This entry was posted on
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at
2:58 pm and is filed
under Consume!.

I was slumming it in the YouTubes recently when I happened across a 1986 ad for Wrigley’s chewing gum that seemed very familiar and yet entirely different. The following collection of clips should explain my confuzzlement:

Wrigley’s gum – the clean fresh taste of…

Yes, as you can see, Wrigley recycled the same “Taste of America” ad to produce some regional flavours for Australia and New Zealand. Some shots have been re-used, others replaced, but what’s also worth a look is the effort that went into re-shooting/replicating some shots to localise the image while keeping the ad’s ‘formula’ intact (e.g. the high-fiving pilots, the girl who misses her taxi, and the juggler with zinc cream on his nose); even the two ‘man releasing native bird’ shots match. The producers did let the side down by not forcing that little girl to fly two different flags, but still, it’s pretty impressive overall.

I’m sure most of you are aware that this happens (UK and Australian TV both feature many US-made commercials with badly-dubbed local voices) and you probably won’t even be upset with the duplicity of the concept, but I am genuinely pissed off that I was robbed of my opportunity to enjoy Great Hair Guy; the fella who’s deliriously happy at how good he looks.

Apart from the poor lady who misses her taxi, pretty much everyone else waving their arms about is celebrating an achievement, which makes Great Hair Guy even more hilarious to me;

“Hard deck my ass. We nailed that son of a bitch!” (high five)
“We got the Glickman contract!” (air punch)
“We totally won at baseball/basketball/etc.” (manly hugs)
“How’s my hair looking? My hair’s looking GREAT!” (fist pump)

Here’s to you, Great Hair Guy. You rock.

(Apologies if this mockery is 20-odd years later than expected.)