My Favorite Commercial by Lynn Lovegreen

There are a lot of great commercials out there. In my opinion, the best are really creative, humorous, and/or heartwarming. Most of my faves are in the last two categories.

 

One of my favorite commercials is a well-known one, “The Force” by Volkswagen, 2012. A Star Wars reference, cute kid, and a caring dad are the main ingredients. Here’s a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zwMWLE9fBU&t=1s

 

What isn’t as well-known are the Rainier Beer ads from the 1970s and 1980s. They were a big thing when I was in high school, and many Alaskans drank Rainier, so it was a local favorite. Their brand of quirky humor made them fun, and we always looked forward to the next commercial. Here’s a link to my favorite from 1974:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daZdK1fRZYk

 

I’m curious to see what others have to share on this topic. If you know a great commercial, drop a link in the comments!

 

P.S. I give credit to YouTube for the videos.

 

Lynn Lovegreen has lived in Alaska for most of her life. After twenty years in the classroom, she retired to make more time for writing. She enjoys her friends and family, reading, and volunteering for her local library. Her young adult historical romance is set in Alaska, a great place for drama, romance, and independent characters. See her website at www.lynnlovegreen.com. 

 

Meow, meow, meow ...

This month’s suggested topic, My favourite commercial, was a tough one for me, so I took it as a challenge. You see, I watch very little commercial TV these days. Other than a news program in the early evening, the rest of my TV viewing is via various streaming services. (Though some of those are now subjecting us to ads – I’m looking at you, Prime.)

To recall my favourite TV ad, I had to delve into my memory. Given my poor memory for certain things, this meant a perusal of Google and YouTube. It didn’t take long, though, to find some old favourites. 

Say it with me, kids. Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun. Anyone else have that memorized?

And then there was the carbonated beverage that would teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.

But the ad that gave me the biggest warm & fuzzy feeling is this one:

And the reason I loved it so much was because the last cat in the video was the spitting image of the family cat we had at the time. Gurgi was a lovely boy and a great lap cat. Knowing me, I’m sure I made Gurgi watch that commercial so he could see himself on TV.

Luanna Stewart has been creating adventures for her imaginary friends since childhood. She spends her days writing many flavours of romance. When not torturing her characters, she’s in her kitchen baking something delicious. She lives in Nova Scotia with her patient husband.

 Website ~  Instagram  ~ Bookbub

One...Two...Three...and a pre-order

 

This month the theme is "My favorite commercial." At this time in my life, I dislike commercials.  After watching shows on Public Broadcasting and not having commercials interrupting the flow of the show and then streaming shows without commercials, I now get irritated with them. 

But as a kid, my favorite commercial was the owl and the Tootsie Pop, which around Halloween you see the commercial now and then. I don't know why but the way the owl says, "One...Two...Three... always makes me smile. 

I'm happy to say that book number 6 in my Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series is up on pre-order with a release date of September 6th. 

Down and Dirty

The Spotted Pony Casino’s head of security, Dela Alvaro, receives a late-night call that takes her to a deserted walkway along the river. After confronting a woman babbling about love and bodies being buried, Dela stumbles over a corpse and discovers her knife covered in the victim’s blood.

Dela and Tribal Detective Heath Seaver find themselves working with FBI Special Agent Quinn Pierce when the murder seems to be connected to a drug cartel. Dela nearly becomes the victim of a hit-and-run while someone is trying to frame her for the murder.

Proving her innocence has Dela interviewing past acquaintances and members of a drug cartel, all while trying to decide if the woman she met the night of the murder is truly crazy … or the killer.

Pre-order here: https://books2read.com/u/bagQ66

I came up with the idea for this book when I was checking out the River Walkway in Pendleton, OR. I came across the bridge, you see on the cover and below, and thought what a great place for my main character, Dela Alvaro to come across a body at night. Once that took root, I came up with why she would be there late at night and how she could be pulled into the murder. But the fun twist came when I met a woman who intrigued and scared me at a book event. 

This woman captured my writer's curiosity and as soon as she walked on, I began writing down all the details of our meeting to use it in a book. I just didn't realize it would be the book I was writing. In a way, I believe I put her in the book to make her seem real and not so scary. I won't lie, after talking to her, I was a bit shaky and felt like a fool because I was scared. Unfortunately, the other person in the booth with me had been on the phone and didn't hear the woman's rantings or see how she transformed. 

That's all I'll say about her. You can either pre-order the book and wait to read about the "scary" woman on September 6th or check out my blog post on the Ladies of Mystery blog on Aug. 12th. On that post I talk about my encounter with the "crazy" woman. 

ABOUT Paty Jager

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 59 novels, 11 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

Website: https://www.patyjager.net

Blog: https://writingintothesunset.net/

Newsletter: https://bit.ly/2IhmWcm

My Favorite Commercials

Hi, I’m Judith Ashley, author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, soul nourishing romantic women’s fiction with light paranormal elements. My stories show you what life could be like if you had a place like The Circle where you are unconditionally accepted, supported and loved. And where, with this support, you make choices to overcome the darkest nights of your life to choose love and light.

Usually I’m not a last minute person, especially when it comes to writing blog posts. However, even though I’ve had this idea for this month’s “Favorite Commercial” theme since the Blog Queens first came up with it, I’m less than 48 hours away from it being published!

Why? Why have I waited and waited and waited?

Well it comes down to ‘fear’.

You might wonder what there is to fear about writing a blog post. I can’t speak for other people. For me it is the fact that blog posts with images are read and remembered more often than those that are not. And in the case of this post, I immediately knew what those images would be.

What’s the problem? Me! I do not like to search on the internet for anything if at all possible. The idea of scrolling through images of products or in this case pictures that would illustrate this post is my idea of a personal hell. Well, that may be exaggerating a bit…but not by much.

So, here I am now a little more than 12 hours before this post goes live (yes, I’ve come back and am now tweaking it). I have found images that if you’ve seen the commercials, you should recognize. Or at least I hope you do. And FYI: the second commercial was Much harder to find anything remotely resembling the commercial so you'll need to use your imagination for that one.

Once upon a time, I was watching television with the sound muted (because I have closed captioning and keep it on) and there is a buffalo on the screen. I will say my curiosity was pricked but that was all. No idea what the commercial was about which is pretty normal for me.

Over several months I saw the same commercial and was dumbfounded that any company would just show a buffalo in a restaurant…at least that finally registered.

One day it dawned on me that this buffalo had wings!

And I have heard of Buffalo Wild Wings! So, in this case, it took several months before I connected everything together. And I do remember the company…never been to one of their restaurants and I’m not sure I’ve ever actually eaten a Buffalo Wild Wing but I do find these commercials  fun and I find myself smiling as I watch them.

The second commercial that I smile when it comes on … actually I often chuckle and voice the dialogue … has a dog sitting in a chair and a guy on a sofa. This one I had no problems deciphering but had a enough of a challenging time finding images, I’ve decided not to put them up.

Don’t know what it is yet?

Here’s a hint. When the dog says “Vaase”, at least to me, I find that funny. After numerous opportunities to see this commercial, I still laugh and repeat both the dog’s lines and his human’s. If you’ve not seen the commercial, you may need to sound it out in order to recognize the humor.

I do understand that many people no longer watch “regular” t.v. that has commercials.

However, if you do, please do share your favorites

And be on the lookout all of August as the Genre-istas who do watch “regular” t.v. share their favorite commercials.

Spoiler alert: neither televisions, streaming nor commercials are featured in any of my books.

Learn more about my books, workshops and training on my website JudithAshley.net.

You can find my books at your favorite e-book vendor as well as through my website www.JudithAshley.net and Windtree Press. Print books are available at Jan’s Paperbacks in Beaverton, OR and Arte Soleil in Portland, OR. Get the addresses from my website. And be sure to ask your library if you’d prefer to read my books through that resource.

Learn more about Judith's The Sacred Women’s Circle series at JudithAshley.net

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