A Pastille in the Works: ITV (Central) Continuity and adverts, April 1993

Via Rhys Marshall and Sam Briggs, here's some stuff from on or near a showing of The Goonies on ITV Central in 1993. Not sure when in 1993, though; around Easter, judging by some of the adverts. We start before the movie with a brief clip of the end of a trailer for Agatha Christie's Parrot. This is followed by a promo for Central itself depicting some of its hit Light Ents shows and personalities, before resolving into a decidedly odd and confusing animated logo that seems to have been created primarily to have an excuse to play with the technology. Fair enough. And then a Central ident introduces the film, except because this is Central it's a random pastel-shaded animation of vaguely child-related imagery that doesn't contain the Cake or anything similar, or the word Central, but serves perfectly well as a backdrop to the announcer introducing the Goonies. Twenty odd minutes later, it's Telly Selly Time, rather jarringly in the middle of something. We start with the continuing adventures of Nigel Hawthorne and Tom Conti as the slapstick-prone unspecified Vauxhall executive and dogsbody. They'd been going through this shtick on behalf of the Astra since 1991, and would continue to do so until 1996, in spite of Hawthorne's protestations that "this is the end". Apparently his curiously unspecified job includes inventing, naming and marketing the Choices-1-2-3 payment plan, and Conti's job involves doing something extraordinarily stupid to ruin it before the riff from Layla plays us out as usual. We don't see a single Astra or learn what Choices-1-2-3 consists of, so good job there. Next: Hale and Pace. I've always found these guys too likeable to truly resent for not being funny. Here they are as what I suppose are their signature characters, The Two Rons (aka The Management). No, it's not Guy Fawkes' Night. They also advertised breathstank chewsweets Clorets, for no obvious reason except that they were popular TV characters so why not. The breath freshener with Actizol! Which is like Retsyn in that it's basically a made-up word that sounds good in the advert. Except with chlorophyll. Then, a real treat, or possibly threat: genuinely one of the most remarkably shit adverts I think I've ever uploaded. Some sort of gathering of twats is going on; our host puts on a looping MIDI of Rule Britannia and says it's great music for reasons beyond the realm of normal human understanding. Meanwhile, an advert for the Britannia music club is going around and around on the TV screen like an IPCRESS File brainwashing reel. The host starts to ruminate on a Utopian vision of being able to buy recorded music at whim. The rest writes itself, really. All shot on bog-standard sitcom videotape. It's a wonder the Britannia Music Club was a success at all, really, with advertising like this. They did also sponsor the Brit Awards (that's why they're called that), but that's hardly a byword for hipness in 1993 either. I'm ashamed to admit my family were in the Club in the mid 1990s, although God knows why as it was one of the more obvious direct marketing rip-offs: after snaring an introductory offer of four CDs for a quid each, you were then obligated to buy a further nine in two years, at full price, or they'd break your thumbs. Next: Minnie Driver's armpits do not smell bad. How reassuring. Ms Driver still has a few years of adverts and hovering around the Morris/Coogan/Ianucci comedy set before getting an Oscar nomination. Hollywood had to be gently persuaded, because she's extremely attractive in an unconventional way, and that scares them even more than a woman with a mind of her own, which is another thing she is. Why wait till next year, when (it's just been announced) the actual National Lottery gets started? You can play newspaper bingo right now, and the Daily Mail (and Mail on Sunday) has discovered that the term "National Lottery" isn't trademarked yet! Win a canteloupe! Or whatever, you've got to buy the Daily Mail so it's not worth it whatever it is. Enya! No, it isn't, it's just a bespoke library music approximation, but that's the general idea. Plinky keys, heavy moog strings and ethereal vocals were still synonymous with a sort of watery natural freshness at the time, even five years after Orinoco Flow, and so here a faux-Brennanish quasi-ambient exercise in breathiness soundtracks the usual red-clad headless aerobics for Special K. Very good for you, Special K. Keeps you fit. And it makes you poo regularly. They rarely bring that up in the adverts, though. Then, it's the Pilsbury Doughboy! He's not as ubiquitous here as in America - he couldn't dislodge Fred the Flourgrader - but he popped 'n' freshed over once in a while. Here he's creepily watching some little girls make turnovers with his readymade frozen dough. Pop 'n' Fresh is probably the most realistic thing in the whole advert. Finally, Fruit Pastilles. Because children are watching. A sort of cross between Wonka and Bertha, really.