Gosh, the intro was far too long but what a treat to see these old adverts. I remember going into the UK Woolies as a child of the 70's. It was like an Aladdin's cave, it had all sorts of things you couldn't find anywhere else. Anyone remember the old Ronco brand? Your £ went a long way in Woolworths. Brings back so many happy childhood memories of Christmas.
never saw the advertisement, I fell asleep during the long intro. When Iwoke up to the door bell, the intro was still playing. so I then made myself a drink and something to eat. finished my book, sent an email and the intro was still playing.
loved these xmas ads - gave a real sense of excitement in the run-up to christmas. all those things you wanted but would probly never get - and if you did ever get them, it would only ever be at christmas! sounding like an old fart, but kids today get anything they want whenever, in my day you had to wait (and no guarantee santa would deliver!)
The prices where a bit over the top for Woolworths in the 70's but still my parents always managed to give us a great Christmas to remember. Bless them both good memories.
A lot of things were quite a bit more expensive in real terms back then. Things we consider to be fairly basic technology, like calculators or TV sets were astronomically expensive. Other things like confectionery were also very expensive - Quality Street was a bit of a "luxury".
Thanks for posting this. It's definitely from Christmas 1978. The "Starsky and Hutch" annual at 01.37 is the 1979 edition, which I still have. Sadly, I no longer have the "Six Million Dollar Man" watch at 02.00, which I also got that Christmas. Good times.
Here we go: Jimmy Young, Pat Coombs, David Jacobs, Pete Murray, Windsor Davies, Henry Cooper, Barry Sheen, Nicholas Parsons, Sheila Bernette, Anita Harris, Harry Worth, Georgie Fame, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Stirling Moss, ‘Buzby’, Tony Blackburn, Leslie Crowther. I think that’s all of them.
Can we just take a moment to reflect on the fact that the tin of Quality Street shown here has 2.5kg of chocolate in it. Thats almost 4 times the amount you will get now in 2021. No wonder they lasted well into January. Now its just some shallow dregs washing around the bottom of a cheap plastic octagon.
Wasn't it lovely! those big tins of quality street! still have the tins !! my mum used them to store her xmas decorations ..I inherited them when she died.....
2.5kg of Quality Street for £4.99! As a child of the 70s, I can remember saving up like crazy, yet never having enough money to buy my Mum a tin of QS or Roses. My Uncle Mervyn would send me a £10 note every year in my Christmas Card, which made up the 'shortfall!' Happy, happy memories ❤
Nearly 30 quid for a Polaroid camera, I was a kid in the late 70s, that was a lot of money then - like £150 today maybe. Some things were cheaper, some weren't. Lovely to see Pat Coombes! xxx
So many things we consider to be fairly basic now were astronomically expensive back. Things like calculators were ridiculously pricey. A lot of people rented TV sets because they were so expensive. Even fairly basic chocolates like quality street were considered a real luxury back then because they cost so much.
Many thanks for that. Sheila Bernette could be very funny in Candid Camera and I remember her in Butterflies, aswell as in the Sharp's extra strong mints commercial. I'm sure she was also in Hancock's Half Hour too.
When I saw Don MacLean sing 'And Her Mother Came Too' on Sounds For Saturday, I had a memory of Leslie Crowther singing that on The Saturday Crowd and Sheila Bernette playing the part of the mother!
I still miss Woolies. It was surprising how quickly they collapsed in 2008, in the summer and early autumn everything seemed normal, but they suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed around Christmas, the last store closing in early January 2009. I understand their parent company F W Woolworth [USA] has also collapsed since, although Woolworths in Australia and NZ has survived.
Jimmy Young, Pat Coombs, David Jacobs, Pete Murray, Windsor Davies, Henry Cooper, Barry Sheen, Nicholas Parsons, Sheila Burnette, Anita Harris, Harry Worth, Georgie Fame, Tim Brooke Taylor, Stirling Moss, Busby, Tony Blackburn, Leslie Crowther, are the ones I recognise.
Yes the singer and composer was Rod Allen, of the ABM agency. I was part of a jingle team called 'Gold' who wrote, performed and arranged many of ABM's adverts back then. I played drums and did some backing vocals on this one :)
I'm looking for the Woolies Christmas ad that got my Christmas present that year - an Ingersoll digital watch. I think it was sung by Roy Castle about 1981/2. None of the ones on UA-cam seem to have it. About £14, a ruddy fortune back then. I got one on Ebay this year for 30 quid!
Pat Coombes, Nicholas Parsons, Lesley Crowther, various radio djs, the woman from Candid Camera and a couple of others I recognise but can't remember their names.
Unless I’m very much mistaken, the boy at about 2:002:01 Could be perhaps Nigel Rhodes who played Andrew Forbes last two series in the last two series.
The old school old ladies that worked there knew how to make a fucking hot dog...they use to butterfly that dog and lightly grill the bun and I think they added a bit of Mayo to it I think...I may be trippen but they ruled
Thanks, but it was Sheila Bernette just before Nicholas Parsons, I was asking about, I just couldn't think of her name at the time. Pat Coombs is just after Nicholas Parsons. Their appearances are very quick :-)
my mom me and my sister's used to shop at Woolworths all the time in the 80s. as an little kid. woolsworth was alright to me some of that stuff was expensive. this was way before we started to have doller stores around. also we used to go to the woolsworth that was down town in wichita Kansas.we used to stop by in there around Xmas time before the Xmas parade had started. that was good times growing up in the 80s.these young generation dosent know nothing about wools worth.
Too true, but I'm glad I'm old enough to have be around back then and appreciate the memories I have now. I don't there's really very much worth remembering these days, I'm sorry to say.
It's called "getting old". Everything seems magical when you're a kid. As you get older, life takes its toll and the stars fall from your eyes. That doesn't mean that the past was better - far from it. It's just the way you look at the world has changed.
The Quality Street tin is about three times the thickness of the pitiful plastic ones you get now. Even the chocolate bars were bigger back then. Everything's shrunk now
@@richardanderson7872 about £25 adjusted for inflation. Weight for weight adjusted for inflation quality street is roughly half the price now as it was back then.
Let us not forget how they (Woolworth's) saw it fitting to open on Christmas Day! Thankfully special law was introduced to put a stop to the practice...
Rob Spencer don't know where you lived/live but i most defo recall the branch in Wimbledon, south-west London being open one Christmas Day...i say it because i went in! might been a "one-off"
+AbsoRuddyExactly Around their last ten years on the high street, barley anyone was going to their stores, which lead to them losing money which forced them to close all of their stores and focusing online until 2015 when it was brought out by a brand named very. R.I.P wollies 1909-2015
Indeed, I remember chocolate was a luxury then. It was a rare treat. Today we are spoilt, and it has contributed to the obesity epidemic. I was just making the point that the tins then were huge, though still more expensive pound for pound when we consider inflation.
+thomas cope Not totally true. About half the stores were profitable and doing nicely with plenty of costumers. However, that's not how big business works. Increasing rents, decreasing profit margins on their products, and the unprofitable stores dragged the company down. All the way down. RIP WOOLIES!
Tell what I got a dodgy Wii just before they went bankrupt...damaged stock apparently and I would have to go through liquidators....Store managers getting their best in my opinions ;)
There are a number of celebrities - Tim Brooke-Taylor (comedian and actor, one of the Goodies), Anita Harris (entertainer), Windsor Davis (actor), Lesley Phillips (TV presenter), Henry Cooper (boxer), Kevin Keegan (footballer), Tony Blackburn (Radio DJ) to name the few names I could remember. I think the one at the end was Stanley Baxter (TV comedian), but I am not 100% sure.
You're only POSTING an old advert, no need for a fucking spot-the-celebrity quiz with over-the-top music at the start (which I would silence once I've done converting the clip to mp4).
45 seconds of intro is too long.
Absolutely!
So many celebs. As a kid you waited for these adverts to come on. Going to woolworths was a great experience as a kid.
Gosh, the intro was far too long but what a treat to see these old adverts. I remember going into the UK Woolies as a child of the 70's. It was like an Aladdin's cave, it had all sorts of things you couldn't find anywhere else. Anyone remember the old Ronco brand? Your £ went a long way in Woolworths. Brings back so many happy childhood memories of Christmas.
never saw the advertisement, I fell asleep during the long intro. When Iwoke up to the door bell, the intro was still playing. so I then made myself a drink and something to eat. finished my book, sent an email and the intro was still playing.
😂
I flew to Spain and back and it was still playing.
I miss Woolworths, I always found something to buy in there.
Bring back Woolies i say
loved these xmas ads - gave a real sense of excitement in the run-up to christmas. all those things you wanted but would probly never get - and if you did ever get them, it would only ever be at christmas! sounding like an old fart, but kids today get anything they want whenever, in my day you had to wait (and no guarantee santa would deliver!)
The prices where a bit over the top for Woolworths in the 70's but still my parents always managed to give us a great Christmas to remember. Bless them both good memories.
This is from 1978. Multiply the prices by around 7 to get the equivalent in 2023 money. Absolutely astronomical how expensive some of the things were.
Woolworths all ways did the best adverts at Christmas!
The Intro was that long I fell asleep
Prices are quite expensive, even by todays standards! Boy, my parents must have broken themselves to give us 3 kids the best Christmases ever!
A lot of things were quite a bit more expensive in real terms back then. Things we consider to be fairly basic technology, like calculators or TV sets were astronomically expensive. Other things like confectionery were also very expensive - Quality Street was a bit of a "luxury".
Hey,John Lewis,,THIS is how you do a xmas ad!!! lol
gavin reid Woolworths always did them better than anyone & often theirs would take up the ENTIRE AD BREAK! LOL 😊
How we all miss Woolies!
Woollies supermarket is still going strong than ever before in Australia 🇦🇺 here mate
too much intro... Chinese water torture..
Thanks for posting this. It's definitely from Christmas 1978. The "Starsky and Hutch" annual at 01.37 is the 1979 edition, which I still have. Sadly, I no longer have the "Six Million Dollar Man" watch at 02.00, which I also got that Christmas. Good times.
Here we go:
Jimmy Young, Pat Coombs, David Jacobs, Pete Murray, Windsor Davies, Henry Cooper, Barry Sheen, Nicholas Parsons, Sheila Bernette, Anita Harris, Harry Worth, Georgie Fame, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Stirling Moss, ‘Buzby’, Tony Blackburn, Leslie Crowther.
I think that’s all of them.
Could be Dee Dee from Pan's People at 1.53..
RIP Timbo.
And with the recent passing of Shelia Bernette its only Pete Murray, Anita Harris, Georgie Fame and Tony Blackburn surviving from this 70s celeb fest.
@@byronmills5952 are you certain that Sheila Bernette is dead?
@@WhippetOut My bad - very thankfully she is still well and truly with us! Viva Woolworths!! 🙂👍👍
Can we just take a moment to reflect on the fact that the tin of Quality Street shown here has 2.5kg of chocolate in it. Thats almost 4 times the amount you will get now in 2021. No wonder they lasted well into January. Now its just some shallow dregs washing around the bottom of a cheap plastic octagon.
they have also stopped some varieties.
Wasn't it lovely! those big tins of quality street! still have the tins !! my mum used them to store her xmas decorations ..I inherited them when she died.....
2.5kg of Quality Street for £4.99! As a child of the 70s, I can remember saving up like crazy, yet never having enough money to buy my Mum a tin of QS or Roses. My Uncle Mervyn would send me a £10 note every year in my Christmas Card, which made up the 'shortfall!' Happy, happy memories ❤
£4.99 in 1978 money is the equivalent of around £35 in 2023 money. Absolutely astronomical how expensive a lot of things were back then.
I remember the red chocolate netted Christmas stockings wish they still sold them
Susan Ward wish Woolworths were selling anything!
@@robhollywood647 true .
Nearly 30 quid for a Polaroid camera, I was a kid in the late 70s, that was a lot of money then - like £150 today maybe. Some things were cheaper, some weren't. Lovely to see Pat Coombes! xxx
So many things we consider to be fairly basic now were astronomically expensive back. Things like calculators were ridiculously pricey. A lot of people rented TV sets because they were so expensive. Even fairly basic chocolates like quality street were considered a real luxury back then because they cost so much.
30 quid was almost an average weeks wages back then.
Great video! Thanks for sharing it... Loved it....
Many thanks for that. Sheila Bernette could be very funny in Candid Camera and I remember her in Butterflies, aswell as in the Sharp's extra strong mints commercial. I'm sure she was also in Hancock's Half Hour too.
When I saw Don MacLean sing 'And Her Mother Came Too' on Sounds For Saturday, I had a memory of Leslie Crowther singing that on The Saturday Crowd and Sheila Bernette playing the part of the mother!
The good old days, when quality street came in tins
Big tins
Also the date is pretty correct due to the soundtrack from Grease being show in the album bins!!!
bring back real christmas's like this stuff ain't cheap......
I miss Wool Worth. To bad for working class people.
I still miss Woolies. It was surprising how quickly they collapsed in 2008, in the summer and early autumn everything seemed normal, but they suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed around Christmas, the last store closing in early January 2009. I understand their parent company F W Woolworth [USA] has also collapsed since, although Woolworths in Australia and NZ has survived.
Jimmy Young, Pat Coombs, David Jacobs, Pete Murray, Windsor Davies, Henry Cooper, Barry Sheen, Nicholas Parsons, Sheila Burnette, Anita Harris, Harry Worth, Georgie Fame, Tim Brooke Taylor, Stirling Moss, Busby, Tony Blackburn, Leslie Crowther, are the ones I recognise.
... and I think the "singer" was Bernard Cribbins.
I don't think it's Bernard Cribbins
1:10 after David Jacobs, possibly Jane Asher?
The singer is Rod Allen of advertising agency 'Allen, Brady and Marsh' who also wrote the lyrics and music.
Yes the singer and composer was Rod Allen, of the ABM agency. I was part of a jingle team called 'Gold' who wrote, performed and arranged many of ABM's adverts back then. I played drums and did some backing vocals on this one :)
I'm looking for the Woolies Christmas ad that got my Christmas present that year - an Ingersoll digital watch. I think it was sung by Roy Castle about 1981/2. None of the ones on UA-cam seem to have it. About £14, a ruddy fortune back then. I got one on Ebay this year for 30 quid!
I have been one these stores back in 1993-1996 in hollywood,florida
it was off taft street back then.
No worries - it's frightening how the time rolls back on seeing these old adverts isn't it!
agreed
Oh and Jim ain't fixing nothing , He's just going to bum you ! Happy Christmas
Pat Coombs
Quality street are cheaper in the shops right now than they were back then, Tesco is selling them for £3.89 this week and it's two for £8 in Asda
Pat Coombes, Nicholas Parsons, Lesley Crowther, various radio djs, the woman from Candid Camera and a couple of others I recognise but can't remember their names.
I like the one with Mark E. Smith singing in the background better.
I miss adverts like these.
It's Sheila Bernette from Candid Camera.
The intro was too long. so I gave up and found another version.
Oh, Harry Worth. Bless him.
Had to be 1978 or later because they show the Grease albums in the Beginning.
+Richie Geno Yep...noticed that too!
My grandad bought me that organ ha ha same one
Unless I’m very much mistaken, the boy at about 2:00 2:01
Could be perhaps Nigel Rhodes who played Andrew Forbes last two series in the last two series.
My Auntie Pat for a start.....
You're Pat Coombs' nephew?
intro is long enough for me to take a crap before the ad comes on. thanks!
Also we used to have an Woolsworth on 13th n. Oliver street in Wichita kansas they close in 1994
The old school old ladies that worked there knew how to make a fucking hot dog...they use to butterfly that dog and lightly grill the bun and I think they added a bit of Mayo to it I think...I may be trippen but they ruled
Thanks, but it was Sheila Bernette just before Nicholas Parsons, I was asking about, I just couldn't think of her name at the time. Pat Coombs is just after Nicholas Parsons. Their appearances are very quick :-)
These adds are not 'Diverse' enough, surely?
When you look at the tat we used to buy...............
Look those giant teddy bears i take one home give to nice woman to loved for valentine's day.
+foxman362 shame you can't because they closed down there stores in 2009 R.I.P
Bloody hell a tin of quality street is still only a fiver lol
Look at the size of the Quality Street! now the tins are as flat as a dropped cake and less than half that amount.. RIP OFF NOW
the best times yippee with me nan and Grandad
my mom me and my sister's used to shop at Woolworths all the time in the 80s. as an little kid. woolsworth was alright to me some of that stuff was expensive. this was way before we started to have doller stores around. also we used to go to the woolsworth that was down town in wichita Kansas.we used to stop by in there around Xmas time before the Xmas parade had started. that was good times growing up in the 80s.these young generation dosent know nothing about wools worth.
These ads are for Woolworth UK, not the USA
@@robertn556 Thank you, Captain Obvious.
Christmas wasn't Christmas until the Woollies advert was on telly.
Bring back this stores real american made product this shit is better then walmart.
+foxman362 true story (well, was a true story) :(
Woolworths imported tons of merchandise from China and the Orient, certainly for the European market and the UK
Too true, but I'm glad I'm old enough to have be around back then and appreciate the memories I have now. I don't there's really very much worth remembering these days, I'm sorry to say.
It's called "getting old". Everything seems magical when you're a kid. As you get older, life takes its toll and the stars fall from your eyes. That doesn't mean that the past was better - far from it. It's just the way you look at the world has changed.
I think at 2:00 Nigel Rhodes who played Andrew Forbes in the tomorrow people.
Sorry I'am using an ipad & an app I used the wrong bar I was going to use the search bar .
The Quality Street tin is about three times the thickness of the pitiful plastic ones you get now. Even the chocolate bars were bigger back then. Everything's shrunk now
They still cost the same though! Five quid back then would have been a lot of money.
@@richardanderson7872 about £25 adjusted for inflation. Weight for weight adjusted for inflation quality street is roughly half the price now as it was back then.
I was born in the early 70s, this makes me feel bloody ancient lol
I was born in the late sixties. Know how you feel!
The lady at the beginning looked like she was shoplifting!! :-)))))
Amazing how we used to find a fiver for a tin of chocs back then.
The Muppet Annual shown is 1978, so I guess that’s when the ad appeared.
Let us not forget how they (Woolworth's) saw it fitting to open on Christmas Day! Thankfully special law was introduced to put a stop to the practice...
Vincent de Guard Woolies never opened xmas day. "from now to xmas day" was simply used cause it sounded good!
Rob Spencer don't know where you lived/live but i most defo recall the branch in Wimbledon, south-west London being open one Christmas Day...i say it because i went in! might been a "one-off"
Vincent de Guard probably was then. Bet that was a great xmas?
I died from the fish smell
I loved Anita's handbag. Wonder where I could get one.....?
Woolworth n atl was nice
It wasn't exactly cheap, was it!
19 75 Taft street in Hollywood fla. The good old days :)
Absolutely shocking. And to think I was born in this era? Nooooooo!
Bontempi, more interesting than a mobile phone
Forgot how beautiful Annita Harris was.
I think this was 1978 . And unlike many I do like that introduction music you have put on . Perhaps you can tell me what it is ?
I saw this advert before
Windsor Davies Tony Blackburn Leslie Crowther Henry Cooper Barry Sheen
Proper big tins of quality street 2.5 kilos not the tiny plastic tubs you get today
Jesus! A fiver for a tin of Quality Street in the 70's!! How did they go bust??
+AbsoRuddyExactly yes but it was 2.5kg then, now it is about 700g.
+AbsoRuddyExactly Around their last ten years on the high street, barley anyone was going to their stores, which lead to them losing money which forced them to close all of their stores and focusing online until 2015 when it was brought out by a brand named very. R.I.P wollies 1909-2015
+cashcrop70 That's still about £25 in today's money!!
Indeed, I remember chocolate was a luxury then. It was a rare treat. Today we are spoilt, and it has contributed to the obesity epidemic. I was just making the point that the tins then were huge, though still more expensive pound for pound when we consider inflation.
+thomas cope Not totally true. About half the stores were profitable and doing nicely with plenty of costumers. However, that's not how big business works. Increasing rents, decreasing profit margins on their products, and the unprofitable stores dragged the company down. All the way down. RIP WOOLIES!
The only one I remember was Busby thanks to a misspent childhood and alcoholism! All the rest seem remote and irrelevant!
Or could be someone else
Does anyone know if they can tell me.
what is the opening tune ?
In the tomorrow people Nigel Rhodes.
chubby brown i swear is singing on the advert
It was 1978 - noticed the Grease albums.
RIP Barry Sheen
Tell what I got a dodgy Wii just before they went bankrupt...damaged stock apparently and I would have to go through liquidators....Store managers getting their best in my opinions ;)
Do you happen to have the Woolworths Christmas Commercial that Julie Dawn Cole was in? She played Alice from Alice in Wonderland in that commercial.
She was also Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.
But who was that woman at 2.36? I sure she was in a few comedy series back then, aswell as other commercials.
2:20 What exactly did this guy ask for when he walked into the barber shop?
Why would anyone want to shop at Woolworth? This commercial made them walk away from Woolworth.
a who's who..great days with the kids
Quality street hasn't changed price in over 30 years lol
no but the size has
yeah still a fiver EXCEPT it's for 700g instead of 2.5kg!
£170 for a turntable, radio and cassette player ?. Streuth, no wonder they went out of business.
What was going on back then.... they were using kilos???? Just look at the size of the quality street.....
Boy i feel like born in wrong era and wrong generation these people had good stuff back then.
The guy with the calculator is Magnus Pyke (scientist)
There are a number of celebrities - Tim Brooke-Taylor (comedian and actor, one of the Goodies), Anita Harris (entertainer), Windsor Davis (actor), Lesley Phillips (TV presenter), Henry Cooper (boxer), Kevin Keegan (footballer), Tony Blackburn (Radio DJ) to name the few names I could remember. I think the one at the end was Stanley Baxter (TV comedian), but I am not 100% sure.
@@someopinion9122 Leslie Crowther I thought.
I wish you hadn't put your name in the corner.
+Applemask I'm alright with it (because i never noticed it).
You're only POSTING an old advert, no need for a fucking spot-the-celebrity quiz with over-the-top music at the start (which I would silence once I've done converting the clip to mp4).