You all reminded me of a lot. Here are some that may not have been mentioned:
Remember the guy who shared a medicine cabinet with the next-door neighbor?
Mommy! Call Hamden BElmont –Five oh six oh-oh! (Baltimore laundry firm)
Hey Kids! Get off that couch! (for clear vinyl furniture covers)
Libby the kid, that is Billy the Kid spelled sideways, sorta
Today is the day the man from DelMonts comes.
Mabel… Black Label
VW commercial… how the guy plowing the streets got to his job
Cigarettes pushed as soothing and good for your throat.
Dancing(chesterfield?) cigarette packs with Mary Tyler Moores legs
What was Farfel?
Jello commercials that tried to use subliminal advertising
Alcoa aluminum which Alistair Cooke called Al U Min I Um
Hey, we just had a thread on the YouTube link It’s the second ad in the clip.
My earliest memory: of course, when the knight on horseback’s lance struck, it only changed the brand of laundry soap the woman was holding, but I still remember the inherent menace in the image of a massive, faceless horseman charging down the street, slaughtering middle-age women in housedresses.
lowbrass beat me to Iron Eyes Cody crying over the pollution. That’s about the earliest one I can remember. Around the same time was Woodsy Owl with his “Give a hoot! Don’t Pollute” message.
A couple from AFRTS (American Forces Radio & Television Service) in Germany stand out:
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A chubby soldier who can barely keep up with the others during PT and pigs out at the mess hall. It finishes up with the warning “A fork can kill – and WILL kill”. No, I’m not making this up.
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The anti-smoking commercial that played It Was A Very Good Year and finished up with a little girl throwing dirt on her daddy’s grave.
**“I win!”
“Where? I don’t see it.”
"See, here… diagonally."
“Pretty sneaky, sis!”
**
Vaccination PSAs from the mid 1960s. They were cartoons with characters various diseases:
Roly Polio: Rolled around in a wheelchair, also carrying a crutch. In one PSA, some kids are playing ball. The ball goes over the fence and into a puddle. Roly Polio is right there, rolling it around with his crutch, presumably infecting the kid.
Locky Lockjaw: Very stiff character with closed eyes and a teeth-baring grimace/grin, arms stiffly carryed behind him.
Dippy Diphtheria and Whoopy Whooping cough. Don’t remember them too well, but I belive Dippy flew around infecting kids.
The dog who said “Chaaaw-clat” at the end of “N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestles makes the very best” commercials. Then his mouth would shut with a loud snap.
One of the earliest I remember was for Colgate Dental Cream with Gardol. The “insible protective shield” fascinated me - especially the guy standing in front of the driving range, and the golf ball hit right at him would bounce off the shield. I SO wanted one of those shields for MY mouth, but we used Crest. 
You beat me to the punch with that one, so I’ll counter with:You’ll wonder where the yellow went
When you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!I also recall “Speedy” Alka Seltzer (I think he had a dog, but I’m not sure), Peter Pain (the nemesis of Ben Gay), and the “Tension, Pressure, Pain” ad for Anacin.
We didn’t get a television until 1951 or thereabouts, but this thread caused me to have a very clear flashback of being curled up on the floor listening to a detective story (Sherlock Holmes?) on the radio. I imagine it must have been a network broadcast, because the sponsor was a New York City men’s store.
*Call WESTPORT-One-Seven-One Hundred!
And get a free silver dollar with your estimate.*
I live right down the street from them!
That is one of the earliest I remember too. There was also:
*
“Midwestern Builders
Will build your home
For the lowest price in town
Call 321-2277
Anytime night or day”*
That is permanently burned into my brain, there is no erasing it.
And:
*
“Here, Dog, C’mon Dog
Me and Dog want you to go to
Dick Smith Ford Tooown
In Raytooown
Get a good deeeal!
Get a dog-GONE good deal!”*
These are the commercials that would play ad nauseum in the late afternoon after we got home from school and were watching cartoons. Strangely I don’t remember many “national” commercials from that era.
Being originally from the Chicago area, I too remember seeing Empire’s commercials. They’re nationwide now.
Also, circa 1976: “Everything I think I see/looks like a Tootsie Roll to me!”
Ooooh…anyone who grew up in Central Pennsylvania in the 60s/70s remember the commercials for Sam’s Furniture in Phillipsburg. They had these mariachi marionettes and the song ended “at Saaaaaaaaaaam’s…Phillipsburg!”
Any old Buffalonians here?
Remember about 1969, when PSAs came on introducing 911 service?
One had a burglar doing a B & E, the other a swimmer being carried ashore?
Those were both my dad. He also produced the spots for a small local production house.
One morning in 1970 he got to the shop and the Feds were waiting to question him - turned out the business had been a money laundering operation.
Ovaltine.
Tom Corbet, space Cadet, mixing up and drinking a cup of this vile brown liquid, and smacking his lips.
<<<<<shiver>>>>>
Also, Andy Divine (as Jingles) actually singing the Kellogg’s Sugar Corn Pops jingle.
<<<<<shiver>>>>>
Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!
Tris
Any old Buffalonians here?
Remember about 1969, when PSAs came on introducing 911 service?
One had a burglar doing a B & E, the other a swimmer being carried ashore?
Those were both my dad. He also produced the spots for a small local production house.
One morning in 1970 he got to the shop and the Feds were waiting to question him - turned out the business had been a money laundering operation.
One I recall circa 1965-7? was a Dial Soap (I think?) commercial where everyone who used the product walked around about 3 feet above the ground.
I was young enough to believe that if I could convince my parents to buy some of that soap I’d be able to walk in the air…so 3-4 years old probably.
Among the earliest TV commercials I remember:
Geritol
Carter’s Little Liver Pills
Bufferin (with the animation showing how the B’s are absorbed much faster than the A’s)
Lava soap with William Bendix. Not sure if it was on his show “The Life of Riley” or elsewhere.
This is a radio ad, but I have to mention it. I heard it in Chicago a zillion times, but I didn’t know Thurl Ravenscroft was the “rapper” until I found it after his death. http://members.aol.com/allthurl/ram/zfrank.ram
The spot was for Alka-Seltzer. A man with a thick Italian accent is on the set of a fictional pasta sauce ad and keeps messing up his line (“Mamma mia, that’s a speecy…”). He goes through so many takes, he ends up getting heartburn. Two Alka-Seltzers* later, the man finally says “Mamma mia, that’s a spicy meatball!”…and then the oven door falls off.
Regarding Alka-Seltzer spots, it should be pointed out that the aforementioned “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” spot was revisited a couple years ago with Doris Roberts and the late Peter Boyle as the couple…except Boyle said “I don’t believe I ate the whole thing.”
[sub]*Sales of Alka-Seltzer went up in the '60s after the manufacturers discovered two of them did a more effective job than just one. Hence the jingle “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is.”[/sub]
Here you go. http://www.tvparty.com/video7/mrbubble.rm
I vaguely remember those ads. Didn’t it make you wonder what they put in the soap (and if it was legal)?
Mrs. Olson for Mountain Grown Folger’s Coffee.