Tuesday, April 15, 2008

RANDOM YOUTUBERY: THE PENULTIMATE BEER

SABMillerCoors (or whatever the fuck they're calling themselves these days) hit the trifecta this morning. Someone bought an old repro porcelain sign of the "Girl on the Moon" from my store, I some how got tricked into watching that "cat fight" ad again and a banner ad for "Miller Lite: The Ultimate Beer" was displayed on CBS Sportsline (which, per Jeff, will not be linked here).

It got me thinking about a couple of things:
1. Is Miller Lite ever the right choice?
2. What happened to the classy advertising of beer like The Girl on the Moon?
3. Who the fuck would buy a beer with corn syrup in it?

The answer is "Not Me," but that's beside the point. Here's a "Champagne of Beers" commercial from what (I guess) is from the mid-50s. I'm not sure what's more disturbing, how absolutely whipped our fathers (or grandfathers for some of us) were, the fact people thought Miller High Life was acceptable to serve with a "fancy" dinner, or Harry telling his beer that he'd be right back.




The funny thing about all this is that I don't have a overwhelmingly negative image of Miller High Life (Miller Lite, yes; Ultra, yes). If I was in a bar and it was Bud, Coors or High Life, I'd be a Miller Man for one day. Hoo-ray Marketing!

[Update: After checking out Ratebeer (2nd percentile) and Beeradvocate (C), I may just stick with tap water if I was in a bar that had Bud, Coors and Miller High Life]

4 comments:

Jeff K said...

Yeah, that ad is pretty weird, but at least it's trying to sell the beer by calling it "champagne". Nowadays you just have a Bud Light commercial where someone gets kicked in the balls, and I don't know about you but that makes me thirsty for a light beer. Thankfully, I never get kicked in the balls.

Whatever happened to the jingle anwyay?

Rob said...

Are we sure about that title? Penultimate means "second to last". For me the penultimate beer is the one just before the one that I REALLY should not have had because I already had 5 too many.

Kris said...

Since Jeff and Rob questioned the "Penultimate" part:

Yes, I meant that and I knew what it meant. My feeling is that the only time that you would be justified drinking Miller High Life is when your internal "don't-drink-this-one" voice is completely fucked because of the previous 15 beers.

I think my penultimate drink is generally something nasty (I believe Cointreau once made an appearance).

Jeff K said...

Yeah, it's the "penultimate" beer because you need something good right afterwards to get the taste of Miller (and/or bile) out of your mouth.