Yesterday was Frank Sinatra’s Birthday, so I Googled some of his videos. I was looking for Frank and Count Basie when they performed together at The Sands, but instead I came across another gem.
Frank did a few commercials in the mid 1980’s for Michelob. That was probably how my generation was introduced to The Chairman of the Board.
The commercial that I watched is a beautiful time capsule of night life in the ‘80’s.
Frank is singing “The Way You Look Tonight” while the camera pans the nightclub. Cool guys in suits, women with big hair and shoulder pad dresses and a panoramic shot of New York City, including a gorgeous shot of the two towers.
I started Googling beer commercials and came across many gems from my childhood. Billy D and Colt Forty-Five, John Madden and Billy Martin doing early Lite Beer commercials followed by the best one of all….
A Lowenbrau commercial.
A table of guys sitting in a booth at a busy bar. All the guys are wearing suits and having a beer or cocktail.
The men are waiting for their final buddy to show up. They are having a quick bite before they go to a game. In the background is a tenor voice singing the Lowenbrau jingle.
When the guy arrives late because he was picking up the tickets, his buddies bust his balls. He sits down and tells the waiter, “I know what I want, get me a steak and a Lowenbrau.”
The entire table abruptly hands all the menus to the waiter and the biggest ball buster at the table belts out today’s Chalkboard quote.
This commercial was on television when I was about eleven or twelve.
All I wanted to do when I grew up was go to a fancy bar with my buddies, drink Lowenbrau and eat steaks before a Blackhawks game.
Fifteen to twenty years later, I was going to the bar, eating steaks, drinking beer and going to the hockey game.
Unfortunately, I never made it to the nightclub in New York to see Frank Sinatra.
Tonight, I’m actually going out with an old group of buddies to drink beer at James Joyce. We do it every year before Christmas and the antics are commercial quality.
Maybe we will sing “Galway Bay” with the NYPD choir?
