As I explained in a recent, similar post, I love commercials. There, I said it. Oh, that felt so liberating.
This latest bout of Pointless Ad Nostalgia comes courtesy of the episode of 120 Minutes from 1991 that contained a lengthy, uncomfortable interview with The Pixies. What’s different about these ads vis a vis the Steampipe Alley-era ads I just posted? Well, there’s the three years difference, a small eternity in ad-time.
More importantly, since these ads aired on MTV late at night, they’re pitched at a much older audience. A fashion-conscious audience that would be receptive to a commercial like this one for Cavaricci. That brand has all but disappeared, but when I was in junior high, everyone had to wear Cavaricci. If you had enough money to buy it, that is. If you were me, you wore generic jeans and whatever was on sale at Caldor’s that season.
Why was Cavaricci so popular? Why is anything so popular at any give time? But if this ad is to be believed, they made you very limber and a snazzy dancer.
As I eluded to last week, when I found the bounty of Steampipe Alley tapes, I was looking for something else. That something else was an episode of MTV’s 120 Minutes from 1991 that featured an episode-long appearance by The Pixies, mere months before they broke up.
When this show aired, I did not actually have cable in my house. But my grandparents, who lived next door, did. So I would monopolize their VCR in the wee hours, taping either Mystery Science Theater 3000 or 120 Minutes. Despite being an MTV product, 120 Minutes was a pretty decent window into the amorphous world of “alternative” music back then, and also the only way that I could hear about new-ish stuff in the pre-internet days, since I lived nowhere near a cool records store.
This particular episode is an odd time capsule piece, because it comes from one of those in between periods of music. The indie music scene that launched The Pixies was largely dead. The Nirvana phenomenon had yet to begin, although it was just about to (the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” aired during this episode, and had just debuted a few weeks previous). So in most cases, alternative = British. By my rough estimate, 75 percent of all the videos that air in this episode come from English bands, most of them being shoegazer types like Ride, Curve, Lush, etc.
But my main reason in presenting these clips to you is not to highlight this very brief era. I’ve digitized them because they’re some of the most uncomfortable video you’ll ever see.
For one thing, The Pixies were already well immersed in the tensions that would doom the band. But rather than exercise that misery on each other, they aim it squarely at the show’s host, Dave Kendall. The poor man has to dig and scrape to get the most mundane answers out of them.
This first clip is benign enough. The band is introduced, and Frank Black talks briefly about the inspiration behind the “Here Come Your Man” video. But the fact that he’s wearing a panama hat and sunglasses for this interview should have thrown up some huge red flags. As should have Joey Santiago’s weird fuzzy hat.
One more Baby story to close out her birthday week, if I may.
The Baby has this habit of spotting a random toy just as we’re about to leave for day care in the morning, then grabbing it and insisting on taking it with her. If it’s something small, like a Yo Gabba Gabba action figure or a spider ring, I say okay. If it’s something big or ridiculous, like a book or a chair, I say no. If I say no, she immediately throws a fit, and I have to figure out how to distract her so I can get her out the door.
This morning, she really wanted to take a plastic pumpkin (the kind used for trick-or-treating). I said no, and she went ballistic. I carried her out onto the porch and closed the door, but she flung herself against it. It carried her down the stoop and walked down the street with her, but she was still upset.
If I get this far and she’s still crying, I try to find something nearby to excite and distract he, like, “Oooh, look at that squirrel running around in the tree!”. But this morning, none of the usual sights are working. s
Then, at the end of our block, I spotted an old TV someone had thrown out on the curb. It lay screen-down, and some vandals had obviously gotten to it, because there was glass all over the sidewalk and the side panels were kicked in.
“Oooh, look at the broken TV!” I said, and made a smashing noise.
Immediately, The Baby stopped crying and started laughing. “Broken TV, oh no!” she squealed, and imitated my smash sound. Her anger about The Pumpkin Incident was completely forgotten.
We turned up another street, walked another 10 feet or so, and The Baby said, “Daddy, you remember the broken TV?”
“Yeah, it was funny!”
“It was FUNNY!” she said again, made the smashing sound, and laughed hysterically.
Perhaps I should be a tad worried about this, especially considering that time Predator lulled her to sleep. But then again, maybe I should have expected this, because I think breaking stuff is funny. I thought that when I was a kid, and I think that now. I have no idea why. It just touches a dumb, primal Laugh Button within me. When Dave Letterman used to throw junk off the top of a five-story building or crush them with a 80-ton hydraulic press, I was in heaven.
So The Baby has the I Think Breakin’ Stuff Is Funny Gene. In celebration of her birthday, this weekend we’re taking her to the demolition derby.
