Drink our coffee. Or else. That's the message of these curiously sadistic TV commercials produced by Jim Henson between 1957 and 1961.
Henson made 179 ten-second spots for Wilkins Coffee, a regional company with distribution in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. market, according to the Muppets Wiki: "The local stations only had ten seconds for station identification, so the Muppet commercials had to be lightning-fast--essentially, eight seconds for the commercial pitch and a two-second shot of the product."
Within those eight seconds, a coffee enthusiast named Wilkins (who bears a resemblance to Kermit the frog) manages to shoot, stab, bludgeon or otherwise do grave bodily harm to a coffee holdout named Wontkins. Henson provided the voices of both characters.
Up until that time, TV advertisers typically made a direct sales pitch. "We took a different approach," said Henson in Christopher Finch's Of Muppets and Men: The Making of the Muppet Show. "We tried to sell things by making people laugh."
The campaign for Wilkins Coffee was a hit. "In terms of popularity of commercials in the Washington area," said Henson in a 1982 interview with Judy Harris, "we were the number one, the most popular commercial." Henson's ad agency began marketing the idea to other regional coffee companies around the country. Henson re-shot the same spots with different brand names. "I bought my contract from that agency," said Henson, "and then I was producing them--the same things around the country. And so we had up to about a dozen or so clients going at the same time. At the point, I was making a lot of money."
You can watch many of the Wilkins Coffee commercials above. If you're a glutton for punishment, there are more below. And a word of advice: If someone ever asks you if you drink Wilkins Coffee, just say yes.
Thanks for this — I have been sharing these ads with students in my geography of coffee classes for the past few years. Like me, they are at first appalled but then curiously drawn to the ads. It is very good to have the back story.
I have been hunting for two years for a DVD or set of DVD’s with the Wilkins Coffee ads on them . . . who has them?
When I was 10 my family moved to the DC area. I can still remember these commercials on TV. I haven’t seen them in ages. Thanks for making them available.
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This is absolutely none of my business, but since the title of this thing has to do with "opinions", I might as well proceed. After tuning into 'Fox NFL Sunday' for a very few minutes yesterday, this thought occurred to me regarding Michael Strahan: Why doesn't he have that 'gorge' between his front teeth repaired? I swear that gap is growing before our very eyes. It's huge. He must have to use a rope to floss it! Most photogenic he is definitely not. It isn't like the dude can't afford it, even though it would require a truckload of porcelain I'm sure. His dentist would be glad to use the 'ole PC to generate a computer image of how much better he would look like "after", as opposed to "before". Maybe he feels like "The Gap" is his trademark and he doesn't want to 'part' (no pun intended) with it. I hate to tell him that 'ugly' is not the descriptive one should aspire to being known for, especially when one has the means to change that 'ugly' into at least 'less ugly'. I mean come on, you have to consider how much you have to work with here. Whew... At least he should do it for us now that he is supposedly a TV personality. It certainly would make tuning in and actually watching the Fox pregame show a little easier. Come on Michael, take one for the team. Fill that gap, bridge that gorge. "Dare not deny to be a GQ kind of Guy!"
Former Bulldogs Geno Atkins(56) and Jeff Owens(95) both had successful weeks at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama. The two defensive tackles seem to have vaulted their way into the second round projections of the upcoming NFL draft. The pair surprised NFL scouts with their ability to combine quickness, explosiveness and strength. Neither player had what you would call dominant seasons last year to end their college careers in Athens, so the week in Mobile took on added importance to the two. They certainly did not let themselves down in practices, nor in the game itself. With a continuation of strong workouts in the spring leading up to the NFL combines, the defensive linemen could be sneaking into the first round of the draft. Not a bad "catch" for a pair of Georgia fishermen.