{"id":44706,"date":"2024-08-02T20:17:46","date_gmt":"2024-08-03T00:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=44706"},"modified":"2024-08-02T20:20:45","modified_gmt":"2024-08-03T00:20:45","slug":"the-bootleg-files-the-avery-schreiber-doritos-commercials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/02\/the-bootleg-files-the-avery-schreiber-doritos-commercials\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: The Avery Schreiber Doritos Commercials"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 874:<\/strong> \u201cThe Avery Schreiber Doritos Commercials\u201d (1970s television advertising campaign). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube. <\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: <\/strong>None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> It falls into the grey area of old-time advertising.
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\nCHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Not likely. <\/p>\n

Question: When was the last time that a television commercial made you laugh out loud? Not in a polite giggle, but a genuine roar of jollity. Quite frankly, I get the impression that the creative minds behind today\u2019s television commercials have absolutely no sense of humor \u2013 stupidity and puerility, yes, but no humor.
\n<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s set the wayback machine to the 1970s when there was a long-running series of television commercials that generated real laughs from viewers. And the damn thing about this endeavor was that all the commercials were basically variations on a single gag.<\/p>\n

The product being advertised was Doritos, a brand of tortilla chips sold by Frito-Lay. During the early 1970s, the company contracted the Dallas-based advertising agency Tracy Locke to conceive a national television campaign for Doritos \u2013 and that was a major coup for Tracy Locke, as it was uncommon for agencies outside of New York City to land a national campaign from a major consumer company.<\/p>\n

Tracy Locke conceived a comedy campaign featuring Avery Schreiber, a roly-poly comic who was easily identifiable for his bushy hair and oversized mustache. Schreiber enjoyed a degree of success through his partnership with comic Jack Burns and in his solo appearances, and audiences appreciated his highly expressive face and willingness to plumb the depths of zaniness \u2013 most notably when he was a panelist on the \u201cMatch Game\u201d television show, where he once ate a paper card after writing out an extraordinarily abysmal answer. <\/p>\n

For the Doritos commercials, a predictable pattern was established with Schreiber as a figure who commanded a high level of respect, only to be reduced to shambles when a bystander\u2019s too-loud crunch on a Doritos chip results in him fumbling and bumbling into slapsticky chaos that eviscerates his dignity. An infuriated Schreiber immediately seeks out the cause of his embarrassment, grabs the Doritos bag from the offender and takes his own very loud crunch on a chip, causing the wrongdoer to topple over. However, Schreiber\u2019s bite into the chip \u2013 arguably, his first for the brand \u2013 causes him to beam with gusto, and he quickly forgets about his unfortunate mishap to savor the taste of Doritos.<\/p>\n

Schreiber has no dialogue in the commercials unless the product being promoted is a cheese version of Doritos, at which point Schreiber looks at the chip and declares \u201cCheese!\u201d with the sense of wonderment that scientists declare upon discovering a long-sought breakthrough.<\/p>\n

The genius of this campaign involved how many different versions of the same gag were created. Thanks to the distracting crunch of a Doritos chip, Schreiber found himself in a variety of guises including a billiards champion whose cue stick tears up the pool table, a bartender who sends a mug of beer careening into the liquor glasses of two unsuspecting bar patrons, a British judge who loses his powdered wig when his head crashes into the scales on a statue of Justice, a knight whose armor falls apart, a grocer whose pyramid-shaped display of oranges collapses from a misplaced fruit, a banana republic dictator whose uniform gets torn in a medal ceremony, and a Mexican lover who pursuit of a fair senorita is interrupted when a birdcage falls on his head.<\/p>\n

The popularity of the Doritos campaign was so strong that the New York Times eulogized its star for his 2002 obituary with the headline \u201cAvery Schreiber, 66, Doritos Funnyman.\u201d For Schreiber, who appeared on Broadway, in films and on television series, his greatest claim to fame rested in these funny commercials.<\/p>\n

I am not certain how long the Schreiber series ran, but it appears most of the commercials were from the 1970s \u2013 there is one mid-80s commercial online with a visibly older Schreiber dealing with teens who look like they came out of a John Hughes film. A YouTube playlist titled \u201cDoritos Commercials Avery Schreiber\u201d<\/a> has 41 of these vintages online \u2013 mercifully, people with VCRs in the 1970s were able to tape and preserve this campaign. And considering a DVD or Blu-ray of the campaign is highly unlikely, this might be the only way to relive the crunchy comedy of this memorable campaign.<\/p>\n