Ad from the National Coffee Association 1984

[djalternegro]

i have been looking for this ad FOREVER!!! OH MY GOD I FOUND IT!!!! i thought originally it was a sanka commerical...but i simply followed a link from elo, and got here!!! totally crazy!

[Cosmoline]

Is Cicely Tyson gonna have to slap a b___?

[EarlyLAPunk]

OK american culture. But the image that goes with that voice over is BOWIE.

[Sandor827]

"The movers and the shakers"

I always loved this line from these commercials,... it's probably all that caffeine that has them moving and shaking so much.

[djalternegro]

@Sandor827

or something else that starts with "c" bwuahahhaha!

[reconelement]

"You can be a coffee achiever, you can sit around the house and watch Leave It To Beaver. The future's up to you, so what you gonna do?"

[Upperstrom]

Ha! I remember this ad! We named our college bowling team the Coffee Achievers back in the early 90s ( it was a 8AM PE class!) This ad was shown all the time during Friday Night Videos circa 1984.

[gregier77]

This is classic!! Now Coffee is the world's number one addiction. Speaking of coffee achievers, I found a way to monetize coffee.

[gregier77]

classic!

[smonnes]

I guess it worked! haha.

[rennyminou]

Haha. coffee gave Cicely the energy to beat the crap out of a guy! : P

ELO...the latter (aka shitty) years...LOL

[maurythef]

I hate to say it, but to all you whippersnapper bee-atches, this commercial from 1984 unequivocally proves that WE ARE THE NEW COFFEE GENERATION! 

[JoffreysCoffee]

Aaaah, those were the days! Thanks for bringing back the memories!

[deussolinvictus]

Wally from "Dilbert" is a coffee achiever!

[kchauncey]

I'm a coffee achiever! Well, except for the achiever part...

[Kouvre]

This was way better when SNL parodied it as "The Crack Achievers."

[coffeeshrub]

Thank you, National Coffee Association. I did not know ...

[RacoonStepvan]

since when is Bowie american?

[ex0rdium]

When we have a National Coffee Association, we have too many fucking associations.

[bobtaurus]

0:18 the director falls to the left, then immediately comes back into frame from the right.

[dday]

I love these! No one else I have mentioned them to remembers them...struck me as so weird, even back then. Please post the others if you have a chance. Btw, that's not Pat Benetar, it's Ann & Nancy Wilson from Heart!

[blinkenlights4ever]

Hilarious! :-D

[TruWatcher]

Definitely upload the other two! These ads were so bizarre. There was one with Ken Anderson that also inexplicably included Joe Jackson (the British pop singer) and Jane Curtin doing a "Weekend Update" from SNL. I remember just not...believing them. They seemed to have nothing to do with any of the people shown, and seemed to be way overblowing the capabilities of coffee. "Because coffee CALMS YOU DOWN...and picks you up!" Yeah, right...and this has to do with David Bowie and ELO how??

[ScientificalnessUSA]

Beer makes you lean, muscular & sexually-alluring.

[seanankerr]

"You're looking hale and hardy little buddy"

"I'm a coffee achiever Sam"

finally I get it!

[yesopenilno]

0:25 - Looks like Cicely's on something a little more potent than caffeine.

[StratocastFloyd]

Lol I love how David Bowie when they say American Society. Considering he is British and cocaine is what got him up in the morning

[mjsijd]

@StratocastFloyd

The music is from ELO. They are Brits, too.

[djalternegro]

@mjsijd i thought elo were french!

[writerspells]

Isn't it ironic Vonnegut is in this ad? This ad seems like everything he mocks about America in his books.

[writerspells]

Yes, we are addicted to a drug in a liquid form. I guess thats what makes America work. That and weed.

[dad1717]

ELO did this song! Great tune!

[kd5txo]

when this series first came out, they would air this at like 2 AM. I mentioned to my friends that it was like a surreal nightmare and reminded me of the image of someone "the movers and the shakers" slumped in the corner shaking with soiled pants.... Oh the memories!! thanks!

[NightTracksClassic]

Speaking of 2 AM, I remember these commercials during Night Tracks on SuperStation WTBS. I should upload the other two with Ken Anderson and Heart.

[TheBlueFlamingo]

I didn't remember Kurt Vonnegut being in that commercial!  Cool!

[tuttt99]

Do you have the one with "Coffee beans and human beings were meant to be the best of friends"?

[dj99surf]

hey thanks for uploading this. I remember the one with David Bowie singing Modern Love. And the one with NY city marathon winner Allison Roe from 1981. Very weird marketing idea for coffee, pre-starbucks era.

[collegeman1988]

Caffeine . . . the 80s version of meth. Oops . . . I forgot, it was cocaine, not caffeine. There's a reference to this song in Weird Al's "Dare to be Stupid".

[krushsister]

OH MY GOD. I have lost count of how many times I've seen this particular commercial, because I used to love to view these old, early '80s commercials that my parents recorded when they recorded movies off TV, and this was one of them. To see it again is -- wow. Thank you.

[biomince]

This is so awesome! I loved the commerical at the time, and it still rocks----hold on tight to your dreams!!! So cool that Kurt Vonnegut is in the commercial, I miss him!

[ftheGOP]

I remember thinking that those commercials were a total put-on because one of them featured SNL's Jane Curtin doing her 'Weekend Update' character. 20+ years later, they still seem like a prank.

[BigBlaque]

Pre-Starbucks saturation no doubt. I remember these. Didn't understand them then and happy to say I still don't. Hold on tight to your dream....

[misterk81]

I'm 26, so I would've been to young to have seen these commercials when they first aired. But wow, talk about surreal... "Join the coffee archivers"? That's just too funny! :D

[PatRebaMartina]

I don't see Pat...

[deyoungparker]

I remember Bloom County made fun of these ads. These were so weird. They're even weirder seeing them 25 years later.

[mjsijd]

@deyoungparker

The ads had the look of a SNL fake ad (especially the female voiceover at the end). They were also shown on late night TV (e.g. Letterman). This actually helped people not get up to change the channel.

[shogunblade]

I only have heard about this because of Weird Al Yankovic's Lyrics in "Dare to be Stupid".

"You can be a Coffee Achiever, you can sit around the house and watch 'Leave it to Beaver'".

[kitchenalchemy]

I've asked others if they remember these ads back in the 80's. Thanks for posting this! Now I have proof!

[dudeinoakland]

I captured this off a VHS tape, had the file on the hard drive for years. Glad so many ppl remember and evjoy it too.

[limeginger]

Oh god! I have talked about these ads and made references to "coffee achievers" for years! Even at the time people didn't know what I was talking about. I am soooo glad there's evidence it existed!

[dudeinoakland]

It's hard to imagine there needed to be TV ads to get the word out of coffee.

[mjsijd]

@dudeinoakland

In 1984, the upscale coffee houses hadn't hit yet, and the age of the average coffee drinker was going up, way up. Younger people were drinking soda, bottled water and juices almost exclusively. 90% of the stuff in the grocery stores was Maxwell House, Folgers, Yuban, Hills Bros. etc. No grind your own. No fresh beans.

This commercial wave (followed by Juan Valdez) was an attempt (successful) to make coffee relevant to younger folk.

[djalternegro]

@mjsijd

crazy.

[jamalama]

These ads were soooo strange.

[razukas]

i'll reach out to the nca and see if they have the commericals!

[dudeinoakland]

See you're not dillusional! They did exist! Now you hardly have to advertise coffee, but the National Coffee Association still exists.

[becky219]

I was just talking about these commercials the other day. I knew it was a series, but the only one I could remember was the one with Heart in the studio. I was hoping to find that one here. But this is cool...no one really knew what I was talking about so it's good to know that I didn't dream the whole thing! :)

[razukas]

I totally remember this commercial! There was a series! I remember one featuring football players, too! I remember the players looking at game plans, claping their hands, throwing the plans and their coff cups to the floor and charging into the stadium.

Thanks for posting!

[dudeinoakland]

Sure, if I find any more they'll be posted. I didn't know it was part of a series of commercials.