Commercial – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

He Likes It! Hey Mikey!

Hello everyone!

I ordinarily don’t like commercials. I do like it when they try to be at least entertaining… This commercial has stayed in pop culture for over 50 years now. The commercial was created by the Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) advertising agency. This Life cereal commercial appeared in 1972 and ran until 1984. It was one of the longest-running commercials in history.

I grew up watching Mikey’s brothers trying to get their brother who hates everything to eat the supposedly healthy Life Cereal. The phrase “Hey Mikey!” entered pop culture as a phrase used for unexpected approval of something.

Mikey was portrayed by John Gilchrist, and he is alive now and doing fine despite the urban legend that he died. A false rumor spread in the 1980s that John Gilchrist (Mikey) had died from eating Pop Rocks and drinking soda. This was completely untrue. He was alive and well.

Yes, word got around that the kid who played Mikey bought the farm by eating “pop rocks” and drinking soda. His stomach then exploded because of the lethal combination. A friend of his family actually called his mother in tears, saying she was so sorry about the loss of her son…when in reality he just got home from school.

What is interesting about the commercial is that the two kids playing his brothers are John Gilchrist’s brothers in real life.

John today is Director of Media Sales at MSG Network and is living a happy life with his wife and kids…and yes he still enjoys Life Cereal.

Hey Kid, Catch Commercial

If I had to name my favorite commercials, it would be a really short list. This Mean Joe Greene and Kid commercial would top the shortlist, though. People talk about famous Super Bowl commercials. This one is probably remembered the most. I loved it as a kid…watching Mean Joe Greene, who just by name alone would scare you…but to see him as a kind person giving a kid a jersey? It made me root for the Steelers at the time…although I pulled for the Rams in the Super Bowl…that didn’t help.

This ad debuted on October 1, 1979. It showed an injured Mean Joe headed for the locker room to encounter a star-struck kid (Tommy Okon) who offered Mean Joe a coke. Greene eventually took the coke and while limping away pitched his jersey to the kid.

The commercial spot aired repeatedly through Superbowl XIV where the Steelers beat the Rams 31-19. It took 3 days to film the commercial and Joe ended up drinking around 18 cokes to finish it.

When Greene found out Tommy Okon didn’t get to keep the jersey from the commercial, he mailed him an autographed jersey for Christmas. This says a lot about Greene’s character. Why didn’t the commercial people let the kid keep the jersey?

Coke looked at Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, and teammate Jack Lambert but Joe Greene won out. The right man got the job. The commercial helped to soften Joe Greene’s reputation. Before it aired, Greene said people were intimidated by him. This is a quote from Greene. “I was suddenly approachable, little kids were no longer afraid of me, and older people – both women and men – would come up and offer me a Coke.”

It was directed by Roger Mosconi, and produced by McCann Erickson for Coca-Cola. Tommy Okon was a nine-year-old child actor at the time. It was later remade multiple times, including versions featuring soccer star Zico in Brazil and other athletes worldwide.

Greene was injured at the time of filming. His limping in the commercial wasn’t entirely an act…he had been dealing with real knee pain. Between that and all the soda he drank, he later joked that it was one of the toughest things he had done in his career.

It also should be said how popular the Steelers were in the 1970s. They were the first team to win 4 Super Bowls and were without a defeat. They had one of the best defenses ever, and their offense was run by Terry Bradshaw. By this time, the team was aging, and they would win their 3rd Super Bowl against the Rams a few months after the commercial was filmed. They are considered one of the greatest teams in the NFL ever. Greene was nearing the end of his career. He was drafted in 1969 and would retire in 1981.

Reunion 36 years later.

Purina Chuckwagon Commercials

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.“