Beer ad, thirsty disembodied heads

[bluegreen]

Am I imagining this ad with 3 disembodied heads on a surface- spitting image/ muppet type of puppets, maybe a bit like the shrunken head guy from Beetlejuice? And at the end a man takes the pint away from them? I thought maybe it was Heineken, reaching the parts other beers can't reach, but I can't find anything. Driving me crazy thinking I made it up!

[Heather74]

McEwens
Only two heads and No man at the end but maybe it was a series of ads?

[sixtyten]

What a bizarre advert!

[LilacLobster]

Never seen that ad but it's inspired by this animation by the Czech artist Jan Svankmaker.
https://Www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8y_UN...FqZXIgZGlhbG9n

[George 1978]

It was for either Tennant's or McEwan's (which I believe were both Scottish and Newcastle brands back then) - their adverts were long ones, ranging from a minute to 1:30.

Adverts for alcohol are deliberately bizarre if you think of the Carling Black Label ones (a thread I started a few years ago) - I believe that they are meant to be abstract in appearance in order to represent the feeling that we get when we drink too much of the stuff.

Heineken incidentally took them over in the late 2000s.

[Richard1978]

I remember Budweiser had an advert where all the characters were actor's chins filmed upside down with stick on eyes. This seemed to be a popular thing to do in the late 1980s - early 1990s, with Ben Elton: The Man From AUNTIE featuring them, along with being used in Red Dwarf!

[George 1978]

The Chinheads ones were for Tennant's lager. I used to think that they represented, shall we say, another (male) body part rather than their chins? One of them was playing drums and were performing a song called "Something" which might had become a genuine chart hit at the time, although Everyhit doesn't give any clues. The adverts remind me of watching Central off-airs of Prisoner: Cell Block H in around 1990, and I used to see the Chinheads adverts in the ad breaks as I was fast-forwarding them.

I have vague memory that a comedy sketch show did feature them - probably not parodying the advert, but they might have been the first to feature the "upside-down" chins for entertainment value. And none of them had beards, although I cannot comment whether any of them had moustaches for obvious reasons...

[Richard1978]

Actually it was McEwens!

[George 1978]

How exactly were those actually adverts filmed? Did the cameraman do a handstand or just point the camera upside-down, or did the Chinhead "actors" do a Jimmy Hill-esque "Kilroy was 'Ere" pose with the bottom half of their faces?

I would say more 1990s than 1980s but I am not arguing.

[Richard1978]

How exactly were those actually adverts filmed? Did the cameraman do a handstand or just point the camera upside-down, or did the Chinhead "actors" do a Jimmy Hill-esque "Kilroy was 'Ere" pose with the bottom half of their faces?

I would say more 1990s than 1980s but I am not arguing.

I'm guessing the camera was turned upside down, or the picture was flipped in post production. It's possible some shots were done with the actors on their backs & were filmed from above.

[George 1978]

Mentioning the picture being "flipped" made me assume that it was filmed backwards (i.e. via a mirror image), unless you were referring to filming upside-down as being flipped?

I would love to see a How Do They Do That? approach to how it was all done. As I said before, alcohol adverts in the 1980s and 1990s often had optical illusions in them.

[Richard1978]

Mentioning the picture being "flipped" made me assume that it was filmed backwards (i.e. via a mirror image), unless you were referring to filming upside-down as being flipped?

I would love to see a How Do They Do That? approach to how it was all done. As I said before, alcohol adverts in the 1980s and 1990s often had optical illusions in them.

Yes I meant upside down! I think How Do They Do That? had a look at the Stones Bitter advert with things going in reverse.

[George 1978]

I had to ask because most people say "flipped" when they mean "back to front" rather than "upside down".

[Richard1978]

I had to ask because most people say "flipped" when they mean "back to front" rather than "upside down".

Right I wasn't sure which term to use!