Today’s UWTV memory is a guest blog post by our reader Stephanie Owens. If anyone can help Stephanie identify or find this TV advert, comment here or drop us an email!
Over to Stephanie…:
There was an advert when I was very young that terrified me. So much so, that I would scream and cry when it came on. I think in part it was the music, but the imagery as well was horrific for me as a child.
I can remember the music clearly, but that doesn’t help in a blog! The advert – as far as I can tell – was for bread. It went like this:
It started with an empty basket on a plain background. I recall it being quite pale, cream/light brown in colour, and the basket started to fill up with baked goods. Bread rolls, loaves of various kinds and there was a baguette there too. Then (and this was the bit the scared me the most), it turned upside down to show a face! Kind of like a scarecrow. The basket was a hat, rolls were the eyes, the baguette was the long nose, I think some more bread made a bow tie.
The thought of it still creeps me out and gives me shivers to this day. But I’ve not been able to find it. You would think it would be pretty distinctive and easy to find but no combination of words (bread face, baguette nose, etc) has found it.
I have known a couple people to remember it. I have been convinced it was for Hovis, as has a friend of mine who recalls this advert, but adding “Hovis” into the search still doesn’t find anything. I can’t even seem to find a mention of it on forums. The only adverts linked to Hovis is the classic boy with bike on a hill one.
My mum remembers it due to my reaction to it! She wondered if it was for a supermarket or something, due to the variety of breads it showed. Again, this doesn’t seem to show anything like it.
So many people say it sounds “vaguely familiar”, but no one recalls what the advert was for exactly.
I wondered if it might have been regional. I grew up in the West Country, and this advert would have been shown around 1989 – 1991.
I have looked on YouTube, I have looked on HATADS. I have a fixation with 80s and 90s advertising anyway, so the amount I have watched, you’d think I’d have come across it again. But no. Can anyone help?!?
UPDATE, 05/06/21 – Thanks to one of our readers, Jack Mortimer, we have FOUND this advert!
Turns out it is for Granary Malted Bread, shown between 1988-89, and here it is on the History of Advertising Trust website:
Huge thanks to Jack for solving this mystery for us and setting Stephanie’s mind at rest!
If you have an Unidentified Weird TV Memory of your own, do not hesitate to email us and we will do our best collectively to identify it for you!
Unidentified Weird TV 