Follow the Bear

[George 1978]

Re: Follow the Bear

I well remember drinking a real shandy, half beer, half lemonade. The lemonade was not the cheap stuff either, it tasted really nice.

Guinness advertising!!!! This could be quite blatant at the time. "Guiness is good for you." The Advertising Standards would have a heart attack over that now.

There was the other one.....Double Diamond. "Double Diamond works wonders, so have one today." I'd love to see both Guinness and Double Diamond go head to head with the Bear.

It's like how our Victorian predecessors used to say that a sip of alcohol was good for you - and dare I say it, they even said that about smoking! It was over half a century before the NHS was founded of course.

[angliaknight]

Re: Follow the Bear

Evenings and mornikgs i drink warniks, warniks advocaat, thats why im alwys ******!

[George 1978]

Re: Follow the Bear

Don't let that shtop you (burp!)...

I might toast Harry and Meghan on Saturday...

[marc]

Re: Follow the Bear

Many of us sipped on our fathers pints when they were not looking at a much younger age. It was the done thing for boys and even though our fathers pretended it was the not the done thing many men would deep down delight in their sons first sip of beer and probably turned the other way.

But then back then even shandy was real beer shandy not some flavoured gloop. So if we were lucky to go out with our parents we often got a half pint anyway.

I don't think the bear encouraged anybody to drink its built into our collective culture here in the UK.

And what about all the old Guinness advertising that used animal mascots for years to try to sell its product?

I well remember drinking a real shandy, half beer, half lemonade. The lemonade was not the cheap stuff either, it tasted really nice.

Guinness advertising!!!! This could be quite blatant at the time. "Guiness is good for you." The Advertising Standards would have a heart attack over that now.

There was the other one.....Double Diamond. "Double Diamond works wonders, so have one today." I'd love to see both Guinness and Double Diamond go head to head with the Bear.

[zabadak]

Re: Follow the Bear

All I can say that it's a good job that we don't celebrate Christmas or New Year every week - I would have been an alcoholic if that ever happened.

Don't let that shtop you (burp!)...

[George 1978]

Re: Follow the Bear

All I can say that it's a good job that we don't celebrate Christmas or New Year every week - I would have been an alcoholic if that ever happened.

[Richard1978]

Re: Follow the Bear

It took me quite a few years to get into drinking anything alcoholic, mostly due to the taste.

Even now I prefer cider to beer, & white wine to red.

[George 1978]

Re: Follow the Bear

Possibly, but it wasn't suppose to taste that nice at such a young age, was it? - it was like nature's warning that one should wait a few more years before drinking some!

I knew what an "adult's drink" was when I was younger, and even tea and coffee came almost into that category.

[battyrat]

Re: Follow the Bear

Many of us sipped on our fathers pints when they were not looking at a much younger age. It was the done thing for boys and even though our fathers pretended it was the not the done thing many men would deep down delight in their sons first sip of beer and probably turned the other way.

But then back then even shandy was real beer shandy not some flavoured gloop. So if we were lucky to go out with our parents we often got a half pint anyway.

I don't think the bear encouraged anybody to drink its built into our collective culture here in the UK.

And what about all the old Guinness advertising that used animal mascots for years to try to sell its product?

[marc]

Re: Follow the Bear

Richard 1978 & George 1978, I remember it now. There was a bit of a row over it. Has for youngsters sipping their pint a little to young.....this happened years before these adverts came about. I sipped my first pint at sixteen......Several people who I've worked with sipped theirs at fifteen....long before the bear supposedly encouraged them.

[George 1978]

Re: Follow the Bear

I liked George the Bear as well - the problem was that he looked like a children's television character a la Bungle out of Rainbow (so much for also having a character called George!), and the IBA prohibited him from starring in any more adverts because they were worried that he might engage youngsters into sipping their first pint a bit too younger than usual. I am certain that Shakin' Stevens and John Travolta had inspired the character.

He was also featured in that 100 Greatest TV Adverts programme on Channel 4, and one of the Talking Heads had said that the Bear was banned because of the yob culture and criminal damage in pubs back then as Richard had said above, but I have always assumed that it was because of the Bear resembling a children's television character. A similar conclusion to the cartoon advert that Heineken did with the Twelve Days of Christmas - the IBA said that it would encourage youngsters to drink alcohol, and so off our screens it went.

[zabadak]

Re: Follow the Bear

Hofmeister (Hoffmeister?) - great advert

[Richard1978]

Re: Follow the Bear

I well remember these adverts. I forget the reason why they stopped. PC mob would not allow it now anyway.

I remember it being featured on a programme about advertising a few years ago, which explained ads like it were dropped because the makers didn't want to be associated with excessive drinking & lager louts.

[marc]

Re: Follow the Bear

I well remember these adverts. I forget the reason why they stopped. PC mob would not allow it now anyway.

[Twocky61]

Re: Follow the Bear

Such a cool bear