Old Pizza Hut Ad

For me and probably anyone else who ever owned the original Land Before Time in its first run on VHS, this ad for Pizza Hut was emblazoned into our very soul and some of our earliest memories, watched repeatedly every time we popped in the first five minutes of the Land Before Time. It's about this fat mom stopping to give her son advice about being a "polite little boy" before sending him off to a "birthday party at Pizza Hut," intercut of course with scenes of how literally he takes her advice, doing everything his own way while still making her proud of her "little angel." Yeah right! we think.

It's not an exaggeration to say that I have this thing memorized to this day, and yet I haven't even seen it in years. That old red car pulling up, the plucking piano melody, the kid's bunny and bowtie, that rocking "PARTY!" soundtrack, the haze throughout... all burned somewhere into the neurons of my brain forever, sizzling like hot cheese. It's a completely accurate portrayal too of a very familiar problem, being a boy and getting that invite to some girl's birthday party at a cool location. There's always that decision to be made going in: "If I go, I get to eat pizza. But then again, she's a girl. How is that fun?"

From there on out, everything he does makes perfect sense: stay cool, stay away from the girls, and amuse the other kids who, like you, were also pulled into this by the lure of free pizza. Poke holes in your napkins and wear them as masks, pig out, stretch your pizza cheese, hang a spoon on your nose, construct a straw aqueduct around the table, become the life of the party, and if your antics win you a certain little admirer, wipe her kisses clean off when you get back out to the car! All in all, a day well spent, a problem averted, and even your mom is none the wiser. "Yuchchk!!"

I'm lucky to still have the old VHS, so I can see this thing the same way I grew up seeing it (yes, I actually still have a working VCR).