Let’s not forget that the post 9/11 wars over who can wave the most flags was a sequel to the Gulf War of the early 90’s & a shit-ton of flag-waving broke out for that shit too.
When I was a kid in the 70’s we didn’t have a Sizzler nearby we had Western Sizzlin. The Sizzler example provided made me nostalgic for times before those & I went looking for a 70’s Western Sizzlin commercial.
I stopped after finding this among many like it, not the 70’s but now I don’t want to look anymore.
This video does not accurately portray Sizzler in the 90’s.
I remember eating at Sizzler many times in the 80’s, it was a cheap place to get a steak. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t bad. But you could bring a family there and get a slab of beef. By the 90’s, the place was at the bottom of the heap. Run down, poorly run, bad food… drive by one and the parking lot was empty.
So I’m guessing this was a last gasp of management to try and keep morale up with the workforce.
1991 was barely the 90’s
They went for the cheap steak all you can eat business and were copied by at least half a dozen chains. This started a cheap steak all you can eat lower prices and quality death spiral that took all of them out.
LOL! I actually have that album. Yeah, it’s hard to listen to the dreck from the Sizzler commercial in comparison to 60’s classics. So by all means enjoy a quasi-unicorn-rainbow in the music and the psychedelic clothes. It sounds like you already have a pretty balanced view of the times.
Memorable art is likely stimulated by the passion of foment & change – the 60’s had that in spades.
SIZZLER IS ALL THOSE THINGS AND MORE.
I came to say that…culturally it was still the 80’s.
The 70’s culturally extended into the early 80’s.
and the 60’s extended into the 70’s.
I ate at Sizzler once…I was underwhelmed. They cooked my steak in a manner I didn’t order and so offered me ‘free salad bar’. But it looked wilted and sad and then I felt sad.
But the commercials! It took me until the middle of my third decade of life to enjoy eating seafood of any kind; but I remember the Sizzler commercials would have me salivating like Pavlov’s dogs over shrimp: I’d never tried it; somehow I knew I wanted to eat it.
I still recall the jingle: “Squeeze that lemon, chop those herbs: oh that chicken, it’s superb! Shrimp on the grill, broiled and basted; it’s the best I ever tasted: Chicken and Shrimp, together they’re great…now at Sizzler one. special. rate!! Sizzler: Chicken and shrimp! Together: Chicken and shrimp! Suh-suh-Sizzler!!!”
(I…I haven’t thought of that in a very long time.)
As ugh as this video surely is: must we blame the nineties? I suppose I’ll have to accept that 1991 counts as ‘the 90’s’…yet the '60s didn’t begin until Oswald squeezed the trigger; the 70’s didn’t end until Reagans election: which was, alright, 1980. But the early 90’s chronologically had some 80’s bleed through…look at that girl in the salad bar! That is not the decades fault!
We goin’ Sizzler
The only period of my life I ever smoked pot was one year in college and, when we did, we’d go to the Sizzler to the All You Can Eat Shrimp deal. And it was frakking fantastic
I think of the 90s as two distinct eras: the neon-coloured hip hop early 90s and the neutral coloured Gap clothing late 90s… and grunge as a reaction to both.
There are many signs that reveal that Sizzlers is more than meets the eye. It might be sort of a hidden-in-plain-sight secret society, “a restaurant inside a restaurant”, the whispered ‘Sizzlers’ at the end, the use of anachronistic outfits –particularly for seamen–, and highly ritualized, rigid gestures (hidden as just ‘acting’).
The emphasis on elusive concepts or values as fundamental truths, and the weight of the –also gaseous– tradition and state-nation, such as freedom and free will (of choice), seems to appeal to the pathos, rather than to the ethos, in order to present Sizzlers as an antidote to social change, like both parents working.
Brainspore and Stefanjones are absolutely right. The highly reactionary agenda implied in the message, matches with being a cult, a conservative candidate, and the vehicle of choice of the Suburban Bourgeoisie.
Perhaps there’s a retroactive version of the optimism bias?
Sort of like the confirmation bias? In the confirmation bias, outcomes that confirm your expectations get sacked away in your evidence bin, and the violated expectations fall down the memory hole.
With autobiographical embarrassment, the further away in time you are from the event, the more your memory only hangs onto the bits and pieces you want to keep, and all those bad, negative feelings slowly fade. If you don’t pick at the scab, and move on, the bad parts tend to fade faster. If you keep bringing up those bad things you did, they keep making you experience the bad emotions, and you keep strengthening the negative association, until, with enough time, you’ve forgotten enough detail of that memory, and you can back up and say: “why does this bother me anyway”?
Oh man I shouldn’t trip while watching “The Walking Dead”, it only gets more grotesque.
This is the most overt example of US political propaganda I’ve seen since the last time I saw one of Ronald Reagan’s campaign ads.
It’s also interesting how sexuality is used in the ad – less the usual objectification of women’s bodies, and more the enthusiastic passionate embracing and kissing which seems a tad excessive for an ad for a family restaurant.
Is kissing “sexuality”?
You can’t get turned on by kissing?
Sure, it’s a subjective judgment. But I do think the way they kiss is unusual, for advertising for restaurants.
Firstly, how did the 80’s miss the firing squad? They were easily worse for kitch than the 70s or the 90s.
Secondly, this being made in '91, I think it’s pretty fair to put the blame of this squarely on the 80’s since the shudder-worthy theme song, hair and motorola brick are signature items of the 80’s.
Edit: I just realised that this is basically heal the world, but with sizzler instead of jacko.
The Smells Likje Teen Spirit video falsifies the Headline of the original post. The 70’s had Apocalypse Now, the punk movement and Boney M. There is no such thing as the superior or crappy decade. I’m sick of this shit.
