Animated Commercials Back From When Commercials Were Actually Fun - Part 3: The Christmas Edition

Didn't I say that the next one of these I would do would be a Christmas one? Huh? Didn't I?

One of the numerous great things about the holiday season are the commercials that air during it. Nowadays, you don't see as many animated Christmas commercials - mainly because you don't see as many animated commercials as a whole. I can't remember seeing one new animated Christmas commercial on TV this year. It's very weird.

Actually, most of the Christmas ads this year have been a letdown. Most of them are just needlessly depressing with nothing whimsical or Christmassy about them at all. Half the time when I'm watching TV I just see ads for pharmaceuticals. Because nothing says "Happy Holidays" like pharmaceuticals, am I right?

But I'm not here to complain. I'm here to share with you some great animated Christmas ads from over the years. My one rule for this post is that they have to be FULLY-ANIMATED, or at least MOSTLY-animated. Which, alas, means that I can't include the M&Ms Christmas ad, which is my personal favorite (I figured if I qualified THAT as animation, by that logic I'd have to qualify those POM "Worry Monster" ads as animated because the monsters in them are CGI. Where is the line drawn?).

I had to start with this one. This, along with the aforementioned M&Ms ad, is one of those ads that's been airing around the holiday season for years. It made its debut in 1989, and yet not a holiday season has gone by without it airing at least once. Not only that, but it's also one of the few commercials to have its own Wikipedia page.

This is a simple ad, and some of the best things in life are the simple ones. It was directed by Carl Willat at the animation studio Colossal Pictures. There are actually two versions of this ad - the original stop-motion one, and a 2012 updated version with CGI (that's the version we've seen on TV since then). I think it's scientifically impossible for someone to watch this ad without a smile on their face.

Unless it's the 2020 version of the ad where the kisses are interrupted by live action people. Don't think I wasn't just as upset with that as everyone else was. I still get really annoyed when they air THAT one on TV.

Ah, the Coca-Cola polar bears! How come you don't see them in ads anymore?

Anyway, this ad is one of many featuring the bears produced by Rhythm & Hues. A good chunk of them are Christmas ads - which makes sense, since we tend to associate arctic animals like polar bears with the holidays, what with them being in winter. It was difficult to choose which one to do... there's also one where the polar bears meet penguins, and one where the polar bears watch fireworks. You can find them on YouTube.

The bears were the idea of a Mr. Ken Stewart. First he thought of how people drink Coca-Cola at the movies, then he thought about how much his Labrador retriever looked like a polar bear. Putting those two thoughts together, he came up with the very first Coca-Cola polar bears ad, where the bears drink Coca-Cola while watching the Northern Lights.

Hope these bears make a comeback someday. At least let 'em appear in a Super Bowl commercial for old times' sake.

This 1999 Comcast commercial was directed by Bob Kurtz at Kurtz & Friends, an animation studio that I talked about before in my very first post about animated commercials. This studio has such a great art style that adds a natural charm to anything they produce, and I love how the ad goes from calm and serene to ROCK MUSIC just so suddenly. And this is coming from somebody who knows nothing about satellite dishes or how they work. And the reveal that the ad takes place on the front of a Christmas card is a nice touch.

It's been five years, and it still feels so weird to me that Snoopy isn't the mascot of MetLife anymore. I still associate the company with the character and it's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that he and the rest of the Peanuts gang aren't appearing in their ads. Maybe a good chunk of it stems from the fact that I don't think I've seen a single MetLife ad on TV since then (was MetLife's mindset "If we don't have a beloved cartoon character as our mascot, why bother making commercials?").

The Peanuts gang is another one of those things a lot of us associate with the holiday season (mainly due to their multiple Christmas specials), so it was only natural that MetLife would have them appear in their Christmas ad. It's here we learn that Charlie Brown and his friends aren't very good at charades.

Y'know, I never thought of Godzilla and King Kong as being the type of characters to star in a Christmas commercial, but clearly someone at Best Buy did, and I am incredibly grateful that they did. This is one of those Christmas ads that focuses more on humor than sentimentality. We don't get a lot of Christmas ads like that nowadays. Maybe because the world is a far less humorous place than it was in the 1990s.

It's not uncommon to see characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in commercials. They've appeared in ads for Aflac, Nissan, Denny's, CBS, Window's phones, Bing, AT&T, and - as seen here - Verizon. I'll admit that this ad does feel very spiteful. Directly mocking your competitors in your ads always does. Maybe Genesis really did what Nintendon't, but still...

Speaking of phone companies making fun of each other around the holidays, here's one of MANY ads that Alltel did in which their spokesperson, Chad, teams up with Santa Claus to stop the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil plans of Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile employees to ruin Christmas. They did at least FOUR ads about this. FOUR. In fact, these characters (minus Santa) also appeared in live action ads! I don't know whether to roll my eyes at how petty this seems or laugh at it. I mean, there's a reason why Kellogg's doesn't do cereal commercials where the Trix Rabbit, Sonny the Cocoa Puffs Bird, and the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee attempt to blow up the Earth only to get beaten up by Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam.

Okay, back to the feel-good ads. I would make a "how do they celebrate Christmas in prehistoric times" joke, but a million others have done that already. So instead, let's talk about how nice it is to see Fred and Barney actually share the cereal for once. Usually, Fruity Pebbles ads go like this: Barney disguises himself and tries to trick Fred out of his cereal instead of just buying his own box of it. Fred is fooled, but then discovers it's Barney and chases after him. Barney's apparently supposed to be the one we root for. This time? Santa gently urges them to share, and instead of cheering Fred on as he pursues Barney we feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Interestingly, this ad first came out in the 1980s, but in the 1990s they redubbed it with Frank Welker as Barney and Jim Cummings as Santa. I've included both versions here.

This Kellogg's ad from the 1980s is another one that gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I always like seeing advertising mascots gather together to have fun (showing us that, y'know, they do have lives outside of hocking their cereal or dealing with kids that want to steal it). The warm color scheme, the peaceful music, and Thurl Ravenscroft's gentle performance as Tony combine to make another ad that you can't watch without smiling. In a perfect world, this would be one of those ads that they air once every holiday season. Problem is, most of these characters haven't appeared in a commercial in decades (because cereal commercials aren't allowed to be fun anymore as a result of people blaming them for their kids becoming fat).

This is a more recent Christmas ad (from around 2018, I think?). Stop-motion and Christmas go together like hot chocolate and marshmallows, so it's only natural that so many Christmas commercials are done in stop-motion. This one features LeBron James, hawking Sprite Cranberry... a drink that I have never tasted. Considering I like Sprite and I also like cranberry juice, I should really try it at some point.

Look at this beautiful hand-drawn animation. This ad, for the British department store John Lewis, features animation by Disney animators Dominic Carola and Aaron Blaise - the latter of whom co-directed Brother Bear, which explains why the ad feels so much like that movie. More than anything, this commercial really makes me wish that Disney would do a hand-drawn animated film again. It helps that the ad tells a very touching, makes you all warm and fuzzy inside story... am I starting to repeat myself?

Side note, I can't hear the song "Somewhere Only We Know" without thinking of the 2011 Winnie the Pooh movie. I remember the trailer for that featured the song.

Okay, I recognize this art style. It took me a second to figure out WHERE, but then it occurred to me - I'd seen characters that looked just like the ones in this ad in issues of Disney Adventures magazine! Is this the same artist? And if so, what is their name?! Could somebody please help me out with this?

Anyhow, Applebee's rarely does animated commercials. This was one of their rare ventures into the world of moving drawings. It encourages you to get somebody an Applebee's gift card for Christmas. Just hope that they don't prefer TGI Friday's.

Speaking of Applebee's, I gotta ask... do they still have all the pennants and posters and stuff hanging on the walls in 'em? What about the carousel horses in between the booths? I haven't been to an Applebee's in years, I legitimately have no idea...

This ad is for Walt Disney World's annual "Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party"... which I don't think I've ever been to. The animation here is by Eric Goldberg, who's one of my favorite animators. So there's no way I wasn't going to include it in this post.

Here's another one by Kurtz & Friends, this one for Milton Bradley games and ALSO featuring Santa Claus and his reindeer. I love the design of the reindeer here (they sort of remind me of Pony from It's Pony, if anyone is familiar with that show). Like I said before, this studio's art style just has a natural charm to it. And no matter what decade you were born in, this ad is bound to make you nostalgic - because who HASN'T played at least ONE of these games at some point?

One company that's really gotten better at their Christmas ads nowadays is Honda... or at least HAD gotten better at their Christmas ads. This year they just did a dull live action ad. But for a few years before 2022, they used stop-motion in their holiday commercials because, as we've established, stop-motion and Christmas go together like hot chocolate and marshmallows (which likely stems from the fact that so many animated Christmas specials are done in stop-motion). I've always liked their ads with iconic toys like Strawberry Shortcake, Gumby, GI Joe, and the Care Bears shilling for cars, but those are live action with stop-motion characters so I couldn't include them in this post. But they've also done plenty of entirely stop-motion ads like this one that I could put on the list. Thus...

Oh, goody, another cereal ad! In the 1990s, Cookie Crisp's mascots were Irish-accented cop Officer Crumb, the cereal-stealing Cookie Crook, and his dog Chip. Their shtick was that Cookie Crook, like many other cereal mascots, would try to steal Cookie Crisp, but Officer Crumb wouldn't allow that. This here ad is similar to the Fruity Pebbles ad we've already looked at, except this time the actual Santa Claus doesn't show up. It's nice to see even the closest thing there's ever been to a villainous cereal mascot can get some happiness around the holidays.

For those wondering, the reason why you don't see these three characters in Cookie Crisp ads nowadays is because... well, for one thing, do they even still DO Cookie Crisp ads? I can't remember the last time I've seen one on TV... but also, around 2000 the folks in charge of the Cookie Crisp ads decided to ditch Cookie Crook and Officer Crumb and just have Chip be the mascot. Then at some point they replaced him with a wolf who basically does the Trix Rabbit's shtick.

Okay, this one does have a bit of live action in it, but the majority of it is animated so I'm putting it on the list.

Who doesn't love Chuck Jones' adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas? This ad, directed by Frank Molieri at Acme Filmworks, apes the special's animation style extremely well. It actually makes me wonder why they haven't done more ads with the Chuck Jones verison of the Grinch - oh, there ARE other ads where the Grinch appears, but they all either use the 2000 live action version of the Grinch or the 2018 Illumination version of the Grinch. Very odd, seeing as he's just as iconic a Christmas character as Rudolph...

So that's a bunch of animated ads that celebrate the holiday season. With any luck, animated Christmas commercials will make a comeback at some point.

Animated Commercials Back From When Commercials Were Actually Fun - Part 2

Have you had your break today? Well, if you haven't, I think that now would be a great time to have one. And while you're having your break, you can read this!

That was intended to be a reference to that old McDonald's slogan "Have you had your break today?". Unless you watched a lot of television during the 1990s, chances are you probably wouldn't have gotten that reference. But anyway, let's get on with the post...

Yes, it's time for another post about the wonderful world of animated commercials. Just like last time, I've collected fourteen entirely-animated commercials from the days before commercials weren't just a blur of memes and techno music and random things like that" or long and needlessly creepy ads for medicines and stuff. Why fourteen? Because why not, I say.

Let's go over the rules again: the commercials must be ANIMATED. Or at least the majority of it must be animated. Incredibly-realistic CGI animals in a live action environment doesn't count. And the animation must be ORIGINAL as opposed to recycled from a movie. So don't expect to see, I don't know, a Burger King commercial featuring clips from Shark Tale or something. All right, here we go...

Let's start off with this Intel ad featuring the characters from Madagascar. Of course, the Penguins - Rico in particular - take center stage, but Alex and Marty make cameos and even get a quick line each (that's Wally Wingert and Phil LaMarr doing their voices here).

DISCLAIMER: if you're a zookeeper, do not feed a penguin an Intel cartridge. It's not going to result in a cool light show thing like it does here. Commercials with talking penguins, lions and zebras aren't exactly super-realistic.

Here's another commercial from the folks at Aardman. They seem to be channeling their Creature Comforts shorts with this ad, as is the case with most of their ads (Hubba Bubba, Chevron, etc.). The Countryside Code, for those unaware, is a set of rules for those in the United Kingdom that want to explore the countryside. In order they are be safe, plan ahead and follow any signs, leave gates and property as you find them, protect plants and animals, take your litter home, keep dogs under close control, and consider other people.

So here we have a dog, a horse, a spider, a fly, and... I believe those are albatrosses telling us to follow these rules. I've admittedly never been to Great Britain, but if I ever do go there I'll keep the rules in mind.

All right, this is technically a PSA, but those still count as commercials, right?

Anyhow, Wile E. Coyote and Shamu is a strange combination, but eh, I think it works. And it gets the point across pretty well - if you see a sign reading "DANGER! THIN ICE", don't go any further. Thurl Ravenscroft is providing the voice of Shamu here. This isn't his only connection to Looney Tunes, as he also narrated a 1996 Daffy Duck short called Superior Duck.

CANNIBALISM! THAT'S going to make people want to eat at Dairy Queen, right? The talking lips were creepy enough, and now we have THIS. Oh, and you gotta love the implication that they're eating their own kids. That's a laugh riot right there. I'm not going to say that this is an awful ad, but boy howdy is it disturbing.

Interesting fact - the male shrimp is voiced by Jim Conroy, who you might recall as the voice of Ruff Ruffman from Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman. Anybody else heard of that show?

Here's a rarity nowadays - a RECENT animated commercial! How long has it been since we've had a fully-animated commercial? And for Mountain Dew at that! Just look at how fast the camera moves, how much is packed into this ad, how great the animation is... my one complaint is that the ad is far too short. Though, to be fair, it's a Mountain Dew commercial. How much can you really say about Mountain Dew aside from "It's a soda!"?

Also, "Dewnited States" is an awful pun.

Is it just me, or are a lot of animated commercials for food? Anyhow, here's an advertisement from the folks at PIXAR (back before they started making movies). There's not a whole lot to say about this ad. It's like what an acid trip viewed by Cookie Monster would look like.

I admittedly have no idea what the "Bell System" is... I'm guessing that it's some sort of phone company... or at least it has SOMETHING to do with phones. Anyhow, here's a wonderful old commercial from the 1970s for the "Bell System". Fittingly, it's narrated by the soothing voice of Michael Bell (you can hear a bit of Chaz Finster in his voice).

I think I've considered doing a separate edition of this series for Super Bowl commercials that are animated, but I'm not sure how many animated Super Bowl commercials there are. In fact, I'm still not one hundred percent sure if this ad is completely animated - the scene with the tortoise at the car factory could be a combination of CGI and live-action for all I know.

But anyway, here's an interesting Super Bowl commercial based on that iconic fable The Tortoise and the Hare. Robert Bouge provides the voice of the Hare, and Bill Lobley of Sealab 2021 fame can be heard as the fox, the snail, and the possum. I don't know who did the voice of the Tortoise.

We'll just have to ignore, of course, that the tortoise pretty much cheats (then again, maybe there's nothing in the rules of the race that says you CAN'T drive a car). And that this goes against the whole "Slow and Steady Wins the Race" moral of the story, though I think that's the whole point anyhow. Besides, as I've said before, the moral of the story is really less "slow and steady wins the race" and more "don't be a cocky idiot and take a nap during a footrace".

I had to put this one in. It made its debut in 1970, but it hasn't stopped airing since. Nowadays, they usually just cut straight to the kid asking Mr. Owl, though I recall seeing versions with Mr. Turtle still intact years ago. Eventually it manages to enter your head and never leave: there's a very good chance that after the one, two-hoo, or thuh-thrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrree times that you've seen it it, you'll be able to quote it from memory.

I love the simplistic but still very fluid animation of the commercial and the wonderful voice-over work from Buddy Foster (as the kid), Frank Nelson (as Mr. Cow), Paul Frees (as Mr. Fox), Ralph James (as Mr. Turtle), and of course, Paul Winchell as Mr. Owl. I also love that this ad has spawned so many parodies on YouTube. You're probably the most familiar with that one where Mr. Owl replies to the kid's question with "It's over NINE-THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!"

The question remains, of course, just how many licks DOES it take to get to the Toostie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? I have absolutely no idea. Go ask some animal that isn't an owl.

And no, I don't know why that kid doesn't have any clothes on either.

Remember Hunny Bs cereal? I totally ate these when I was younger. This charming little commercial, judging from the animation style, seems to have been made around the same time as The Tigger Movie. Jim Cummings and John Fiedler provide the voices of Pooh, Tigger and Piglet, and I believe Laurie Main and Peter Cullen are doing the narrator and Eeyore (Eeyore might actually be Gregg Berger, his line is too brief for me to deduce who it is). Don't worry, Pooh - even if the "B" won't give you any honey, you can always borrow some from Rabbit.

The Jetsons are no strangers to shilling for products - over the years, they've starred in advertisements for Radio Shack, Electrasol, and more recently LG. In 2008, four members of the family appeared in a commercial for Tums. Specifically, this one. This ad features Jeff Bergman as George and Astro, Tress MacNeille as Rosey, and Lauri Fraiser as Jane. I really don't have much to say about it...

This Swiffer commercial is a tie-in for Monsters University, yet another animated movie that everyone seems to hate but me. It's refreshing to see a Swiffer ad that doesn't make me feel sorry for a broom or a mop or something else that you use to clean with. Seriously, that's what a large percentage of Swiffer ads were in the 2000s - some woman is using a Swiffer, and we see their old broom or mop or whatever being all depressed. That's supposed to make people want to buy a Swiffer?

Anyhow, Carlos Alazraqui fills in for Billy Crystal as the voice of Mike here. He can also be heard as Mike in several video games and the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor attraction at Walt Disney World.

And to close things out, here's a commercial for General Mills cereal from 2015. Ya know how I mentioned before that most commercials today are just a blur of memes and techno music and random things like that? Here's a perfect example. It just reeks of General Mills trying to copy what's popular in kids' cartoons at the moment: the art style, the use of modern slang... there's also the tiny little fact that I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. The kid tells the mascots that it's Wednesday, Chip goes berserk because Wednesday stole his car (how the heck does a day of the week steal somebody's car?!), and then the Trix Rabbit gives the kid cereal and... seriously, what the heck is going on?

Even the talents of Kevin Michael Richardson, Eric Bauza, and Tom Kenny (I think Jeremy Shada's doing the voice of the kid, but I'm not sure who's voicing Sonny) can't save this ad from being lousy. Though if Kevin becomes the full-time voice of Chip, I'm totally cool with that.

Have a comment about one of these ads? Did you work on any of these ads and want to share a little information about them? Feel free to leave a comment!

And yes, I've decided that the next one I do of these will indeed be a Christmas one.