I’ve really been looking forward to diving back into this occasional series of posts in which we take a look at all of the real advertisements published in OiNK between April 1986 and October 1988. Still to come are adverts for comics and toys amongst other things, however in a surprise turn it was seeing the adverts for all of the food and drink of the 80s that really transported me back to childhood.
There were plenty of them in OiNK too, far too many to include in one post, so I’ve whittled them down to 11 of my favourites, all for things I’d have happily chomped down on or guzzled back when I was a kid. Well, there’s one exception to that and as you scroll I’m sure you’ll be able to guess which one. Some of these are no longer available, but even for those that are their adverts are so quintessentially 80s they just had to be included. So let’s get things started with some breakfast, shall we?
I remember those adverts on TV with kids walking down the street with a superimposed red glow around them after eating their bowls of hot, filling Ready Brek, advertised here in #52 from February 1988. I did like that cereal, although I preferred my mum’s huge pots of porridge she’d rustle up. I don’t know about you, but I think a list of ’50 Brill Things To Do Before Breakfast’ would’ve been wasted on me. Getting out of bed and washed and fed was enough to do before school!
“Get yours before the special multipacks dematerialise!”
Golden Wonder crisps
The Bean St. Kids (#39, October 1987) had animated cartoon adverts on TV I seem to recall, complete with cackling villain, but the tins sold themselves. I know we’re told our tastebuds change as we age, so either mine really have or those tins of mini sausages have changed, because as an adult I think they’re completely vile! I tried one of those ‘All-Day Breakfasts’ in a tin of beans and my word, never again. But as a child I loved them, especially with crispy bacon and eggs for breakfast at the weekend.
As our day in the 80s continues it’s time for a mid-morning snack and our house always had multipacks of crisps for us to rummage through, although more often than not they were Crazy Prices’ Yellow Pack crisps (ask your parents, kids). Sometimes we got treated to others though and apart from Wotsits (I remember devouring all of the barbecue flavours before my siblings could) the other household favourites were all advertised in OiNK.
My dad still eats the Salt-n-Shake crisps to this day, although you can only get the salted ones now. This is just as well really because I remember the other flavours didn’t really work. No matter how much we shook the bag like the fella in this advert from #6 (July 1986) we’d always get a mixture of bland crisps and others with so much flavouring on them they’d burn our tongues. Needless to say that “mixing different sachets” to “invent your own flavours” was an atrocious idea too.
I’ll admit I still have a fondness for Monster Munch (#33, July 1987) to this day; the pickled onion ones are a favourite but I just can’t walk past a shelf of roast beef packets without filling the trolley! I was sure the regular Golden Wonder crisps disappeared for a while many years ago but that doesn’t seem to be the case. While they did go into administration in 2006 they were bought by my local Northern Irish crisp company, Tayto and continue to be made here, which surprised me!
“You can meet Jo-Jo, Bruno and our own super hero, ‘Mar-Might’…””
Marmite spread
I remember the Golden Wonder bags of my youth had a little window on the front through which you could see the crisps. The packets were horrible though, becoming very jagged when crumpled and they felt horribly greasy on the inside, things people seem to forget on those talking heads documentaries on Channel 5 where celebrities go all misty-eyed for such things. Here in #15 (November 1986) the promotion to lure us kiddies in was a range of exclusive Sixth Doctor comics, although the lure was lost on me as I didn’t start watching the show until 1988.
On to lunchtime sandwiches and no prizes if you guessed the first of these two adverts (#22, February 1987) is the thing I mentioned above that I didn’t like. I still don’t. I’ve only ever tasted Marmite once but I didn’t eat it. I’m probably sharing too much information when I say I was in my early 20s, I’d been out for a night for a few drinks and at the end I kissed a lady who had just eaten some. Gagging and recoiling from a kiss isn’t a great impression to make.
In #25 (April 1987) bread was advertised in a children’s comic. How exciting. To be fair, it was promoting a free sports bag emblazoned with the loaf’s logo and Champion was heavily advertised during children’s programming as the bread of choice for fit and athletic kids. I hated it back then with all of the little ‘bits’ in it but these days I do love a good granary loaf. Showing my age probably. Mother’s Pride make a vast amount of different breads these days in their Hovis range. I wonder if one of them is the modern day equivalent of this?
Imagine that was your foot!
On the way home we’d visit the sweet shop and long before Jamie Oliver’s sugar tax came in (something I cursed him for at the time but which I now think was for the best) any can of soft drink was so loaded with sugar they were main staples of kids’ diets in the 80s! Cherry Coca-Cola was the latest craze and was advertised with very surreal images on both the telly and in publications. They made little sense but were certainly eye-catching and worked a (sugary) treat, the first two here taken from #28 (May 1987) and #34 (August 1987) respectively.
It doesn’t taste the same anymore. For some reason when the sugar tax came in Coke changed the recipe for Coke Zero (the brand under which the different flavourings now reside) and suddenly it tasted like that horrible Diet Coke stuff (I’m never been a fan). I moved over to Pepsi Max and actually much prefer it and its range of flavours, so thanks Jamie! I still buy my sugar-full Coke to slow cook my Christmas ham though. (Damn, that’s still too many months away.)
“2p off Milky Way!”
Milky Way chocolate bar
In hindsight ring pulls were so bloody dangerous on a product kids loved, never mind asking us to actually collect the sharp little things, and that advert (#30, June 1987) makes me wince nowadays. Imagine that was your foot! Anyway, collecting them is exactly what we did. I didn’t send any off for this particular product but I’m going to guess many blog readers of a certain vintage will have done so for their Coke or Fanta yo-yos, am I right?
With most of our pocket money spent on crisps and soda what were we going to do about our chocolate cravings? We couldn’t have a can of Coke without a chocolate accompaniment! But also we couldn’t spoil dinner, we needed something we could eat “without ruining our appetite”. Luckily, Mars gave us a handy coupon for a whopping 2p off our next Milky Way. Hey, don’t knock it, that was a good chunk off back then. The advert was also split in two and spread over the issue (this one appeared in #12, October 1986).
The competition for a Commodore 64 also catches my eye today, that being my first proper home computer, although I didn’t get mine until Christmas 1991. The inside of a Milky Way was chocolate flavoured back then but was changed to vanilla in 1993 and I hated it. Although, Mars’ Flyte came along in 1996 and used the original recipe in a bar aimed at adults. Once I discovered this they were a very frequent purchase. Such a shame they’ve been discontinued since.
This really has been a whirlwind trip down memory lane for both my mind and my taste buds. I feel suitably qualified to appear on Channel 5 now. You can see companies knew how to appeal to us. As well as adverts taking the form of comic strips, many offered their own magazines and comics to send off for, and there was always something magical about collecting silly little tokens (or ring pulls) that had the desired affect on us and on their bottom line.
In the next part of this series I’ll be taking a look at the toys advertised during OiNK’s run and you can expect that at Christmas (naturally).
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