They’re all too damned far away from me, since our local one closed in 2020. Grrrrrr . . .
I had two electric beer signs in my dorm room in college, both from the G. Heileman Brewing Company: one for Old Style, and one for Special Export. Both of the signs had the “moving water” effect – the Old Style sign had a waterfall, while the Special Export sign showed a sailing ship on the sea.
Both worked the same way: there was a textured clear plastic disc behind the picture “plate,” but in front of the light bulb. When you turned on the sign, the light would turn on, and the disc would begin to slowly spin. The “water” on the picture was painted with a translucent paint (the rest of the paint was more opaque), and the light passing through the moving, textured disc would make the “water” area shimmer.
Edit: this is what the Old Style sign looked like. You can kind of make out the shape of the disc, as that area is a bit darker than the rest of the sign. Looking at this picture, I think that the “Old Style” letters in the brand logo at the bottom of the sign also had the shimmering effect.
Edit #2: This is the Special Export sign.
@silenus: great pic. Ahh, yes, it’s all coming back to me now.
I like the fact the person is wearing latex or nitrile gloves. The better to preserve this priceless civilizational heirloom artifact; wouldn’t do to get finger oils on it.
@kenobi_65: 6yo me puzzled on that a lot. 10yo me figured it out pretty readily. Excellent explanation though.
The Hamms signs functioned the same way, being from the land of sky blue water and all that fine marketing-speak.
I miss the Hamm’s bear much more than I miss the beer.
Hamdingers! Not just something made up by MST3K.
Patrick Cudahay’s short-lived answer to Hormel’s Spam, was actually a superior product, but failed not in that comparison but because it couldn’t compete with the Oscar Mayer juggernaut of similar, more affordable cold cuts.
The wholesale reimagining of the US beer market has cost us some beloved spokescritters. 40 years ago regional breweries had some greats: the Hamm’s bear, the wild Rainiers, etc. Those mostly went away after the Great Consolidation of Breweries in the 80s. Which in its turn fueled the craft beer industry. Better beer but bears begone. Bah!
I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal drink beer than bears.
This, and in the late '80s and early '90s, popular spokescritters for adult products, like Spuds McKenzie and Joe Camel, were also very popular among kids. This caused the FTC to step in, reasoning that the spokescritters were, in effect, marketing beer and cigarettes to minors. I don’t think that the Hamm’s Bear would pass regulatory muster today.
Put a porkpie hat on him and he’s Yogi.
I know I’ve seen the waterfall one. I didn’t remember it being Lucky Lager, although I do remember the beer. The Hamm’s sign had a lake? Or something like that.
Me, either, but I do remember Lucky Strike cigarettes, those, and Camels were what my dad mostly smoked.
I loved the Hamm’s bear!
There was a Rainier commercial with frogs croaking “Rainier” and “beer”; years later there was a similar ad with frogs croaking “bud”, “weis”, and “er”.
I always thought the furor over Joe Camel was a bit overblown. There was some survey that said he was recognized as much by seven-year-olds as was Mickey Mouse. Adults were aghast, but Mickey was an icon from their childhood. At the time the survey was done, there hadn’t been any new Mickey Mouse cartoons for years. I think the survey showed the decline in his popularity at least as much as the rise of Joe Camel.
Using a cartoon to advertise cigarettes is rather scummy, and I shed no tears for Joe Camel, but the way it played out missed some context.
So true… not to mention the cool jingle.
The beer was… not terrible.
I don’t recall that, but I don’t doubt it. Rainier’s ads were genius. The “motorcycle” as was perfect.
TIL the Budweiser frogs were not an original idea
Rainier Frogs (1980’s)
Budweiser Frogs (1995)
This was considered the best beer ad of all time;;
I don’t know the particulars of that study but I think it misses the point. Joe Camel wasn’t bad because he was as popular as MM, but because he was specifically targeted youth. And at that, he was very successful. Plus Micky wasn’t selling deadly habits. Maybe the same could be said for earlier mascots, but to my mind, JC was way more aggressive. The furor might have been well founded.
As I recall, “as recognized as Mickey Mouse” was something of a cause celebre at the time. The commercials had been running for some time (that’s how he became so recognizable). It was the same character, targetting the same demographic, but it wasn’t until that survey was released that there was a backlash.
When those commercials were playing I use to take the labels off of Budweiser bottles and make origami frogs out of them. Things to do at a bar.
Your facts are a little conflated. According to Wiki, “In 1991, the Journal of the American Medical Association published research indicating that the Joe Camel ad campaign was appealing to children. They found that Joe Camel and the Disney Channel logo were recognized equally among six-year-olds, high school students were more familiar with him than adults, and that Camel’s market share among youth smokers had sharply risen.”
It wasn’t MM, it was the current Disney logo. The inference being that he did, indeed, speak to kids.