Blast from the Past: New! Improved! Classic Laundry Soap Commercials

I've done a lot of Blast from the Past installments, on many subjects. And though I'm pretty sure I've included soap commercials, and maybe even one or two of the selections below, I've never hit the all-time NEW! IMPROVED!!! category itself: laundry detergent. For whatever reason, in the 70s especially, Wall Street was intent on selling us improved soap for our clothes. Some of these are still with us today, and they just keep improving them!

Often, this column expounds at length on the clips featured, but I'm not sure it's necessary with this one. I mean, what can you say about soap? I'll just let the commercials (mostly) speak for themselves!

1. Calgon - "Ancient Chinese secret, huh?"
2. Oxydol Plus



3. Tide
4. Wisk - "Ring around the collar!"



5. Cheer - With a Star Trek theme, from 1969!
6. Bold - With Laugh-In's JoAnne Worley!



7. Gain
8. Era



And that's a wash! We're done for the weekend, happy Monday, everybody!