I’m sure that summer ending is a bummer for young folks today. I know that the conclusion of the summer season was a drag for my tribe, Gen X. That’s because the end of the summer meant…the beginning of the new school year.
There was one surefire way to know that fall and school were around the corner, and that was the onslaught of back to school sale television commercials. Gen X was a generation that was glued to the TV, so there was no way we could miss these ads. The surface purpose of these ads was to entice us (or our parents) to buy new school clothes and Trapper Keepers, but they ended up pulverizing kids' hearts with the knowledge that our summer late nights and mornings were now over, and early bedtimes and crack of dawn wake-ups were back. I just got a shiver typing that.
Below are a few 1980’s-era back to school sale commercials. These ads may contain scenes of happy parents and very, very sad kids. You’ve been warned.
Did these back to school commercials jog your pop culture memory? If so, tell me about it via my email addy: grgsmmsjr@gmail.com.
