Ads of the 80s

I don't think I remember the famous Apple commercial from the 1984 Superbowl game itself. I know the commercial, but I think it was one of those things that got discussed for many years and then it came to the forefront for me while studying advertising in school. It was a breakthrough commercial and it resurfaced in conversation again recently when Steve Jobs passed. At some point along this sine wave of life, I'd made the assumption that everyone my age knew that commercial. That assumption seems to get harder to make in the world of the Internet, but I think every book in college referenced it once. (You'll see why 1984, won't be like The Golden Ass. I kid.)

I forgot not everybody had so many books about advertising, so I was surprised to learn that C hadn't seen it. I made her watch it, but I don't think it changed her much. Not too long after my run-in with memories of the 1984 commercial, I visited Wendy's. Up on the signs it said, "Where's the beef?" I pointed in amusement, but the college guys I was with didn't even smile. Then it hit me. I was 6 when that older woman and her two friends were squawking, "Where's the beef?" They were 10 years from being born. I know my teachers discussed the Wendy's commercial in college, but that one was a cultural tsunami. I saw it for sure. Probably during Dukes of Hazzard. Everybody got inquisitive about meat. My memory isn't much, but I'm almost certain I remember my own grandmother asking, "Where's the beef?" and laughing. Now, today, out of the deep recesses of my mind I recalled another commercial from the 1980s. It was a Folgers coffee commercial that involved secretly switching regular coffee with Folgers crystals. I wasn't drinking coffee or even thinking about coffee, so I'm really not sure what stirred memory. Caught up in this wave of 1980s advertising, I have to wonder what will shake out next and also what I'd do for a Klondike bar.