is nearly upon us, and around our house that usually means candy. Lots of candy. In honor of our annual overindulgence of the confectioner’s craft, we present a selection of candy coated commercials in vivid black and white, and the finest faded Eastman color.
Belle-Camp Chocolates
Here’s a typical “elves working on an assembly line making our wonderful candy” type ad. Ken Harris does some of the animation here, and that’s when the elves really start to look like Elmer Fudd.
Good and Plenty
Produced by Soundac Studios of Miami, Florida. The same folks who brought you Colonel Bleep and Mighty Mister Titan.
Bonomo Turkish Taffy
Animation from UPA. Animated by Gil Turner and Rudy Larriva. We actually tried to eat this stuff when we were kids.
Holloway’s Sugar Duds
From 1969. Produced by Playhouse Pictures. Directed by Gerry Woolery and designed by Rosemary O’Connor.
Beech Nut Hot Shots
It’s the candy that makes your head explode! Animated by Alan Zazlove. You’ll flip your Beatle wig!
Life Savers
This amazing pop-art ad is almost certainly the work of Fred Mogubgub. Is that music by Herb Alpert, or is it just an incredible simulation?
Ipana Toothpaste
Now that we’ve had our candy, we need to brush our teeth with a decent toothpaste. Directed by Paul Fennell and animated by Carlo Vinci.
Mike Kazaleh is a cartoonist and animator whose work can be seen in comic books like Bongo’s The Simpsons, Futurama and Papercutz’ Gumby – and on screen in Warner Bros. Tiny Toon Adventures, Ralph Bakshi’s Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures and Cool World.
I remember the Hot Shots ad; never saw it in color before. For some reason those shots of the band actually playing — feet off the ground and all — made a big impression.
I was a huge fan of good and plenty when I was young, mostly because of the choo choo charlie ads.. I had a choo choo Charlie t-shirt, and also a good and plenty whistle.
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I never would have guessed that upa made that bonomo commercial, as it’s both poorly designed, and poorly animated. the kid walks with a clumsy limp, his hat is a weird mess, and his head looks like somebody simply traced a 1/2 dollar.
bonomo Turkish taffy was a favorite of mine as a kid. I remember there were pictures of the archies on the wrapper for a while. they’ve started making it again, but the bars are too small and too thin, and the candy no longer has the thick foil wrapper that I remember so well. these days when it comes to faux taffy, I much prefer doscher’s French chews; a better value, and over 100 years in business (the bonomo taffy is being licensed and produced by a new company).
“I never would have guessed that upa made that bonomo commercial, as it’s both poorly designed, and poorly animated. the kid walks with a clumsy limp, his hat is a weird mess, and his head looks like somebody simply traced a 1/2 dollar.”
Watching the ad today on a YouTube window, the logo at the very bottom right of the screen before the Bonomo’s jingle shows up kinda gives it away what studio was behind the ad (I think UPA did the same thing to other ads and later shows like the Mr. Magoo TV episodes).
Surprised to see the Flash and Batman in the Life Savers commercial. Did they have to get permission from DC back then or did they just put the characters in there and hope DC wouldn’t notice?
They actually got permission from DC, or National Periodicals as it was officially dubbed back then. Look closely and you can see the copyright notice at the bottom of the screen on the Flash and Batman shots.
Who knows? (recall Thimble Theater’s Wimpy showing up in Mogubgub’s “Enter Hamlet” anyway)
Though unrelated to this topic, I recall CoCo Wheats had a very similar set of ads done in the late 60’s I enjoy the bizarre nature of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4LdPPZw7SQ
http://www.googoo.com/our-story/
And here is Belle-Camp now!
Too bad they don’t use the “Belle-Camp” name anymore it seems (though interesting the main company’s name is “Standard Candy Co.”, so generic), though I suppose I didn’t miss much if they’re no different from Russell Stover or Whitman’s Samplers. I don’t think I ever had a Goo Goo Cluster at all.
Until YouTube showed up, I never heard of Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy at all, and from the looks of it, do didn’t Tootsie Roll when they decided it wasn’t worth keeping the line around after acquiring it. Nice to see it available again (though some might call it a “Zombie Brand” given the circumstances but I’m sure the new guys treat their product better than the rest), nice to pick up a couple of those at Dollar Tree when they had them a while back. Not really into taffy anyway so it’s not my cup ‘o tea.
http://www.bonomoturkishtaffy.com/