Chippies!
I couldn’t find any Gobbledok ads on YouTube, so I uploaded one myself.
Tell me that ad didn’t terrify you as a kid. I always thought there was just one Gobbledok, but the voiceover implies that there are hundreds of them, everywhere, lurking behind couches across Australia!
I still won’t touch Smith’s products due to unpleasant Gobbledok associations. There was a life-size cardboard cutout of the Gobbledok in the spare room at my grandparents house. I had to sleep there. Yyyyeaaahhh…
Hey, remember Lites?! Whatever happened to them? And Ruffles! Oh, my god, Ruffles! I need a life.
I know the Gobbledok is supposed to be cute, but he just looks like some bizarre hybrid of an Ewok and a Firey from Labyrinth (thanks to Laura for that spot-on comparison). He also reminds me of the creepy aliens from that early 90s Aussie kids’ show, The Miraculous Mellops. I’m probably the only person who remembers that show, so I don’t know why I’m bothering to reference it.
Dude, i got a pack of Ruffles on sunday when i went to coles.
The first pack ive bought since about 98!
Anyway ive got one of the old smiths commercials, the one where the old guy and the gobbledok are sitting one the back porch and the old guy is teaching him how to eat a chip!
Also one where there going to some potatto thing and he has an earing?
Ill post them as soon as i can, also ill be posting alot of old aussie commercials in a few weeks after my bros engagement party, so ill keep you posted.
Wasn’t there one where a Gobbledok jumped off a bridge onto a truck or something? Nah, I dunno. I’m just trying to fit in.
I know the Miraculous Mellops…I had a thing for the girl in it when I was about 15…
When I was 10 I had to go into the Adelaide Womens and Childrens Hospital for a couple weeks with pneumonia. The kiosk there was called the Gobbledock Restaurant (maybe it still is). My mum and my sister, who was 8 at the time, went there one night to get some hot chips and they got lost in the hospital. Every door they would open would slam shut behind them and they were almost locked inside all night! You can imagine how upset I was; the chips were completely cold by the time they got back to my room.
Ever since that night in 1990, the word ‘Gobbledock’ has not been allowed to be metioned around them…Yep, these ads are gonna undo a lot of years of therapy…
Yeah, Robin, there was one like that. You’re one of the guys!
The current Smith’s ad that’s doing the rounds, you know the one with the builder singing some crap Carpenters song, well the Gobbledok makes an appearance for about 2 seconds in the dance section. He’s there trust me.
Yep, seeing his cameo in that ad is what made me get all nostalgic for the little freak.
I watched the video you uploaded again…You know what REALLY terrified me about that ad when I was little? The loveless marriage that couple seem to be in…Saturday night home alone with the wifey and all he can do is read some giant boring book! Not that she is really putting in any effort…Look at those socks for crying out loud!
And the fact that they’re eating out of separate bags of chips is like some consumer culture metaphor for their estrangement. By stealing one of the bags of chips, the Gobbledok becomes so much more than a mere Hamburglar archetype. He’s more like some Martian Cupid, a trickster, bringing love back to their relationship by forcing them to eat from the same bag.
DAMN YOU, DANIEL 85!!! ALWAYS ANALYSING THINGS MORE DEEPLY THAN ME!!! What is your major at uni? Please say you will do Honours and a PhD!
Hey, just posted 2 more Gobbledok ads on youtube (the one where his ship crashes & he raids the supermarket and the other where he stalks the truckie & steals his chippies). Enjoy
I think the couple on the video may look so vacuous & empty, because John Clark (that particular ad’s director, & the director of the very first, plus lots of the early Gobbledok Ads) was maybe going through some sort of wishy-washy personal stage when we shot that particular ad.
I can remember him wanting them to appear to be lost in the TV they were pretending to watch… but maybe just a little toooo lost I suppose.
…Incidentally, that was the first version of the Gobbledok where I tried using push-pull bowden cable controls for his face. Went right back to good ol’ servo motors later though, as they began to improve.
Sorry for those who hate him.
I had to compromise between the director’s wanting a Possum-like character, & the Agency Art Director’s (Yelana) want for him to have hair like the receptionist on the 7th floor at the time. There’s tiny bits of Mogwai, Hoggle, you name it, in him somewhere.
We’ll see if he really DOEs get called back into existence.
You know he JUST turned 20 this month!!!
I’m after Gobbledock merchandise. would love a poster or cardboard cutout. does anybody have anything?
I so have to have Mick send me some of these.
does anyone remember that episode of hey hey its saturday when darryl summers shot the gun in the air the gobbledock fell from the roof? totally funny