I don’t get it. Is this referring to something we don’t have here in the UK?
http://www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/archive/images/getfuzzy2073244050510.gif
I think there was a commercial with ‘tastes great - less filling’ but I don’t know what it was for…
It’s a play on an old Miller Lite Beer commercial that really introduced lite beer to America and has continued in various humorous Miller Lite commercials since 1974. The hallmark of the various incarnations of the Miller Lite TV commercials are that they always degenerate into two people arguing back and forth about the beer’s quality…
Beer Guy 1: “Tastes Great!”
Beer Guy 2: “Less Filling!”
Beer Guy 1: “Tastes Great!”
Beer Guy 2: “Less Filling!”
Beer Guy 1: “Tastes Great!”
Beer Guy 2: “Less Filling!”
Latest 'Tastes Great, Less Filling" controversy
I believe it is one of the top 100 advertising campaigns of the last century and it is deeply ingrained in pop TV culture.
[CORRECTION] I believe it is one of the top 100 most successful advertising campaigns of the last century and it is deeply ingrained in pop TV culture.[/CORRECTION]
Thanks guys, I thought it would be a beer ad somehow.
Why yes it does…pisswater beer 
(well, ok, you have it in the UK you just don’t make the mistake of drinking it as often as we do…)
A more recent incarnation of the ad (seen here - not worksafe) has two buxom ladies who get into a physical wrestling match in a water fountain over the same disagreement.
If I recall correctly, one version of the “Less filling-tastes great” ad had someone offer a third alternative - “Easy-opening can” (which he subsequently struggled to open and ended up removing the entire top).
“I feel strongly both ways.”
Yeah… Miller it is. Interesting pun. But enh, half baked.
That was Bubba Smith, the Colts defensive tackle. IIRC, he didn’t struggle, didn’t even try to pull the tab, just tore the top off the stunt can while smiling and saying “I also love the easy-opening can”.
AFAIK, the NFL and MLB prohibit active players from endorsing alcohol or tobacco, but they have no such hold on retired jocks.
My favorite? The very day after the 1987 NFL strike started, Miller had ads on the air with two groups of men yelling at each other behind a closed door: “Tastes great!” “Less filling!”
I’ve always thought “Less filling” seemed like a rather odd slogan for a beer in and of itself. Has anyone ever complained about beer being too filling? I always wonder about the people on that side of the argument. Why are they so passionate about a beer if that’s the best thing they can say about it?
I remember an old Benson episode that riffed on the same ads. A plane crash stranded the characters in the desert, with only a case of warm beer to sustain them.
Governor: Uggh! It’s warm. It tastes terrible!
Benson: Yeah, but it’s filling.
Governor: But it tastes terrible!
Benson: But it’s filling!
etc.
These ads were meant to deal with a specific problem: Guys who drank light beer were considered… less than manly. It wasn’t enough to claim that the product tasted good. Regular beer tastes good. They had to specify some reason why a regular guy would go for a light beer.
Hence, less filling. Meant you could drink more beer!
Long ago, when I was but a shiny eyed university student, the student union screened some famous porno film featuring Marilyn Chambers. A gentleman friend performed cunnilingus upon her as she lay prone upon a billiard table. At this point the young rascals in the audience began to cheer with one side of the packed theater yelling “Tastes GREAT!” whilst the other side responded with "Less FILLING!"It was perhaps not comedy gold but amusing enough to be remembered lo these many years later. I don’t believe that the usage in Get Fuzzy is quite as timely.
What you say makes a certain amout of sense, Random, but I still don’t see how the campaign could be successful. I don’t hear “less filling” and immediately think–I should buy that, I could drink more of it! How many guys quit drinking beer because they’re full, anyway? I’ve never known anyone who couldn’t get as smashed as he wanted to by drinking beer, just because he got too full from it.
All of the original spokesmen (and they were ALL men) for Miller Lite were famous atheletes. The idea was that you could drink beer and still athletic. This was a much less sophisticated (and probably much more successful) version of the current Michelob Ultra commercials. Remember, this was also in the days that John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis starred in a movie about health clubs, in the very beginning of the fitness craze, roughly the same time period that Jane Fonda’s workout videos were selling millions. Beer bellies were no longer cool, if they ever were. So Miller was selling beer without the beer belly. The “less filling” statement was just a less direct and more euphonious way of working that into a catchphrase.
They also included non-athletes Rodney Dangerfield and Mickey Spillane, and a very non-man Lee Meredith.
I’m actually one of those people. I get sick to my stomach before I get drunk if I drink beer. I have to drink harder stuff.
Deadhead bumpersticker: “Bass Great - Lesh Philling.”
What sport did Ray ‘Jay’ Johnson play?