Finnish Shell TV Commercials from the 60s and 70s

60s


Shell: Lentävä maailma ("Shell: The Flying World", early 70s)


Early 70s(?)

"Shellistä!" Finnish Shell TV commercials of the 1960s and 70s featured the immemorable voiceovers by Kaj Gahnström, in his ultra-masculine growling bass, which used to scare the TV-watching children all over the country. Also the top model Seija Tyni appeared as the "Shell Super Girl" in these stylish clips (created by the advertising agency SEK with Crea-Filmi), which can these days seen as a sort of pop art typical of its era: pre-energy crisis and less "politically correct" (using women as sexist props in commercials, the subsequent boycotts against Shell).

Seija Tyni, as the "Supergirl", soon became associated with Shell as a product personalization, being presented as a modern action character influenced by James Bond and Modesty Blaise, and was seen in different roles in each spot: being a boxer, a soldier, a rally driver, a karate player, etc. In the 1967 Shell sunglasses campaign Tyni's Supergirl appeared as

"a teacher, sitting behind the teacher's desk and looking down at the watch she wears on a chain around her neck. The loud tick-tock of an old grandfather's clock is heard in the background. Then suddenly the school bell rings. The unmistakable, very low bass voice of the narrator [Gahnström] (voice-over was an organic element in Shell Finland's commercials until the 1990s and was imitated in numerous contemporary commercials): 'Suddenly it is 3 p.m. Polarized sunglasses. Now for 12:80. They change your whole world. For a special price. At Shell.' [This sort of "clipped" telegram style was typical of Shell's advertisement lingo. -pH] During the speak, the Supergirl removes her spectacles and puts the sunglasses on. At that same instant her hair falls down and the topknot hairdo changes into a glamorous coiffure. The last scene shows a race car curving away on an icy road."

(Visa Heinonen, Jukka Kortti & Mika Pantzar: "How Lifestyle Products Became Rooted in the Finnish Consumer Market - Domestication of Jeans, Chewing Gum, Sunglasses and Cigarettes", 2003, PDF)

Paying tribute, Ilppo Pohjola used Gahnström's growling voice (and also some female models fashioned after these old TV commercials) in his experimental short film Asphalto (1998).

Shell: mainoskirja (PDF)

More old Finnish TV commercials:

Tuttu TV:stä

Tätä ei voi olla

Finnish TV Commercials Nostalgia (Februry 2007)

Stereolab: 'Three Women'/Chemical Chords

Stereolab: 'Three Women' (2008)

I've been a fan of UK's Situationist Moog lounge indie pop adventurers Stereolab for years. (Here is from pHinnWeb archives an ancient review of their Dots and Loops of 1997.) Stereolab now have their new album Chemical Chords out. The track 'Three Women' is from the album.

More Stereolab video clips @ YouTube

Finnhits

A Finnhits TV commercial from the 1970s

There's a new blog dedicated to Finnhits, popular Finnish iskelmä compilations in the 1970s and early 80s, today campy retro-pop nostalgia. Some Finnhits artists: Fredi, Danny & Armi (also responsible for the worst music video of all time), Freeman, Katri Helena, Frederik, Kirka, Irwin Goodman...

Music of Finland @ Wikipedia

A nice video clips collection of the 60s/70s (and earlier decades) Finnish pop -- "Finnhits" and more -- from TV and movie performances of the era

Eero Aarnio Annoyed By Piratism

Finnish designer Eero Aarnio (b. 1932) recently got annoyed in Berlin when a TV interview with him was arranged to a car retail store. To his horror, Aarnio found out the store's two Ball Chairs (also known as Globe Chairs) -- his most famous design -- that were planned to be used as backdrop for the interview were actually copies. Aarnio says there are numerous pirate copies of his globe chair manufactured around the world, but it's nearly useless to sue the manufacturers because of the varying global copyright laws, which Aarnio thinks often leave the rights of the original designer nearly non-existent. Ball Chair was created by Eero Aarnio in 1966 and it (or its copies) has been featured in several movies, music videos, countless fashion shoots and so on: basically whenever a piece of stylish retro design is required.

The retrospective exhibition of Eero Aarnio's works "Retropop, Phantasie und Tagträume" is now on display at the Finnish Embassy in Berlin from November 8, 2007 to January 4, 2008.

Related news in Finnish @ MTV3

A Futuro House Sold in Paris for 140,000 Euros

Futuro video clip 1


Futuro 2

On Tuesday 27 November 2007, one of the remaining Futuro houses was sold at Christie's auction in Paris for 140,000 euros. Futuro was a flying saucer-shaped fibreglass house designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in 1968, reflecting the era's futuristic space age dreams. Futuro was the subject of Mika Taanila's 1998 documentary film Futuro - A New Stance for Future and also appeared on Jimi Tenor's video The Year of the Apocalypse.

Related news @ YLE

Käytöskukka (1966-67)

Käytöskukka #1 - Ylpeys ("Pride")


Käytöskukka #2 - Rohkeus ("Courage")


Käytöskukka #3 - Huomaavaisuus ("Consideration")


Käytöskukka #4 - Ahneus ("Greed")


Käytöskukka #5 - Laiskuus ("Sloth")


Käytöskukka #6 - Kateus ("Envy")


Käytöskukka #7 - Sinisilmäisyys ("Gullibility")


Käytöskukka #8 - Turhamaisuus ("Vanity")


Käytöskukka #9 - Murjotus ("A Sulk")

[Other episodes -- #10: Kiire ("A Hurry"), #11: Apua ("Help!"), #12: Ystävyys ("Friendship"), #13: Persoonallisuus ("Personality").]

Käytöskukka ("Behaviour Blossom") was a Finnish 13-part series of didactic short animations made with cutout technique; created by Heikki Partanen (1942-1990) in 1966 and 1967, intending to teach good manners to children. The series, which was like "Seven Deadly Sins for Infants", had every episode starring a domestic piglet called Hinku and a wild piglet called Vinku, encountering such surreal creatures as the angry Suursyömäri (might be translated as "Gargantuan Eater") who devours everything coming its way, and other characters behaving, for example, in a lazy or vain way but learning some valuable lesson in each episode's end. South Park this was not. And the theme music is a classic, too!

Käytöskukka @ Finnish Wikipedia

Käytöskukka @ Suomen Elokuvakontakti

Heikki Partanen filmography @ Elonet

Heikki Partanen filmography @ IMDB

Finnish TV Commercials Nostalgia

Finnish TV channel MTV3 has listed under its Kaikkien aikojen parhaat sekunnit ("The best seconds of all time") a series of video clips of Finnish TV commercials from the 1950s to the present day. The slick Shell commercials (see also this) with their cool fashion models and the baritone voiceover from Kaj Gahnström are still well remembered, and I wonder if the unabashed eroticism of Vivante shampoo commercial would pass the censorship today...? Tupla-City was a light-hearted Western film pastiche for Tupla chocolate bars. Helsinki's Ajatar store represented the height of 70s Finnish fashion (with now politically uncorrect fur hats, too). Finnhits was the massive phenomenon of iskelmä light pop collections of the 70s and the late pop star Irwin Goodman advertised Jenkki bubblegum. Väinö Purje advertising the meat selections of the K-kauppa grocery store chain surprisingly became a big star in the Soviet Estonia (where ordinary citizens didn't exactly eat wienerschnitzel every day), where Finnish TV broadcasts could also be seen.

1950s and 1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

Album Art War

Album Art War by Ugly Pictures

Ready Steady Go!

Ready Steady Go! opening credits

A prime example of the 1960s Mod graphics style from the popular UK music TV show Ready Steady Go!.

More Ready Steady Go! search results @ YouTube

Ready Steady Go! @ Mod Culture

Ready Steady Go! @ Nostalgia Central

Ready Steady Go! @ Television Heaven

The Genius of Kenny Everett!

Opening credits to a typical Kenny Everett episode

Kenny Everett (1944-1995) was a British madcap TV comedian who came into prominence in the 60s as a radio DJ. His Kenny Everett Video Show / Video Cassette was shown here in Finland in the early 1980s as Videoviihdettä. Featuring the hilarious Captain Kremmen sci-fi parody animations and such memorable characters played by Kenny Everett himself as Cupid Stunt (below) and Sid the Snot, this show with its combination of some wacky post-punk era anarchism, snazzy graphics & Pythonesque animations, contemporary pop culture (such people as David Bowie performed there) and lots of conservatives-scaring sexual innuendo (Everett's irreverent sketches and the steamy performances of Hot Gossip dance troupe) remains in my memories alongside even Monty Python's Flying Circus. Show some reruns, please!




More Kenny Everett search results @ YouTube

Also the risque dance troupe Hot Gossip was a mainstay at Kenny Everett's shows:


Hot Gossip and 'Sleazy' (performer not mentioned)


Hot Gossip and Flying Lizards' 'Money'


Hot Gossip and Blondie's 'The Hardest Part'


Hot Gossip and 'Hot Pink Coat'

More Hot Gossip search results @ YouTube

A Cool Movie Poster Gallery

Here: cult flicks, trash, classics...

[via Dadanoias]

Old Jallu Magazines To Be Reprinted

Obviously, there's some larger interest in vintage Finnish men's magazines at the moment, since there will now be a series of reprints of the issues of Jallu magazines from 1950s to 80s.

On A Brighter Note

The Zombies: 'Time of the Season' (1969)

MP3

New Additions To Finnsleaze

[Skip this entry if you are under 18 years old.]



Sleaze guarantee! More additions to Finnsleaze from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.

Cocktail:

20/70 | 23/70 | 7/71 | 11/71 | 14/71 | 15/71 | 20/71 | 2/72 | 5/72 | 9/72 | 12/72 | 13/72 | 16/72 | 17/72 | 18/72 | 22/72 | 23/72 | 25/72 | 3/73 | 5/73 | 8/73

Jallu:

10/69 | 3/76 | 7/76 | 9/76 | 10/76 | 10/77 | 12/77 | 12/78 | 3/78 | 11/79 | 12/79 | 2/81 | 4/81 | 6/81 | 12/81 | 12/82

Junnu:

2/74

Kalle:

5/76 | 6/76 | 7/76 | 8/76 | 6/77 | 7/78 | 5/80 | 10/80 | 11/80 | 10/81 | 11/81 | 7/83 | 12/83

Nyrkkiposti:

6/74 | 6/74 B

Onni:

5/79

Panoraama:

10/73 | 4/74

Ratto:

9/80 | 2/82 | 4/83

Urkki:

9/81 | 10/82

A New Futuro House Site

There's a new Website at http://www.futuro-house.net/, dedicated to the plastic Futuro house designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in late 1960s, and immortalised by film director Mika Taanila in his 1998 Futuro - A New Stance For Tomorrow.

The Futuro House site includes the following statement on its Mission page:

"This site is dedicated to locating and documenting, with as much information as possible, all of the remaining Futuro Houses throughout the world. First with old information that’s out there, then with your help, updated photos and histories.

If you are a current owner, past owner, neighbour, or whatever please contact me with whatever information you have. Let's gather and record history together."

Like Eero Aarnio's Globe Chair, Futuro is truly both a Finnish design classic and a quintessential 1960s pop culture artifact. But however, as the Futuro film press release notes put it, these futuristic dreams were short-lived:

"The 1973 oil crisis shattered the optimistic illusions about continuous economic growth and the infallibility of technology. The price of plastic climbed drastically, and the production of Futuro became unprofitable. Although the innovative Futuro attracted plenty of attention around the world, and production and sales licences were sold to 24 different countries, it never fulfilled the expectations of its commercial potential.

Bad Mags!

I just found this brilliant site called Bad Mags. As it says, it features cover art from different sorts of sleazy US magazines from the 1950s onwards. Crime, occult sex, skin flicks, gossips, bikers, rock'n'roll -- the seedy underside of America! Ungawa!

This links nice to FinnSleaze, my own cover gallery of (mostly) 1970s Finnish men's magazines. (Its mirrorsite has also a bit more images.)