TFTP Will Return After These Messages: Commercials for Kentucky Fried Chicken (1968/1971/1981)

Posted to YouTube by user 'chicagofilmarchives' (top), 'Bionic Disco' (middle), 'robatsea2009' (bottom)
Length - 1:06 (top), 1:04 (middle), 0:30 (bottom)

Every Wednesday, TFTP takes a break from regular programming to bring you a selection of classic commercials. We will return after these messages...

These three commercials from fast-food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken all feature the iconic red-and-white-striped KFC bucket. In the first commercial, from 1968 and the only of the three to also feature the actual Colonel Sanders, the Colonel puts wheels on the bucket to demonstrate its portability. (Was take-away food still that much of a novelty in the 1960s?) Commercial number two (from '71) uses the bucket as a punchline: a mother has served KFC chicken at dinner with her daughter's new boyfriend and passed it off as her own cooking, until little brother barges into the dining room wielding the bucket. Finally, the third commercial, from 1981, displays the bucket prominently upfront--a KFC employee fills and displays a bucket--before going on to show numerous groups of people eating fried chicken--out of KFC boxes.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1981 (HBO)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MicroJow'
Length - 2:27

Each Friday afternoon, TFTP signs-off for the week with a classic station sign-off sequence for your enjoyment and to bid farewell until Monday...

And throughout 2018, we are featuring "Sign-Offs Through the Years", as we go year-by-year with each successive week.

TFTP's Sign-Offs Through the Years has stuck mainly to broadcast stations that are major network affiliates. But this week we are featuring a cable network sign-off--from the era in which cable networks actually signed-off for the night. TFTP featured a 1979 sign-off for HBO a while back, and the 1981 sign-off here features the same exact "bedtime" film at the very end of it.

The animated "bedtime" film consists of images pertaining to things one would do before turning in for the night--setting an alarm clock, turning out lights, pulling window shades, and the like. The film is preceded by a series of promos for "HBO Weekend", including the movie "Alien" (on Friday), a concert program with country music star George Jones (on Saturday), and the movie "Coal Miner's Daughter" (on Sunday).

TFTP Will Be Back After These Messages: Commercials for TV Guide (1950s/1960s/1969/1980-81)

Posted to YouTube by user 'tapthatt2012' (first & third clips) and 'Diamond Pleshaw' (second clip)

TV Guide was once the most popular magazine in America. As a testament to just how central television was to American culture through the late-1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, TV Guide magazine had the highest circulation of any magazine in the country. This, of course, was an era before onscreen interactive program guides or availability of TV schedules via the Internet (not to mention before such things as DVRs and video-on-demand). Apart from daily or weekly listings in newspapers, if people wanted to have a schedule of TV programming, they had to rely on TV Guide.

These TV Guide commercials span this period of the late-1950s through the 1970s. We begin (in the first clip) with a one-minute spot from the early-1960s that extolls the virtues of TV Guide and gives some visual examples of the subjects covered in that era. Then, a series of shorter spots shows actor Michael Ansara from "Broken Arrow" in circa 1957, the stars of "Naked City" from circa 1960, and writer-director of "Noah's Ark" (and "Dragnet") Jack Webb from circa 1956.

In the succeeding clips are some additional TV Guide ads from 1969 and the early-1980s. First, a 1969 ad featuring Glen Campbell, who had one of the biggest shows that year with his "Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour", a huge variety show hit. Finally, a couple of ten-second ads from 1980 and 1981, the first highlighting the new Fall 1980 TV season, the second the Ronald Reagan presidential inauguration.
 

TFTP Will Be Back After These Messages: Commercial Block (ABC) (Nov. 7 & 14, 1981)

Posted to YouTube by user '80sCommercialVault'

This is another block of commercials, this time from ABC on Saturday mornings, November 7 and 14, 1981. There's a lot of great stuff here, including some toy commercials (Nerf basketball, Tonka trucks, couple Barbie products), junk food (Reese's peanut butter cups, SpaghettiO's, Burger King), public service announcements (including one starring Brooke Shields and another starring Ed Asner), and the piece-de-resistance, Underoos. There are also several bumpers (the brief, usually 5-second, bits leading into and out of the commercial breaks for Saturday morning shows) and the complete end credits for an episode of "Thundarr the Barbarian.