TVSquad

Ahhh, the weekend. A glorious time when the prospect of burning some daylight watching sit-com stars from the 80s rap seems perfectly reasonable. Especially if it's so frickin' cold it's snowing outside. Seriously, why am I getting snowed on in April?

Anyway, one of my friends sent along a link to a post by Benner on a blog called Touch. It features videos of a bunch of old commercials that use rap to try and sell you on one thing or another. You have the classic: D.J. Fred and M.C. Barney for Fruity Pebbles, the strange: Jennifer Love Hewitt in a commercial for bread, and the cringe-worthy: Larry Bird raps for Converse. Finally, there's the awesome: a promo for ABC Wednesday featuring the casts of Perfect Strangers and Head Of The Class. That one is embedded after the jump. Follow the read link for Benner's post and the rest of the videos.

To a good portion of us both The Flintstones and The Jetsons were mainstays of our afterschool and Saturday morning television viewing. However, back in the 1960's both of these Hanna-Barbera creations were part of the ABC prime-time lineup. The Flintstones were a mainstay on the schedule from 1960 until 1966 while The Jetsons appeared in only the 1962-63 season.

Of course, being on the prime-time schedule there was bound to be some promotion of both shows. And, that's what you'll see after the jump: promotions for both The Flintstones and The Jetsons during their first run. Both of these clips are in black-and-white, even though both shows were produced in color. The Flintstones' promo is for the show's fourth season. The episode featuring Ann-Margret as Ann Margrock was the season premiere. Yes, Virginia, stars lent their voices to cartoons long before The Simpsons.

Ah, the good old days. When everyone could smoke and not get sick. You could sit on your dinosaur all day, breaking rocks, and then come home and sit around the yard smoking cigarettes with your best pal.

After the jump is a 1961 commercial for Winston cigarettes, starring Fred, Barney, Wilma, and Betty. Fred and Barney are just hanging out while the girls do all the yardwork and housework and decide to take a relaxing cigarette break. Not only are Wilma and Betty doing all the work, they also have no lines in the commercial.

Early cigarette ads interest me. Over at Adjab recently I posted a couple of ads that the Dick Van Dyke Show cast did in the 60s, on the set and as the characters of the show. This one is jarring because it's a cartoon (though an adult cartoon). This is probably what killed off the dinosaurs.

I also think it's weird that the cigarettes are bigger than Barney's head.

Ready for Christmas? If not, well that's too damn bad, because it's about to get jammed right down your throats! Ahem, sorry about that. However, if you've already decorated the house, baked the first batch of Christmas cookies, and braved the throngs of mall shoppers during the first few hours of Black Friday (which, here in Delaware, began at the ungodly hour of 3 am), then AOL's In2TV will be the next stop on your holiday express.

That's because In2TV has launched its very own Christmas Channel. The free online channel features classic Christmas-themed television cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, the Smurfs, and Fred Flinstone and movies such as A Christmas Without Snow and You're Invited to Mary-Kate & Ashley's Christmas Party. Also featured on the site are holiday-themed episodes of classic television series like Alice, Eight is Enough and, well, Joey. Hey, they can't all be classics, can they?

You can reach AOL's In2TV Christmas channel by clicking on this link. By the by, AOL is the parent company of TV Squad, if you didn't know that already