of tigers and men

The Uniroyal Tire Commercial above is one of the most memorable commercial from my youth.  Each Uniroyal Tiger commercial pulled the viewer into first person action like the old Six Flags Chevy Show.  The animation made me feel those curves as the tiger paws grabbed and held the road.  The commercial is still a strong piece of advertising.

There was another tiger roaming around back at that time - The Esso Oil Tiger with the "Put A Tiger In Your Tank" slogan.  There was a great marketing give-away that went along with this campaign.  Do you remember?  It was the tiger tail that people tied to their gas tank.  I saw one of those tails today tied to a car.  I don't think they were advertising Esso, but rather an avid Auburn Tiger fan.

fatal vision

We used to have to watch these old automobile safety films in Driver's Ed class back when I was in high school.   I know I'm an old fart now, but all of these films were just as vintage to me then as they are now.  The teacher would roll out the 16mm projector and we'd have to make room for it in the center of room.  The guy sitting closest to the light switch in the back of the room would get the light.

The film would roll and it took me a few minutes for my ears to get accustomed to the sound of the film clicking through the machine.  I would soon become absorbed in the old tragedies.  I could hear the message clearly, and take in the reality gore fest.  We got the message quickly.

We would watch the scratched and hacked-up celluloid of bad drivers  who were scratched and hacked up.  It was there where I saw dead people for the first time in Driver's Ed class.  Many images in these safety films were pretty grizzly, charred bodies, limp bodies, disfigured bodies, all kinds of dead bodies.  The intent was of course to scare young careless drivers into being careful drivers.