Yes, she looks so happy as she irons her life away for her family. Mary Alice would be so proud!

Last week in a conversation we were having in the comments section of one of her posts, Merby quoted the opening line to the classic Tennessee Ernie Ford song “Sixteen Tons”.  I was able to respond with the second line, and then tried to figure out why I knew either line to the song since I am fairly certain I’ve never actually heard Sixteen Tons in full before.  It hit me that it was from one of those many compilation album commercials that populated the ad time on the airwaves when I was younger, so I went in search of that ad on You Tube since I couldn’t even recall any exact details about it.  When I found it, every cheesy thing about that commercial came back to me!  Lord, I must have seen this a thousand times back in 1989-1990….

Nostalgia is nothing new.  While I, and many of my readers in the thirty-something (or wannabe thirty-something) age bracket pine for the good old days of the 80’s and 90’s… three decades ago, the thirty-somethings of the 1980’s were longing for the days of the 50’s and 60’s.  And this commercial is chock full of nostalgia….

When the government didn’t shut down…

Mom! What is she doing with all of those chocolates?

Now that you’re in that swingin’ fifties mood….

Ah yes, it just screams the Fifties!  Records, hula hoops, sock hops, and of course, two fucking CD’s…

To drive home the nostalgia concept albums like this were designed around, for each of the ad’s feature songs, they had real old fogies from the 80’s burst into song and dance while in everyday situations.  While Milli Vanilli gave shitty lip-synching a bad name the very same year “The Unforgettable Fifties” was released, the certified middle-aged thespians going to town on the old ditties in the ad for Heartland Music’s four platters full of memories made not having to remember all the words look so epic!

Thank you, and God Bless!

For the first song, “Sh-Boom”, Heartland found these three out of work televangelists who probably travel the revival circuit as some brother act.  The brother in the middle is entirely too excited to be singing this song that 80’s children only remember from the awesome movie “Clue”, while the dude on the right seems to realize that by just mouthing Satan’s music, they’re all going to Hell in a handbasket and will probably have to give up one night at the brothel in an attempt to repent for their sins.

What could be more heartwarming than inviting mom and grandma along with you to help pick out some new lingerie?

A family shopping trip at some upscale panties outlet is the scene for this endearing rendition of the McGuire Sisters’ “Sincerely”.  The chick on the right keeps up rather well with her elders, but there is no way she has ever heard of this song before, or the McGuire sisters for that matter.  She more than likely has a Poison cassette in that purse that’s hiding a snakeskin skirt…

Could you please just refill my wine before I forget to leave a tip?

For Dean Martin’s signature tune “That’s Amore”, we are treated to an annoying waitress who just got fired from The Waffle House but forgot to turn in her uniform as she serenades Bea Arthur and her date.  The guy is so far gone from the mickey Bea slipped into his drink, that the server from Hell has no effect on him, but Maude looks like she’s about ready to bitchslap the big mouth…

Who wants to squeeze the melons?

As far as my generation is concerned, “Mr. Sandman” is that 50’s sounding song they wrote for Back To The Future.  But our grandmothers used to get down to groups like The Chordettes all the time while shopping for those nasty veggies they kept serving and re-serving our parents until they cleaned their plates.  This one gets creepy once the grocer behind them joins in on the world’s worst flash mob.  Now I know where Marlene gets all those wild stories from…

Meet the teachers at Creepy As Shit Junior High…

Yes my fellow 80’s children, Bobby Brown wasn’t the only one who told us not to be cruel.  You may have heard of this guy named Elvis Presley, and he also had a pretty big hit by that title.  To sing this little slice of Skinny Elvis for us, we have Ms. Furburger and Mr. Happyhands from the special education department together for a duet.  These are the teachers you are so glad were forced into early retirement by budget cuts before your kids also had to put up with their sick asses….

Ma’am, this is the express lane. Ma’am? Ma’am??? Security to Lane Seven, please!

Here’s the song that got this commercial in the Retro Ad Tuesday spotlight, and where else to sing a song about how much life totally sucks than in the checkout line of a supermarket, where we’ve all spent many agonizing hours watching the parade of human stupidity in front of us.  You’re not the only one getting older and deeper in debt, bitch, so are the sixteen customers waiting on your slow ass to find your checkbook…

Prozac must be on the menu.

Ahhh, who couldn’t possibly help by smile and happily sing along to Doris Day?  Even the old folks in the back who thought Benny Goodman was the shit have to turn around and join in the lip synching fun.  Whatever will be, will be.  Put that in your free will pipe and smoke it, Rush…

The Enchantment Under the Sea Dance it is not…

Apparently by this point, Heartland Music ran out of money to pay whatever is union scale for lip synching actors, so they just ran stock footage of some old 50’s prom over Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa”.  Too bad, because it would have been cute to see this song being performed by a police officer and motorist during a traffic stop for drugs, or maybe by a group of mourners at Aunt Bertha’s funeral…

Sugartime starts when we get inside the house!

Oh wait, they found two more people on this earth who apparently remember the McGuire Sisters!  This charming couple cheerfully sing about Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, and sugar at supper time.  Ah, the miracle of modern medicine!  With Viagra, every time is now sugartime for them!!!!

Ice cream is never a problem now thanks to Polygrip!

To cap off this tribute to the decade of innocence, we have these two recent AARPers wailing over “Volare” while the ice cream they bought in an attempt to recapture a moment from their youth melts all over the place.  Notice there are 21 more songs they didn’t include in the list.  The commercial for every compilation album out there always had some number of unlisted songs to make it look like you were getting so much more than they could show during their allotted ad time they bought.  Needless to say, the 21 songs that were kept away from the singing dumbasses in this commercial are so thoroughly wretched or unremembered that they actually drag down everything else on the album.  It’s like buying some artist’s new CD based on one song on the radio you like, and then finding out the rest of the tracks are some of the shittiest “music” you’ve ever heard… completely ruining the whole CD.

What a bargain! And you get 21 MORE songs!!!

Since this commercial was aired during that magical time period of the late 80’s when CD’s were first starting to take hold, but records hadn’t totally been reduced to a tampon box in the attic, you could own this unforgettable collection on three different media!  Notice that “Compact discs” was so new, it hadn’t even been reduced to just “CD” yet.  Of course, this was also an era before corporations had this asinine idea that they should cleverly shorten their names to something that no longer makes any sense…

Excuse me, but have any of you seen the Federal Express truck? I have an urgent package to send to Kentucky Fried Chicken…

And thus concludes The Nest’s tribute to the compilation album of oldies but goodies.  Our parents may have been foolish enough to pay for shipping and handling so they could rock out all day long to the McGuire Sisters, but we can cut them some slack since back then they couldn’t just download music or listen to it on YouTube for the low price of $0.00.  Needless to say, our generation would never spend perfectly good cash money just to get our fix of the music we fondly remember from the days when we were rocking the parachute pants and dancing on top of police cars.  Well, OK, we totally would….

And 21 more bands you’ve never heard of before!