{"id":4590,"date":"2016-10-12T16:56:20","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T16:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/?p=4590"},"modified":"2020-07-26T14:14:08","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T14:14:08","slug":"underberg-ad-night-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2016\/10\/12\/underberg-ad-night-light\/","title":{"rendered":"The Underberg Ad: “Through the Night to the Light”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Its name in German is “Durch Nacht zum Licht”<\/em>, and though I’ve loved it for years I had no idea it was so famous.<\/p>\n

Some years ago, back when the Sky satellite system had not yet gone digital, numerous analog European stations shared various transponders with the English-speaking services on that generation of Astra satellites. A number of these were German — Bayrischer Rundfunk, the two German national stations ARD1 and ARD 2, Hessische Rundfunk, and various others, including the commercial broadcaster RTL.<\/p>\n

One night RTL 2 showed a compendium edition of 50s and 60s German commercials. (The compendium as a whole is available on YouTube, here<\/a>: about thirteen minutes of assorted stuff. I strongly recommend watching it if only for the below Lady in the Terrifyingly Pointy Bra.)<\/p>\n

\"pointy-bra\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anyway, I love programs like this, and so I taped it; and some while ago while we were dubbing some old tapes to CD (this was before DVDs), I made sure to dub that program as well, because I really wanted to share this commercial (and a couple of others). The sponsor is the\u00a0 herbal digestive bitter called Underberg <\/a>(which is still sold and quite effective. The main active ingredient, if I remember correctly, is valerian, but I strongly suspect the alcohol content is important in offsetting hangover symptoms.)<\/p>\n

This commercial is the freakiest evocation of a hangover nightmare (or frankly any other nightmare) that I’ve ever seen on TV. It turns out that the animator, Hans Fischerkoesen, was famous in Germany: he was often called “Germany’s Walt Disney” and you can read more about him here.<\/a> Anyway, the thing is impressionistic and there are rats and skeletons and clutching spectral fingers and it’s just terrific.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

So here’s that ad. As it’s clipped out of the compendium setting, it ends a little abruptly. Sorry about that.<\/p>\n

Enjoy (if possible!).<\/p>\n