I do wonder about that Turkish Delight advert, when did it first air and how long did it run for? Here, we have an outing as late as 1990. Another upload claims it dates as far back as 1984. I wouldn't be surprised if both those dates could be pushed further. I'm now on the lookout for the earliest and latest verifiable dates that this advert aired. Surely a contender for the longest continuous run of a British advert? I mean, we had other long running ads such as the Shake N Vac lady, and the Secret Lemonade Drinker. But I'm sure they had shorter initial runs then saw revivals at various points later in years. Also, many long running adverts would see minor edits made to update the shots of newer product packaging and whatnot. So that would also rule out the extremely long-running J.R. Hartley ad for contender for longest running advert with no revisions. But this Turkish Delight advert just ran and ran and ran, with no alterations ever made to it that I'm aware of. I'm really curious now, I'm gonna start looking in to this.
Oh wow, I didn't know that it was Jeff Wayne who scored this. That information has helped me to date this advert back further than I'd previously discovered. Long story short; it became an accidental part-time obsession. After I made this comment I fell down a deep rabbit hole of stumbling upon clips of it airing in old ad breaks and noting the earliest and latest confirmable dates that it aired. I've been making comments here and there around these corners of old adverts on RU-vid ever since about the subject, and it's pulled quite a few people in with me on this search for dating the span of the years it aired between. The earliest I found was 1983, and the latest was a staggeringly unexpected appearance in 1999 during GMTV, absolutely years beyond I'd imagined. I felt like I'd hit the limits at both ends with that, but a little research into Jeff Wayne quickly discovers that he scored the piece in 1981. It's now looking highly likely that it first aired the same year, or perhaps 1982 so I'll keep an eye out. I can't believe that the goalposts keep inching further and further apart, but I'm now fairly sure that it aired for 18 years. To find a clip later than 1999 would be epic, to even just creep into the new millennium.
@@80sandretrogubbins25 There were five variations of edits which I know of. The full version lasts a minute and was mostly played in cinemas, and occasionally on TV. The 30 second cut seen in this video was the one most commonly aired on TV. Later in years, they very slightly tweaked it to include the word 'Fry's' overlayed in the end shot. I count that as the same advert. There was also a 15 second edit seen sometimes. And there was a significantly different alternate 30 second edit which seems to have been the original TV version in the very early days of it airing. The version I mostly concentrate on is the one in this video, which definitely ran from at least 1984 to 1999 and was by far the most commonly seen. The other edits are somewhat rarer, but I count them all as being the same advert as they clearly originate entirely from the same shoot. With a seemingly unbroken span of at least 15 years, I have to believe that it's surely the longest run of an advert ever in the UK. There are other ads that I can think of which aired many years after they debuted, such as the Shake N Vac dancing lady, but with every case I can recall these classic adverts didn't hit anything like as long in their original run and were brought back into a limited recommission as a kind of nostalgia throwback. There were similarly themed Turkish Delight adverts spanning back decades prior to the one I'm concentrating on, and included a similar tune. They don't count though. But the one I'm interested in might well be an unrecognised record for longest unbroken run ever of the same advert in the UK.
