Waxing Nostalgic: Purina Pet Food Commercials from the 70s and 80s

Attention blog "shoppers": The contents of this post are intended for entertainment value ONLY. That said, if your opinions are such that you feel the need to offer advice about pet food choices, please refrain from doing so in comments, but rather, send me an email. In other words, I am trying to have an innocent, warm-fuzzy-feeling "parade" here and any "rain clouds" will be promptly deleted. I mean it. Thank you. :)

Alright, so before I get to the commercials and stuff, here's a bit of Chronicles of Cardigan nostalgia:

I say, eating is best done while in the napping position. 

That is adolescent puppy Jon Farleigh (c. 2010) having some breakfast. Never mind what was in his bowl (it could've been a whole steak for all he cared), he ate every meal lying down for his entire first year! For many weeks I naively thought this was some innate corgi thing. Then Dewi proved otherwise. I guess one could say Jon is the more "laid back" of the two. :)

Speaking of feeding time, as I was recently reminiscing (while creating the quiz for last week's post) about my (much) younger days, enjoying partaking of a few morsels of Purina Cat Chow (from my childhood cat's bowl), my memory suddenly cast me back to the classic series of Purina commercials, in which cats have the uncanny ability to dance the "chow chow chow." Does anyone else remember those? (You'd better be saying yes. Just sayin'.)

So anyway, that led me to Google, which led me to YouTube, which led me straight down a groundhog hole (I love groundhogs, y'all) to what seemed like a bazillion vintage (mostly 70s and 80s) pet food (and Underalls, Dr. Pepper, Charmin, Maxwell House, Big Wheel...) commercials that I had nearly forgotten about. Talk about a mind trip! And someone please tell me how the heck I got to 2013 so fast?! I mean, I was just riding my Big Wheel and having a (not diet) Coke yesterday, it seems! ;-)

But back to the point of this post: I thought some of you might like to watch some of the classic Purina* (brand) pet food commercials, too, so I compiled several of my favorites in a playlist (on the blog's YouTube channel)! 

Here are a few of my playlist faves...

You just don't know how badly I wanted my cat to do the chow chow chow. He wouldn't. However, I used to get on all fours and do it for him. Was that wrong? ;)

This Dog Chow bit is just flipping hilarious...

As is this one for Meow Mix...



You'll recognize the voice in this 70s Puppy Chow commercial...



It's Sterling Holloway (aka Winnie the Pooh). :)

And finally, who could forget the (miniature) Chuck Wagon?

Rod Serling totally could've written a Twilight Zone episode about that blasted Chuck Wagon, no? :)

So, did you see any of your favorites?
Hint: If not (ahem, Morris the cat, anyone?), jump over to the playlist; it/they might be there!

And a final thought: Is it me or are these pet food commercials a lot like sugary cereal commercials? I can still remember all of those, too. Those crafty marketers.

Happy day to you!

* Although it is the majority, Purina isn't the only pet food brand represented in the playlist. Also, Purina has never heard of me or this blog. :)