The Hall of Famers from 2000:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wj-D5iF0oc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOeS9K4-7C0

Other greats include the QTV ‘Danster’ campaign, Heinz ‘Two Minutes’, Lynx ‘Shaver‘, Monster.co.uk ‘Voices’, Stella ‘Hero’s Return’, Audi ‘Wakeboarder’, Skoda ‘Factory’, Weetabix ‘Black Beauty’, Aristoc ‘Subtitles’, Metz ‘Judderman’, VW ‘Smile‘ and Reebok ‘Belly’.

I think that 2000 was the greatest ever year for British TV advertising. Several of the ‘greats’ could also be classics, depending on your opinion, but there’s 18 ads up there and they’re all exceptionally good.

Here’s the 1999 Hall of Fame selection:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zff9hVH3ptY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB9s3Ar2nd8

Others of that year include BA ‘PJ O’Rourke’ and the ones I couldn’t find online: Land Rover ‘Releasing an animal into the wild but it’s actually a car’, Olympus ‘Joan Collins’.

Not such a good year, that one. Maybe everyone spent the whole time pissed to celebrate the new millennium.

Here are 1998’s Hall of Famers:

Other greats from the same year: Supernoodles ‘Baby’, and ‘Wasted Away’, Scalextric ‘Birth’, Yellow Pages ‘Burglary’ and I couldn’t find Lego ‘Box’, BT ‘When you’re on a lampost’, Lynx ‘The one where the two people are standing next to each other on the tube’ or Sony ‘The one where the donut sign falls down’ online.  Sorry about that.

Those of us who were around at the time might recall that this was a year when people complained about the dominance of the US, with their quite violent ads being given an unfair advantage through laxer BACC-type regulations, and by the fact that no one had seen them before and therefore their humour was fresher on the day.

But as you can see, the UK produced some real crackers that stand the test of time quite brilliantly.

Hello dear reader,

Tomorrow I will be going to the United States of America for a holiday (in case you’re interested, it’s ten years since I got married in Las Vegas and will be renewing my vows with my lovely wife. Ah, who’d have thought that we’d have made it this far? We actually got engaged after knowing each other for just five days, so there were a few doubtful faces back then. If you were one such doubter: in your face, motherfucker. Anyway, here we are a decade on with two lovely kids and all that jazz. Hooray). If you think that means you can burgle my flat, you are sorely mistaken. There will be a constant supply of builders, neighbours, catsitters and house guests to fend off your thievery, and if you get past them I will hunt you down and pay a really clumsy man to turn your anus into a toolshed.

But you don’t care about that. You care about how you’re going to waste those bloggy hours of the day without a juicy bit of ITIABTWC action to keep you satisfied.

Fear not! I have pre-prepared a whole load of posts to keep you going in my absence. All I have to do is hit the ‘publish’ button and ten minutes of pointless timewastery will be beamed directly into your desktop, lap top or smartphone.

It’s basically going to be a continuation of the Hall of Fame, which will hopefully serve as a little trip down memory lane for those of us who were ‘there’, and an educational resource for the youngsters.

I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

Bx

PS: if you’re in LA/Vegas over the next couple of weeks, drop me a line. I’ll stand you a margarita at the Sky Bar/Bellagio.

For anyone interested, here’s the ad (V/O is Richard Dreyfuss):

(Thanks, T, for the email.)

The scale of the Universe.

There Will Be Blood for the SNES.

Surprisingly engaging gears and cogs:

Amazing folded paper art (thanks to K for all three).

The real Masterchef Final (Thanks, J):

Do any readers under the age of thirty appreciate this?:

I was reading something quite embarrassing on the weekend (I think it might have been the Style section of the Sunday Times), but there was something in it that I thought might be blogworthy:

I think it said that Alain de Boton tweeted that your job is worth doing if it reduces someone’s suffering or increases their joy.

And I suppose, by extension, that means your job is not worth doing if it does the opposite of those two things.

Both categories can of course encompass advertising.

Your work can annoy and degrade people. It can belittle them, make them feel awkward and inadequate; inspire insecurity, misery, bullying and fear. It can make people’s children resent them; it can promote obesity, indolence, ignorance and profligacy.

On the other hand, it can comfort, encourage, educate and broaden horizons. it can inspire creativity, make people realise their potentials, save lives and reduce suffering.

In almost every brief you have the choice to do one of the above, and that is a rare and wonderful privilege.

Striving for intelligence, tolerance, warmth, understanding and the promotion of the kinds of values that make the world a better place is a noble way to spend your working life.

Undermining any of that is wrong.

You only have a certain amount of time on this planet.

Perhaps this can all be distilled into a single simple phrase:

Don’t be a cunt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVx_NNiVQXw&feature=youtu.be

My enjoyment of it is hampered by the fact that I absolutely fucking hate that fuckfaced talent vacuum, Danny Minogue.

Yes, I know I’ve spelled her name wrong.

It’s because I hate her.

Fuck off Dan Minohg you bucket of kangaroos’ anuses.

I hope Santa shits down your chimney into your mouth.

I really like this, and not just because the boy in the cap at the start is my son, the babe in arms is my daughter and their ‘mum’ is their mum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiJjkNN3z5M&feature=player_embedded

I think they’ve gone all out to execute this idea properly, but how much meaner is the stuff?

Then again, how lovely was the Cake stuff?

Fuck knows, but they both beat most other ads into a cocked hat full of Idi Amin’s tears, Hitler’s piss and Ian Huntley’s spit (that scene is in the two minute version).