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I never discuss my own Hob-nobs in public; far too personal, and I certainly never dunk them in any case, for a biscuit's far too wet and soggy with one. To be fair, even I knew that eating McVitie's was not meant to sound anything like a synopsis of Reggie Kray committing cannibalism, but the consumption of the rather delicious biscuits that we got as an award for eating up our dinner. The days when biscuits went soft within 24 hours of opening the packet, and one needed to put them in the Christmas-before-last's Family Circle tin (going by the best before date on the lid), so that they could keep a little longer (that's unless someone has literally had their hands in the tin and helped themselves). This advert wasn't the one about the broken down projector and having to go next door (and reminds me of an episode of The Good Life or some other middle class Peter Bowles sitcom) which was on screen circa 1981 or a year or two before that, but it was the other one from a couple of years later involving coming home after a day out to some Homewheat without even having dinner first. I wonder whether it merited any complaints from parents at the time?
"McVitie's bake biscuits like they ought to be; and Chocolate Homewheat's a treat", went the sub-country and western themed song which always sounded as if Chas and Dave should have done a Cockney cover version of it, and it always seemed to be on around the ad breaks of Blockbusters; (or "a surprise" as Derek Griffiths in his guise as a monthly Children's ITV continuity announcer once referred to that rather difficult bridge, known as the 5.15 pm slot, due to regional variations taking their course there). Basically it could have cropped up amongst anything that was just before the News at 5.45 in the mid 1980s, although I believe that most ITV stations and probably Channel 4 had shown the advert regularly between 1982 and 1988, mostly daytimes in "Shake 'n' Vac" territory. The advert always made me think of being out all day, (a bit like woman in the Clairol Foot Spa advert as well); it was probably on a Sunday afternoon, post-Bullseye, and coming back home for something to eat, usually something healthy and then something sweet afterwards. "Wherever you hide them, they'll always find them, a home's not home without Homewheat", on went the singing voiceover. Someone had said that it was Stephanie de Sykes who sung the tune in the advert, but it sounds more like someone who is more mature and the tune sounds older.
A family have been out for the day; a mother and her a son and a daughter - the latter looking like Little Red Riding Hood (cf the opening minutes of Don't Look Now); cycling along separately home. Whilst at home, a female brunette relative with all the charm of Pat Coombs in a Yorkshire Television children's programme, starts to display some McVitie's Homewheat biscuits straight from the packet onto a tray, on top of other brands of biscuits, with a golden retriever looking on (and hopefully not inviting the dog to take one for Health and Safety reasons - the Pedigree Chum advertisement was presumably later on in the same ad break). For some reason, the mother was in two places at once, both on the day trip and also inside arranging the biscuits; if she was left at home, she probably went out to her local Fine Fare (to mention a "no longer with us" supermarket chain just for nostalgia value), and had purchased some McVitie's Homewheat for around a early to mid 1980s price of 32½p as this was made before the halfpenny was abolished in 1984. The female relative hides the remaining brown packet behind some paperback books (one of them already seen on the same shelf was the spine of "Kinflicks" by Lisa Alther) on a high shelf of a sub-Cavendish Woodhouse wall unit, and goes "shush" to the dog, as if the dog actually has special powers and is able to tell anyone where the biscuits are in any case. Who is indeed barking mad?
The girl in red blows a toy windmill as she travels along on her bicycle, so presumably they have been to Skegness or somewhere quite exotic. Very soon, the mother and two kids arrive back home; wellington boots and coats off, and the girl dressed in yellow, helps herself to chocolate biscuits, but ignores the rival brands on the plate, and this was before she even had her dinner - most parents would say "not until you've had your dinner". (I blame the lack of strict parenting, myself, even in Thatcher's Britain when this advert was made). The boy likes his chocolate biscuits as well, but where is the packet of McVitie's hidden? Better play Hide and Seek in order to find out. The girl lifts up some cushions to look for them, but they are not there; the boy is getting warmer, removing some books, but it was the wrong shelf. Their (presumable) Chris Serle-lookalike father removes the books on the teak wall unit and shows where the biscuits were indeed hidden. The mother falls backwards into an armchair which leads us to a freeze frame of the advert and the almost a tongue twister of "McVitie's bake a better biscuit". We hear the "nobody bakes then quite like McVitie's do - nobody bakes them like you" chorus at the end.
This is from the 30 second version advert that we saw most of the time, but I have seen a 40 second version of it on YouTube, with the images and song extended slightly, almost without even recognising the difference, as well as another version towards the end of its run with the final few seconds missing. McVitie's did a few commercials for each of their brands of biscuits, but it is probably not surprisingly, the chocolate flavour which is most memorable. These McVitie's advertisements, using the same tune with different words added on, were part of a series during the mid 1980s; remember Abbey Crunch? Fruit Shortcake, anyone? Plain old Digestives (just like ready salted flavour Walkers Crisps, they came in a red packet, demeaning its default flavour). There was also the Rich Tea advert sent on a scaffolded building site at morning tea break with which some people often confuse with the "will it be chips or jacket spuds?" Birds Eye Steakhouse Grills advert from roughly the same time, with the sub-Auf Wiedersehen Pet understudies in the back of a Transit van, rewording Doris Day's Que Sera-Sera. Cue a load of workmen on their tea break; no sign of the voice of Simon Bates on Radio 1 in the background, and the Foreman doesn't even have a pencil perched on his right ear, singing the familiar company's song back then. A drink's too wet without one, although I would prefer not to drown the poor things, especially as I am going to do to them what the fox did to the Gingerbread Man.
Just like a lot of songs used in television commercials, it made me think whether the tune was based on a song that has been in the charts at some point, probably in the early to mid 1970s, or whether it had been written and composed specially for McVitie's in the same way that Guys and Dolls had done the same for Oxo in the late 1970s? Both the Guys and the Dolls (for Bruce Forsyth's daughter Julie was one of the "Dolls"), had to retitle it in order to have a hit with it and to avoid prominent advertising used, for the title had a brand name in it. After all, the Coasters' Yakety Yak had been used in dozens of commercials in the 1980s and 1990s, advertising everything from Radox to McCain Micro Chips - I refer to a thread which I had started in 2019. Does McVitie's still call their chocolate biscuits "Homewheat"? Do they even still call Jaffa Cakes "cakes"? Not since around 2000 for the former, according to someone online. I must do a Tesco online shop in order to refresh my memory.
Now that really does take the biscuit.
"McVitie's bake biscuits like they ought to be; and Chocolate Homewheat's a treat", went the sub-country and western themed song which always sounded as if Chas and Dave should have done a Cockney cover version of it, and it always seemed to be on around the ad breaks of Blockbusters; (or "a surprise" as Derek Griffiths in his guise as a monthly Children's ITV continuity announcer once referred to that rather difficult bridge, known as the 5.15 pm slot, due to regional variations taking their course there). Basically it could have cropped up amongst anything that was just before the News at 5.45 in the mid 1980s, although I believe that most ITV stations and probably Channel 4 had shown the advert regularly between 1982 and 1988, mostly daytimes in "Shake 'n' Vac" territory. The advert always made me think of being out all day, (a bit like woman in the Clairol Foot Spa advert as well); it was probably on a Sunday afternoon, post-Bullseye, and coming back home for something to eat, usually something healthy and then something sweet afterwards. "Wherever you hide them, they'll always find them, a home's not home without Homewheat", on went the singing voiceover. Someone had said that it was Stephanie de Sykes who sung the tune in the advert, but it sounds more like someone who is more mature and the tune sounds older.
A family have been out for the day; a mother and her a son and a daughter - the latter looking like Little Red Riding Hood (cf the opening minutes of Don't Look Now); cycling along separately home. Whilst at home, a female brunette relative with all the charm of Pat Coombs in a Yorkshire Television children's programme, starts to display some McVitie's Homewheat biscuits straight from the packet onto a tray, on top of other brands of biscuits, with a golden retriever looking on (and hopefully not inviting the dog to take one for Health and Safety reasons - the Pedigree Chum advertisement was presumably later on in the same ad break). For some reason, the mother was in two places at once, both on the day trip and also inside arranging the biscuits; if she was left at home, she probably went out to her local Fine Fare (to mention a "no longer with us" supermarket chain just for nostalgia value), and had purchased some McVitie's Homewheat for around a early to mid 1980s price of 32½p as this was made before the halfpenny was abolished in 1984. The female relative hides the remaining brown packet behind some paperback books (one of them already seen on the same shelf was the spine of "Kinflicks" by Lisa Alther) on a high shelf of a sub-Cavendish Woodhouse wall unit, and goes "shush" to the dog, as if the dog actually has special powers and is able to tell anyone where the biscuits are in any case. Who is indeed barking mad?
The girl in red blows a toy windmill as she travels along on her bicycle, so presumably they have been to Skegness or somewhere quite exotic. Very soon, the mother and two kids arrive back home; wellington boots and coats off, and the girl dressed in yellow, helps herself to chocolate biscuits, but ignores the rival brands on the plate, and this was before she even had her dinner - most parents would say "not until you've had your dinner". (I blame the lack of strict parenting, myself, even in Thatcher's Britain when this advert was made). The boy likes his chocolate biscuits as well, but where is the packet of McVitie's hidden? Better play Hide and Seek in order to find out. The girl lifts up some cushions to look for them, but they are not there; the boy is getting warmer, removing some books, but it was the wrong shelf. Their (presumable) Chris Serle-lookalike father removes the books on the teak wall unit and shows where the biscuits were indeed hidden. The mother falls backwards into an armchair which leads us to a freeze frame of the advert and the almost a tongue twister of "McVitie's bake a better biscuit". We hear the "nobody bakes then quite like McVitie's do - nobody bakes them like you" chorus at the end.
This is from the 30 second version advert that we saw most of the time, but I have seen a 40 second version of it on YouTube, with the images and song extended slightly, almost without even recognising the difference, as well as another version towards the end of its run with the final few seconds missing. McVitie's did a few commercials for each of their brands of biscuits, but it is probably not surprisingly, the chocolate flavour which is most memorable. These McVitie's advertisements, using the same tune with different words added on, were part of a series during the mid 1980s; remember Abbey Crunch? Fruit Shortcake, anyone? Plain old Digestives (just like ready salted flavour Walkers Crisps, they came in a red packet, demeaning its default flavour). There was also the Rich Tea advert sent on a scaffolded building site at morning tea break with which some people often confuse with the "will it be chips or jacket spuds?" Birds Eye Steakhouse Grills advert from roughly the same time, with the sub-Auf Wiedersehen Pet understudies in the back of a Transit van, rewording Doris Day's Que Sera-Sera. Cue a load of workmen on their tea break; no sign of the voice of Simon Bates on Radio 1 in the background, and the Foreman doesn't even have a pencil perched on his right ear, singing the familiar company's song back then. A drink's too wet without one, although I would prefer not to drown the poor things, especially as I am going to do to them what the fox did to the Gingerbread Man.
Just like a lot of songs used in television commercials, it made me think whether the tune was based on a song that has been in the charts at some point, probably in the early to mid 1970s, or whether it had been written and composed specially for McVitie's in the same way that Guys and Dolls had done the same for Oxo in the late 1970s? Both the Guys and the Dolls (for Bruce Forsyth's daughter Julie was one of the "Dolls"), had to retitle it in order to have a hit with it and to avoid prominent advertising used, for the title had a brand name in it. After all, the Coasters' Yakety Yak had been used in dozens of commercials in the 1980s and 1990s, advertising everything from Radox to McCain Micro Chips - I refer to a thread which I had started in 2019. Does McVitie's still call their chocolate biscuits "Homewheat"? Do they even still call Jaffa Cakes "cakes"? Not since around 2000 for the former, according to someone online. I must do a Tesco online shop in order to refresh my memory.
Now that really does take the biscuit.
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