Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler commercials

“Hello! The other day, Ed was…”

Sure, we may have been kids in the 80s, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t still get sucked in by funny ads for a fruit-laced beverage made from fermented grapes and accented with a bit of carbonation, right?

Ah… the wine cooler.

Yes, nowadays they’re a bit of a punchline, but back in the 80s, man… they were just about as awesome as it comes. (Not that we’d know… we were only teenagers, right?)

And the best wine coolers out there? Bartles & Jaymes premium wine coolers, of course.

In 1981, Bartles & Jaymes first hit the market, but sales were sluggish, so the great ad man Hal Riney was called in, and he promptly created two of the 80s most iconic figures, Frank Bartles & Ed Jaymes.

The commercials, which began airing in 1984, were wrong on so many levels, that of course they were a huge success. Seriously, having old-timers Frank and Ed sittin’ on their front porch yappin’ all folksy-like… that’s not what you’d expect from a stodgy company like Ernest and Julio Gallo, right? (Remember? The ‘we’ll-sell-no-wine-before-its-time’ guys?). And with the ‘younger’ crowd being the target audience for these things, what good is it to, well… have old-timers Frank and Ed sittin’ on their front porch yappin’ all folksy-like?

Whatever, dude. The ads worked.

These guys were just about as popular as ol’ Clara Peller (Miss ‘Where’s-the-Beef’ herself). All of a sudden, EJ Gallo had a new hit on their hands; these wine cooler-things were selling like hotcakes, and Frank and Ed were on their way to junior stardom.

Believe it or not, Bartles & Jaymes (the company) still exists (though Frank has long since gone to that great grape orchard in the sky). But it’ll just never be as hip as it was in the 80s.

We gotta think that Frank is looking down from heaven with a smile on his face, as he says one last time:

“Thank you for your support.”

We ♥ the Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler commercials.

~ by weheart80s on March 24, 2011.