I loved these commercials when I was a kid. I wasn’t allowed to have a dog in the house (which is probably why I’ve had three Saint Bernard house dogs). Some poor dog would be bewildered by a miniature chuck wagon, then scurries through the home and into the kitchen cabinet or tv after it.
In 1967, Purina launched “Chuck Wagon” as their latest dog food innovation. Packaged as dry dog food, adding warm water would rehydrate the serving to some extent, as well as cause the meal to produce its own gravy
The commercials had a Western theme, playing into Chuck Wagon’s branding as a hearty, wholesome meal for dogs. The animated mini chuck wagon would appear from unexpected places—such as behind a cabinet door, under a table, or from inside a dog food bag…creating a playful and imaginative effect. I can’t tell you how much this worked during that time period.
In some shots, stop-motion animation was used, where the wagon was moved frame by frame to give the illusion of self-propelled motion. In other cases, puppetry techniques such as invisible wires or rods helped guide the wagon across the floor.
Now… this was hard to believe but in 1983 Atari released a video game based on this commercial called “Chase the Chuckwagon.“
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I forgot about those commercials – they were fun! Not for the dogs, apparently- that chuck wagon always got away!
I grew up near a Purina factory- people tended to hate it because you could smell it from some ways away, but I didn’t mind the smell and thought it was a very cool complex, with silos painted their red-ad-white checkerboard and a rail siding running into it.
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They were a lot of fun…always wanted that dog to catch it lol. I thought you were going to say it smelled but it sounds like it looked cool.
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I didn’t know Chuck Wagon was around that long. Of course, the only dog we had was a foul-tempered Lhasa Apso who wouldn’t eat dry food, and if you gave him canned food he’d get the runs, so we only gave him Gaines Burgers…
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We had an Irish Setter when I was a kid who mostly ate table scraps… The Saint Bernards have ate dry food with no problem.
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I too had forgotten about these highly entertaining commercials! Very interesting the effect of advertising has on us all.
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My last dog, Bear, would’ve caught the wagon. He caught a bird out of mid air, so I am positive that wagon would’ve been a piece of cake. LOL
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LOL… he might have you never know! That is pretty impressive…out of mid air!
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And I forgot to add the vet bill was over $1000 since he got sick as a result of it. 😂
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Geez…naturally.
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Cool! 😎
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I forgot about those ads. I loved ’em, as seemingly everybody did. Nowadays they could have made a pretty penny tying it in to collectibles – little chuckwagon models and RC car versions and all. When did they stop that series of commercials, do you know?
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I think they stopped it in the 1980s… the mid to late is when the seventies went away. You are right…it would have worked out great!
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Fun to remember these ads! I didn’t know there was a video game.
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Yea I didn’t know that either about the game.
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We never had that advert here in the UK. It’s a strange name for a dog food 🙂
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Yes it is…it’s still sold here as well.
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LOL! I remember these!!
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Don’t know if I remember the puppy one. They are adorable. They look like Bloodhounds. The voiceover on that one sounds like William Schallert, who played Patty Duke’s father, and was in the Tribbles episode of Star Trek
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I loved these commercials and others at the time.
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Fun commercials that were new to me!
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