1973 BIC Banana commercial

[sunnyblonde2118]

Who is that actor?

[umealundgren]

WTF? haha

[Prilavolus]

Was this commercial broadcast outside the South? The little girls "hailped."

[cranie4]

Wow..Shirley is a real looker, huh? ;)

[enigma800]

Is that the voice of Mel Brooks? I sounds just like him.

[stucat06]

What a big deal those were in school. I remember the Teacher breaking down and letting us use them for homework. Not Math though, she wanted us to do that in pencil. It was a couple years later before they came out with the "Erasable Pen" Remember that?

[mccarrpo]

Maybe she would rather have a penis than a BIC pen.

[bangsmoke]

MY GOD! I remember those! Haven't thought about them in years and now I remember that every kid in 6th grade had to get them.

[hassmann2000]

ok thats a good commercial

[TheLonersManual]

Call me crazy but shirley might not enjoy being called round....

[BigKwell]

@ardvarkkkkk Mel Brooks is a screenwriter/actor who was responsible for 'Blazing Saddles', 'Young Frankenstein', 'Spaceballs: The Movie' and others. He also co-starred with Carl Reiner in 'The 2000 Year-Old Man'.

[pipey61]

Anyone notice that he's written "Your soft and your round and your cute" instead of "You're soft and you're round and you're cute"?! Maybe Shirley is put off by the bad grammar!

[BigKwell]

Mel Brooks rules!

[fromthesidelines]

It's Mel, all right- before he became famous for producing "Blazing Saddles", et. al., he occasionally lent his voice to several radio and TV commercials.

And 'BigRenman'- I still remember "THE LIFE AND TIMES OF EDDIE ROBERTS", short-lived as it was, from 1980.

[InsertName125]

@fromthesidelines

Mel Brooks has been famous since "Your Show of Shows" in the 50s.

[gwugluud11]

If a guy like that sent some chick an ornate, handmade greeting like that in the mail today, he'd be considered a stalker.

[Meatpies62]

I have looked for a long time for this commercial! It was my dad's favorite! We would sing this and laugh and laugh! Thanks for the stroll down memory lane. Dad is recently gone, and this was a nice way for me to remember the good times!

[stevenshorter67]

Sounds like Mel Brooks to me!

[maltney]

Oh, I Loved Bic Bananas! My stepfather used to bring them home for me from his office (he owned the biz, no corporate stealing there!) and I'd draw for hours. I think they made some later that were scented, for awhile. Bic Bananas..happy memories! I'd put them in the freezer if they started to dry out..for some reason theyd come back.

[MisterBEAR141]

That's Mel Brooks' voice, btw.

[westernpababy]

They were NOT Sharpies--they were a felt tip pen (think Flair). And they did totally suck, talk about quick dryout. Still...nice to think of simpler times.

[munchak26]

I have a Bic Banana that still works. I had no idea how old thid thing is. The price on the pen is marked $0.29

[bmovies60]

I believe the guy in the glasses is actor Renny Temple. I recognize him from an episode of All In The Family. He was in the episode "The Draft Dodger", from season 7. He played the role of David Brewster.

[BigRenman]

You are correct. I am Renny Temple and, yes, that is most certainly the voice of Mel Brooks in my head. Thanks for noticing....

[thegirl44]

How were Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton to work with?

How cool is it to be able to say that you were on the best show in the history of television?

[BigRenman]

Not only cool, but because it was my first TV job, really scary. It always hard to know as a one-week guest player what the regulars are really like. They've been doing the show for years and maybe are having a bad week. O'Connor was a little scary, but he may have been being so on purpose, since Archie wasn't supposed to like me. I know when O'Connor, as Archie, looked across the table with hate in his eyes for me, you could feel it to your bones. Really scary and yes, really cool ...

[wutzernutzer]

That must be Mel Brooks!

[placekicker]

I don't remember this ad, but I certainly remember the BIC Banana ads sung to Harry Belafonte's "Dayo".

[apachette07]

Oh ok, thanks for the explanation nozcr!

[apachette07]

I wish they still had em'. I wanna know what all the fuss is about lol. They seem cool tho'

[nozcr]

Today they are known simply as SHARPIEs. So, in a sense, they still have them, only they're made by Sharpie, Crayola and even BIC (only they don't call them bananas anymore). The big fuss is that everybody was still using reloadable fountain pens in those days and they tended to drip and splatter and leak, so felt tip markers were pretty new back then, but now we take them for granted.

[uebergeek]

Fountain pens? No, we had ballpoint pens... the commercial even starts out by mentioning ballpoints...

[nozcr]

It was still better to use a pencil back in those days. Modern ballpoints don't use as much ink, and the points let out the ink slower, so it dries faster, and it doesn't smear all over the place. Ballpoints today are much better. Although, like the commercial says, they still only come in Black, Blue, Red, and sometimes Green.

[nozcr]

Yes, but quite frankly, THEY SUCKED! Back in Elementary School, I'd put a ballpoint pen in my pocket and my body heat would make it explode! Many of my little Blue Jeans would wound up with big blue blotches where the pockets were. They smeared and splattered, and the ink would never dry fast enough, and all the writing would get transfered to the other page just with the pressure of a closed notebook.

[uebergeek]

Wow, I was in grade school then and don't remember much of a problem, but I don't doubt you did. Of course, there was one time back then when I was chewing on a ballpoint pen and somehow it fell apart and I found myself messily drinking ink....

[ardvarkkkkk]

@nozcr I was born in 1960. All I ever had was ballpoints. The big thing about the BIC was that it was a felt tip. There were others but the felt tip was rather new on the market. The problem with felt tips (all brands) was that they would dry out very quickly and the tips would brake easily.

[NoIDidunt10]

@ardvarkkkkk Exactly! I always hated those pens.SO impractical

[sortashaman]

They were amongst my favorite writing and drawing pens of the era! "The Bic Banana! A different way to write!"

[Warrenles]

I write a song for Bic Banana.

[wimpyisdead]

i used to love those pens.

[heine71]

Mel Brooks did many Bic Banana TV commercial voiceovers.