Today’s installment of YouTube Comment of the Week comes from a Dunkin’ Donuts ad from the mid 1980s. This ad featured Fred the Baker, as did pretty much all of their ads from this period through the early 2000s. Fred was the eternally harassed worker who would joylessly intone “Time to make the donuts.” Once upon a time, it was a TV catchphrase surpassed only the by the likes of “Where’s the Beef.”
For this video, I wrote this description:
This is a reference to ads from the same era, in which the same actor who played Fred the Baker portrayed Sam Breakstone, who was almost exactly the same character except that he made cream cheese and sour cream instead of donuts. Here’s an early example, although this ad in 1977 depicts him as far angrier than I remember. This seemingly innocent observation (I wouldn’t even call it a joke, really) led to this earnest, depressing comment:
The poor bastard once worked in a corpse? The tribulations of the characters he portrayed pale.
s
Did you notice the name of the well-informed commentator?
a very dedicated man. I don’t know for sure he’s a man, but c’mon, that’s gotta be a dude
I remember all these commercials. When I was a wee lad, I thought there was only one Dunkin Donuts and always thought I’d see that guy there if my parents ever took me. They didn’t.
same here. there were very few DD’s where I grew up when i was little. in fact, i remember just one, in Middletown, in the same plaza as Playtogs. *shudder*