What can make a person happy?

It's amazing what can make a person just absolutely overjoyed.

I always looked forward to getting my first textbooks for a new college semester, because I love the sound of breaking the spine on a new book, for instance.

And when I saw the Verizon ad that use the jingle from the Big Red commercials, I was absolutely overjoyed for the rest of the day.

I'll admit, I loved these ads. I loved them because of their wholesome all-Americanism, like a Saturday Evening Post cover. I loved them because they showed couples in love, doing couple things like ice skating or camping. These ads must be depressing as hell to people that have just suffered a major breakup.





I always loved the "funny" couple in them most of all: usually a nerdy kid in a marching band with his bobby-soxer girlfriend or a Shriner that needs to run to join his parade. (Yes, in the 1988 ad, that was in fact the kid from "A Christmas Story!")







The amazing thing about these ads is how actually not-dated they look. The only notable exception is this one from 1994. God, doesn't it look so very "90210?"



...and possibly this one. It looks like the commercial was filmed in Jessica Fletcher's town of Cabot Cove.



These ads have to be the absolute pinnacle of advertising. I'm dead serious and not being either hyperbolic or sarcastic. They created a whole other reality, an alternate America, to sell products. A better America.