While we all love YouTube, I often despair at the standard (or lack thereof) or descriptions and comments on the site. Is the world really that moronic? But occassionally you come upon a bunch of clips that make you realize there's no other way you'd see or learn about this stuff.
Case in point - Estonian Chewing Gum. Here's a spot by famed Estonian Commercial Drirector (and that indeed is a "YouTube Generation" phrase) Harry Egipt. The accompanying caption tells the whole story
Estonians were the first to produce reverse-engineered chewing gum in the Soviet Union in 1967, however communist party officials started a crusade to shut it down as the habit of chewing gum was deemed to be too "american". Estonians however countered by providing chewing gum to soviet astronouts (called cosmonauts in the USSR), who found chewing gum to be of high hygienic value when in orbit (it is cumbersome to brush teeth in the the weigtlessness of space travel, yet easy and pleasant to achieve the same results with chewing gum), upon which chewing gum production was given the highest priority.
For this Harry Egipt video, some of the most popular Estonian singers of the time were assembled (Ivo Linna & Kare Kauks), accompanied by some of the most popular dancers and models.
Fascinating stuff. After the jump, a whole collection of Estonian TV spots, all by Egipt, including a very disturbing ice cream ad.
Sex sells, even in Estonia, with a spot that could have been subtitled "Two Girls, One Cup of Ice Cream". And here we have a clip that is probably the closest to Deep Throat I've ever seen in selling a product. And yet.... twice during the spot Egipt throws in an young, clearly underage girl, and the thing transforms from a piece of double entendre to a very disturbing "lock up your daughter"
Another one that creeps me out slightly - I'n not sure if it's the undercranked dancing, or that close up shot of the candy between the lips. But something sure isn't right here.
By this time I'm beginning to wonder if it's not just me that has a dirty mind. But those shots of the girls working out on exercise equipment accompanied by lemonade bubbling up over the bottle...
Ahh, now we REALLY have Two Girls and a whole load of cups. There's a kind of genius at work when you use a pianist, a contortionist and a snake girl to sell rugs and crockery.
Let's notch up the production values with some western music - and here's a Thriller routine that you might not have seen in all those compilations out there.
The interesting thing to note here is the cool black dude chilling out in the middle of the group shots, who completely blows it right at the end by dancing like a nerdy white boy.
It's alsways interesting when real life imitates art. In this case, the citizens of Estonia do a pretty passable imitation of some of the more creepy scenes from thye original version of The Wicker Man
You remember all those muslim suicide bombers, who got to martyrdom willingly because they imagine the 40 virgins waiting for them in heaven? Well, here I think we have the Estonian version of what that might look like.
In Estonia, they've clearly invented a new form of electricity NOT fatal when used in water.
Here we learn that the Estonian meal seems to comprise Tomato & Banana Salad, Muffins and whole basted Cauliflower. That's good eatin'.
Some of these just defy captioning.
And we'll end with Egipt's most famous spot, for some kind of chopped meat product.
Want more Harry Egipt? He's still working and available for hire.!
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Oooch. Christ! The chorus girl in the middle looks like a young version of Hillary Clinton.
Actually, that Estonian meal looked reasonably tasty to me.
On the whole though, those ads just remind me of the late night sort of ads I saw in the 70's. Some disco music. Damn, those production values. Shit, shag rugs. They took it to another here though I admit...