psychedelic ads from the past - parry's eclairs

Kalia, Suppandi, Shikari Shambu, Kapish, Anwar…

Need I say more? If these names mean something to you than I am sure that you would be among the millions of after-youth’ers whose collective childhood were enriched by the wonderful monthly (later fortnightly and now weekly) Tinkle, has, believe it or not, comic book versions of folk tales from around the world (I realized that Cameroon is a country and not a dish after reading “Ngampa Goes to Market!”), nature documentaries, scientific experiments, do-it-yourself craft projects... and still have time to devote to regular features like the adventures of talking crows and flat-headed domestic servants.

It was edited by Anant Pai known to us only as "Uncle Pai", and he had the status of a demigod to us kids. Even when you grew a little older and it wasn't "cool" to read it anymore, you still had a stash hidden under your bed that you read when no-one was looking.

Now, as luck would have it, most of my stash was freely distributed to kids of relatives' (or they were just pawns in a major laundering operation and the books ultimately reached the different uncles and aunts!). It was fortunate that I happened to stumble upon some of them while attempting to stash my cigarettes clean the attic.

The characters and story lines haven't changed much from the past now but what has changed are the advertisements. Simple advertisements from a simpler time. A happier, more innocent decade. A happier, more innocent, and incredibly weird fucking decade.

I am starting this series to give you a glimpse of that decades because I have no work to do I am too lazy to write a fully fledged blog and would rather copy-paste what’s more wonderful than a crazy trip without LSD?

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Starting with one of the trippiest ones ever; The Parry’s Éclairs! It was the poor cousin of the more famous Cadbury’s Éclairs, who had the cute girl from some movie or shit endorsing it. Much like Ashlee Simpson baring all to grab more attention than her better (WTF!) sounding sister, Parry’s decided to attack from the flank and produced this wonderful ad:


That is one stoned kid. Check out the amazing psychedelic vision you can experience by just dropping a couple of Parry's Éclairs. God damn I love the '80s. It was rumored that this one single ad managed to wean away all the future potheads and LSD fans from Cadbury's; who took a major hit in sales. Last seen, the Cadbury's girl was selling Vada-Pav in Churchgate and she still shudders on seeing anything remotely dark-brown.