Two Ways to Win in the Ring...

What's the ad for?
WrestleMania for the NES
Year
1989

Spotted on the back of...

The Scoop

 

3-2-1 Contact

What's the ad for?
3-2-1 Contact, the TV show.
Year
1988

Spotted in

The Scoop

Interesting fact, David Quinn, the curly haired kid with the glasses on the far right, co-founded allrecipes.com.

That is all...

Tournament of Thrills featuring Daredevil Dan

What's the ad for?
SSP Tournament of Thrills playset by Kenner
Year
1976

Spotted in

The Scoop

Made by Kenner, these cars had a ripcord that you pulled to make the wheels spin up to a reported 20,000 rpm (don't ask my source). This set was one of many. As a kid I had a crash up derby set. As you can guess these cars ended up getting pretty beaten up so a car or set in good shape can fetch a decent price on eBay.

Operation Wolf

What's the ad for?
Operation Wolf for the NES
Year
1989

Spotted in

The Scoop

As a kid I used to sneak into an arcade called Fridays to play Operation Wolf. It was a unique game for it's time as you played the game by shooting a life-sized Uzi!

Friday's was the only arcade in town that had Operation Wolf. The arcade was dark and had loud music playing. It was the"older kids" arcade. I mean, you could probably buy pot from somebody there.

(see photo below)

 

. As a result our folks didn't allow us to go there.We had to go to the arcade attached to the comic shop. It was an okay arcade but after awhile you get tired of playing Contra and Double Dragon. We wanted to play the new games, games like Operation Wolf. I was pretty happy to see the game come out on the NES...yet it wasn't quiet the same. Maybe it was the added danger of playing the game in the older kids arcade.

Spider-Man meets June Jitsui!

What's the ad for?
Twinkies
Year
1979

Spotted in

The Scoop

As requested by a reader, here is an ad for a Hostess product called Twinkies. I think we all know what a Twinkie is and I think we all remember these ads featured in both Marvel and DC comics. I know Curt Swan did a lot of the art in the DC ads but what about Marvel ones such as this one? Mike Esposito perhaps? And how about the villain June Jitsui? Besides having a cleaver name she actually appeared in Marvel continuity thanks to an issue of Fin Fang Four Return! The appearance is described below. Courtesy of  http://www.marvunapp.com.

"The robot Elektro, mistakenly identified as a villain and arrested, was ushered into the prison's S-Wing where he met various past Spider-Man villains, including June Jitsui. Later, inspired by Elektro's defiance, she and the other inmates of S-Wing smashed their way out only to be subdued by the prison guards using sedation foam."

Ad Suggestions

Are there any ads that you would like to be featured? An ad that has stuck in your head for the last 20 plus years? Let me know and I will try to track the ad down and include any interesting tidbits I can find on it. Either leave a comment or email me at fourcolorpromises@gmail.com

TurboGrafx-16

What's the ad for?
TurboGrafx-16 video game console
Year
1990

Spotted in

The Scoop

I remember being pretty impressed with by ads for the TurboGrafx-16 system when it first came out. 

 

 

Not because it seemed better it's contemporaries, Nintendo and Sega, but because it seemed exotic. No one I knew had one. Then while keeping my cousin company while she was babysitting, I got to try Keith Courage in Alpha Zones . The household had a TurboGrafx-16 and she called me over to play it with her once she had put the kids to sleep. The first thing I noticed was that there was only one port for a control pad. What kind of video game console has only one controller? In reality you could have up to five people playing the system but you needed to buy an additional peripheral called the the Turbo Tap. I didn't know that and I wasn't impressed.

 

The system didn't do that well in North America and ranked number four in sales behind the Sega Genesis, SNES and even the older but still popular NES.  In the end TurboGrafx-16 didn't have a Mario or Sonic. They only had Bonk and let's face it...he wasn't that cool.

 

The third party support for games wasn't at the level of Sega and Nintendo. Software developers did not want to take a chance on developing games for the system until it became more popular yet in turn the system would not become more popular without the software. Ironically enough, you can now buy TurboGrafx-16 games for the Nintendo Wii virtual console.

The Power of Karate At Your Fingertips

What's the ad for?
Karate Kid Tri-Action Figures and playsets
Year
1987

Spotted in

The Scoop

Check out the site Metal Misfit for some great photos of the toys. Meanwhile here is the commercial that aired in the Eighties.

Heroes helping Heroes

What's the ad for?
"A Time for Heroes" by Meatloaf single.
Year
1987

Spotted in

The Scoop

Wow, what a bad song, but I guess it was for a good cause, the 1987 International Summer Special Olympic Games. Meatloaf teamed up with Brian May of  Queen fame. It's a steamer. The art in the ad is horrendous too. Ah well. Listen to the song below.

Web of Gold

What's the ad for?
Web of Gold, the board game

Year
1990

Spotted in

The Scoop

Web of Gold was released by TSR in 1987. It looks like it was a simple pick up and deliver game. Game components look cool but game play is reportedly lame...

Image courtesy of boardgamegeek.com

Format change in the new year

Happy New Years everyone. I will be changing the release dates for new blog posts to Tuesdays and Thursdays. I hope you have enjoyed the adverts I've posted in the past year. My goal is to construct a repository of sorts for all comic book adverts...or at least most of them. See you all on Tuesday.