Searsly Spuhghetti

By Eddie Spuhghetti


Who'da thunk New Zealand would be the source for a rando Back To The Future parody snack commercial!?  Bluebird Foods is a New Zealand based snack-food manufacturer whose parent company eventually became PepsiCo and with products available in Australia and New Zealand, they hold the title as the Kiwi-Nation's #1 chip.  The chips come in a variety of flavours, including UK favourite "Chicken" and while I've never had any kind of Bluebird chip before, I can easily imagine they taste like most other potato chips.  That assumption aside, I don't think any other chip company would attempt to make a commercial based off the hit 1985 sci-fi comedy Back To The Future but someone at Bluebird thought it would be a great idea.  Maybe Needles; it was Needles' idea!
 

As "Touch of Grey" Doc Brown impatiently waits in an empty parking lot, bright flashes of light erupt and roaring-in comes a Studebaker decorated in scrap metal, wires and a flaming rocket-exhaust.  At the wheel is our "Marty McFly" although he's 10 years younger and looks more like a kid playing dress-up with a Maverick costume from Top Gun and a Rebel Pilot helmet.  With the dog in the passenger seat and the fact that Doc has a camcorder (strapped to his arm but still), these are the real nice touches made to reference the film it's spoofing.  Marty here doesn't seem to be really that excited from his trip when Doc asks if he's doing okay so I'm gonna take a wild guess that this wasn't his first shot at time-travel.  Perhaps he already went a few times and brought back light beer or something lame, so he was told to go back and get something better: potato chips.  Bluebird puts emphasis on how their chips taste like the chip of the future as Doc gorges on the future-chip bag and inputs some commands into a computer so that we can see the chips rotate on a sweet vector-grid screen.  Taking a breather outside (and possibly re-filling Mr. Fusion once the chip-bag is empty), Doc asks if anyone else makes a chip as good as Bluebird's in the future: "They didn't get through, Doc." says McFly.

This company has a lot of balls to suggest that their chip will be the only one standing in the future and that all other chip manufacturers will succumb to their awesomeness.  Lays will be "lay'd-off" and Mr. Pringle will realize nobody likes eating chips out of a can anymore.  While the kid doesn't look much like Marty, the guy who plays Doc does a pretty good job at looking like Christopher Lloyd.  You almost wonder if the company could have just shelled out some cash to get Lloyd himself to do it; much like the various Japanese commercials involving celebrities.




All of a sudden now, I feel like going out to get some chips.. so strap on your Nikes, get the Flux Capacitor fluxing and crank up some tunes: perhaps some Solitaire!