This commercial is from 1973. That's me at :45 (the blonde haired 4 year old boy). This footage was taken at the store in St. Augustine Florida. This totally blew me away seeing it over 40 years later!
Well, since I'm part cat anyhow, I probably did. The thing I recall most is this annoying guy that kept telling me to remember to smile while I was turning to the camera...there were also three dudes and girl dressed as clowns.
The version I remember most is the cover version by the Cowsills from... oh 1969 or so. My little brother had a huge crush on Susan Cowsill at the time and us other kids would tease him until he cried. We bring it up today and it *still* pisses him off.
This is the perfect '70s jingle, expressing the folksy warmth, right treatment and generous portions Burger Chef wanted you to enjoy. And those efforts not to leave you hungry were a great corrective to Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" joke, "The food at this place is really terrible, and such small portions." Too bad these unique qualities didn't make Burger Chef last. (Perhaps Burger KING took the crown!) Thanks for posting!
In 1970 I was 10 years old. Mom would take my little brother and I to BC every other Friday night for dinner (payday). I always got the "Triple Treat"...Hamburger, fries, and a shake. The smell of the place used to make my mom sick.
I remember the old Burger Chef signs in the 60's that's said " 15 cent burgers ". Looking at these kids are now in their 50's and parents in retirement homes .
Lowell Hanson no sorry don't remember those but remember the French fries were the thicker kind that some sub shops sell . not the string ones that they sell at McDonalds
Look at how adorable those children looked like back then! And how well behaved they appeared. I would be so glad if I were at a restaurant, store, mall, office building, etc., and saw these kinds of children there. Now, OTOH, so many children are such rude brats, and they dress like they're going out to a club. Oh how I wish the children of today were like the children back then!
We had a BC in Temple Terrace on 56th St just south of Busch Blvd for many years. Last I saw it was a bank. They had the top-your-own-burger bar and salad bar that mesmerized this 9 or 10 yr old (at the time.) I could put a dozen pickles on my burger and no one could say anything about it!
Burger Chef & Jeff!! Oh man, those where the days. They had two locations near my home, and the buildings are still in use. One's a mom and pop burger joint, the other's an ice cream shop. Thanks for the memories!
I remember when I was 3 or 4, my mom and grandpa taking me to Burger Chef. Great memories. Then it was a Hardee's, then a Rax bought it, now it is a Walgreens. They just don't make 'em like they used to.
I think that's the Burger Chef my Dad used to take us to when we were kids in the mid-70's....I remember carving a bad word into the paint on the dumpster there ;)
helloo helloo..I love this song! it's so calming and relaxing along with the narriator's description of the hamburger really make's me escape into another world just like the lady eating the hamburger on top of the roof.
Not quite, my point was this: A person can use any form of pronunciation that is included in the dictionary entry for the particular word being used and still be correct in their pronunciation. Many of these alternate pronunciations are British in origin and it is just as correct to use them as the more common American pronunciations. The speaker chooses which pronunciation they prefer if there should be alternate pronunciations.
I loved Burger Chef back in the 1970s. I also agree that TV commercials were nicer back then. TV commercials today are really obnoxious, too loud, too much screaming and blaring music...generally disgusting. No wonder people are more aggressive everywhere these days. A damn shame how times have changed for the worse.
This made me feel emotional & sad...the calm relaxing innocence of life then. :-( It's like seeing part of my childhood & I have woke from a long sleep & things have gotten worse. The BC in Winter Haven FL was quiet, never crowded...we seemed to have lots of room to live our sheltered lives unlike today which feels so much more harsh & chaotic. I remember the burgers having lots of shredded lettuce & being very mayonaisy. My Mom always seemed to have coupons from the paper.
I think it's a heck of a lot of fun to remember this place. At 41, I don't remember if the place was good or not - I just remember that my Grandmother took me there. I loved it then, I love remembering it now: Long live Burger Chef and Jeff. Anybody have the halitosis record?
At age 9 or 10, 1972-73, we used to play in the woods and gather old bottles to get the 5 cent deposit per bottle. We found enough bottles for all three of us kids to all get FunBurgers, Apple Turnovers and Drinks. Who could beat a 25 cent FunBurger!!!!!
There was a burger chef about three blocks from my house back in the 70’s. You could order your food with or without. If you ordered your sandwich without you could take it over to a separate counter and put the lettuce tomato onion etc. on yourself the way you wanted it. Also the first burger joint to have the kids meal. I believe the first one was a coloring book called burger chef in jail and a little pack of crayons
This commercial seems so familiar, like I've seen it before, even though I was born in 1970. There was a Burger Chef near my house right when we moved there in 1975. Went there all the time when remodeling the kitchen. Had lots of funmeals. Remember the cut-outs, a bunny hat. Can still smell the burgers...similar to Burger King. Miss that place! Now it is Wendy's. Thanks for posting!!
When McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's were all coming out with the chicken sandwiches, Burger Chef came out with theirs, and it was the best! I miss their chicken club sandwich.
The cat's up on the table. Better ask him to get down. Burger Chef? Those were the days my friend; we thought they'd never end; we'd sing and dance forever and a day; we'd live the life we choose; we'd fight and never lose; those were the days; oh, yes, those were the days.
LOL! You should've worked at some drive-in theatres in the 70s, and had to clean the lot the next morning... haha. Pitching it out the window was standard practice back then! ;) "Put litter in it's place." On the ground. :D
Yea that may be so. But Wendy's took over the building, I would say in the 1978-1980 time period. The building also may have been vacant for a while or been remodeled. The building never looked like the classic Burger Chef A-Frames. FYI, it was on Cochran Road in Scott Twp, Pittsburgh, PA, if anybody else has anything further to add.
I never saw this ad when it first aired, but it is still a classic nevertheless! I miss Burger Chef too, as their burgers were better than the competition (McDonald's especially), but the memories linger on. :)
@ladyi7609 I agree. I was their age back then. I miss the 1970's.It was such a good decade to be a kid.We used our imagination to entertain ourselves back then.
the difference is the tomato content..catsup has less than 40%TOMATO IN IT,.plus we lost in vietnam because people ate at burgerking instead of burger chef..seabrook n.h had a awesome burger chef rite next to the nuke plant.
I drove thru BR and saw a weinerschnitsel....I thought they would have gone out of biz a long time ago...I still make homemade Polish sausage sandwiches.
what in the fuck is "cats up"? He just said it comes on this burger. Does it have anything to do with cats? I don't want no damn cats on my damn burger.
Every commercial from that era reminds me of a group of hippies sitting by a camp fire and playing guitar. I prefer the neon lights and cheesy synth of the 80s.
Hmmmmm... Well, I do remember as a child seeing it spelled "Catsup" on the bottles in the supermarket. I just didn't realize there was a time that it was pronounced phonetically as it was spelled. I just assumed that they actually called it "Ketchup" but spelled it "Catsup" for what reason...((shrug))
I know there are bigger issues in the world, but I don't think Burger Chef had onions on their burgers. When we ate there as kids my mom complained that there were no onions on her burger. We kids were really embarrassed, but I definitely remember it being Burger Chef!!!
I'm suprised the music made me a little sad. You'll NEVER find a sandwich that big at any fast food restaurant today. Everything was bigger in the 1970's.
Woman on roof appears to be a guest eating her burger. If I got up on the roof of the local McDonalds to eat my burger they'd probably ask me what on earth I was doing up there
This commercial gives me the creeps! The singer's voice is haunting. "Are you Hungry, what would you like?" The chick eating fries on the roof of the restaurant. "Hello, Hello!" CREEPY.
Kneejerker: Life in quieter in central FL then in NYC no doubt - but I also think that a lot of what I have expressed here is also there as well. :-P Things change & we can't go back or desire for that or else we can really be in a bad place. Don't u agree?
Preferred by whom? It's up to the speaker which pronunciation to use. Both are equally correct English. It's probably listed first because it is the more common way of pronouncing it.
We were still totally in Vietnam in 1970. We should have just gone in heavy early on and taken over the North, it would have been over pretty quickly and so many lives would have been saved (much more than if we had never gone, b/c there would still have been a war).
Catsup. Yup he sure did. And where are Burger Chef and Jeff?? This is why they failed. You can't caress people with gentle music into eating fast food. You gotta drop it on them with the hard sell and quick soundbites!
LOL!!! Whaddya MEAN, "bigger issues in the world!"??!?!? This settles the argument once and for all!! Unlike all the political ranting on RUclips. Thanks (to your Mom, too).
At 00:27 a kid is riding a bicycle with another kid sitting on his shoulders- doesn't seem a very safe thing to do; I hope he didn't have to apply his brakes suddenly.
This commercial is from 1973. That's me at :45 (the blonde haired 4 year old boy). This footage was taken at the store in St. Augustine Florida. This totally blew me away seeing it over 40 years later!
+69erthx1138 Did you enjoy the CATSUP?
Well, since I'm part cat anyhow, I probably did. The thing I recall most is this annoying guy that kept telling me to remember to smile while I was turning to the camera...there were also three dudes and girl dressed as clowns.
+69erthx1138 Did you meet Peggy during casting?
I was 4. I could have meet any adult woman or man and all I would remember was a blurry face:)
Do you love Burger Chef restaurants?
Nice work, Peggy and Don!
Exactly what I was thinking.
This commercial is beautiful... the song is so wonderful .. This whole commercial is a work of art...
Compliments of Sterling Cooper and Partners.
That music just screams "1970". It has that trippy, groovy sound of the time. I miss Burger Chef. We had two in our town where I grew up
that is the most haunting burger song ever
it was during the Joni Mitchell era of commercials...whereby they had a folksy (kinda sad) sound to them at times.
It sure is. It looks like the type of commercial that you would see before watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
It's the 1967 Sopwith Camel single "Hello Hello"with changed lyrics.
peggy olsen wrote this commercial and lou took credit
This song spawns from a hit in 1966 called "Hello Hello" by a group named Sopwith Camel.
The version I remember most is the cover version by the Cowsills from... oh 1969 or so. My little brother had a huge crush on Susan Cowsill at the time and us other kids would tease him until he cried. We bring it up today and it *still* pisses him off.
This is the perfect '70s jingle, expressing the folksy warmth, right treatment and generous portions Burger Chef wanted you to enjoy. And those efforts not to leave you hungry were a great corrective to Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" joke, "The food at this place is really terrible, and such small portions." Too bad these unique qualities didn't make Burger Chef last. (Perhaps Burger KING took the crown!) Thanks for posting!
This commercial is so calming.
used to love Burger Chef. Wish they hadn't shut down.
Mad Men brought me here
Have a burger and play the "Win a date with Peggy Olson" game.
In 1970 I was 10 years old. Mom would take my little brother and I to BC every other Friday night for dinner (payday). I always got the "Triple Treat"...Hamburger, fries, and a shake. The smell of the place used to make my mom sick.
I remember the old Burger Chef signs in the 60's that's said " 15 cent burgers ". Looking at these kids are now in their 50's and parents in retirement homes .
You can probably remember 10¢ Krystal sliders?
Lowell Hanson no sorry don't remember those but remember the French fries were the thicker kind that some sub shops sell . not the string ones that they sell at McDonalds
+Dan Reese Yeah like everyone goes to a retirement home when they get old.
I always Loved Burger Chef, great Fast Food.
We had one in Henderson, Ky in the 70s . Burger Chef & Sandys restaurants merged and became Hardees restaurants in the 80s.
Look at how adorable those children looked like back then! And how well behaved they appeared. I would be so glad if I were at a restaurant, store, mall, office building, etc., and saw these kinds of children there. Now, OTOH, so many children are such rude brats, and they dress like they're going out to a club. Oh how I wish the children of today were like the children back then!
We had a BC in Temple Terrace on 56th St just south of Busch Blvd for many years. Last I saw it was a bank. They had the top-your-own-burger bar and salad bar that mesmerized this 9 or 10 yr old (at the time.) I could put a dozen pickles on my burger and no one could say anything about it!
Burger Chef & Jeff!! Oh man, those where the days. They had two locations near my home, and the buildings are still in use. One's a mom and pop burger joint, the other's an ice cream shop. Thanks for the memories!
I remember when I was 3 or 4, my mom and grandpa taking me to Burger Chef. Great memories. Then it was a Hardee's, then a Rax bought it, now it is a Walgreens. They just don't make 'em like they used to.
In my town, the Wienerschnitzel is in a former Burger Chef building.
i looooove how he says "catsup"
I think that's the Burger Chef my Dad used to take us to when we were kids in the mid-70's....I remember carving a bad word into the paint on the dumpster there ;)
helloo helloo..I love this song! it's so calming and relaxing along with the narriator's description of the hamburger really make's me escape into another world just like the lady eating the hamburger on top of the roof.
Not quite, my point was this: A person can use any form of pronunciation that is included in the dictionary entry for the particular word being used and still be correct in their pronunciation. Many of these alternate pronunciations are British in origin and it is just as correct to use them as the more common American pronunciations. The speaker chooses which pronunciation they prefer if there should be alternate pronunciations.
I loved Burger Chef back in the 1970s. I also agree that TV commercials were nicer back then. TV commercials today are really obnoxious, too loud, too much screaming and blaring music...generally disgusting. No wonder people are more aggressive everywhere these days. A damn shame how times have changed for the worse.
This made me feel emotional & sad...the calm relaxing innocence of life then. :-( It's like seeing part of my childhood & I have woke from a long sleep & things have gotten worse. The BC in Winter Haven FL was quiet, never crowded...we seemed to have lots of room to live our sheltered lives unlike today which feels so much more harsh & chaotic. I remember the burgers having lots of shredded lettuce & being very mayonaisy. My Mom always seemed to have coupons from the paper.
Yessiree, been quite some time since I seen a couple on horseback ridin' away from the burger joint.... LOL... ah, this takes me back.
I think it's a heck of a lot of fun to remember this place. At 41, I don't remember if the place was good or not - I just remember that my Grandmother took me there. I loved it then, I love remembering it now: Long live Burger Chef and Jeff.
Anybody have the halitosis record?
At age 9 or 10, 1972-73, we used to play in the woods and gather old bottles to get the 5 cent deposit per bottle. We found enough bottles for all three of us kids to all get FunBurgers, Apple Turnovers and Drinks. Who could beat a 25 cent FunBurger!!!!!
There was a burger chef about three blocks from my house back in the 70’s. You could order your food with or without. If you ordered your sandwich without you could take it over to a separate counter and put the lettuce tomato onion etc. on yourself the way you wanted it. Also the first burger joint to have the kids meal. I believe the first one was a coloring book called burger chef in jail and a little pack of crayons
Burger Chef and Jeff I meant lol Not burger chef in jail. This talk texting messes up a lot
lol an old supermarket in my town ....still has the 'Catsup" sign on the conidment isle. LOL
That was Ronny Hinson, I think he wrote the Best Gospel Song ever, when he wrote "THE LIGHTHOUSE"
.34 CATSUP!
I work for Hardees, and people are shocked that majority of the Hardees in St. Louis were Burger Chefs.
Loved Burger Chef ! They use to give away stuff like balloons and some other junk.Ate my first one just outside Newport,Ky in the 1970's.
This commercial seems so familiar, like I've seen it before, even though I was born in 1970. There was a Burger Chef near my house right when we moved there in 1975. Went there all the time when remodeling the kitchen. Had lots of funmeals. Remember the cut-outs, a bunny hat. Can still smell the burgers...similar to Burger King. Miss that place! Now it is Wendy's. Thanks for posting!!
When McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's were all coming out with the chicken sandwiches, Burger Chef came out with theirs, and it was the best! I miss their chicken club sandwich.
The cat's up on the table. Better ask him to get down. Burger Chef? Those were the days my friend; we thought they'd never end; we'd sing and dance forever and a day; we'd live the life we choose; we'd fight and never lose; those were the days; oh, yes, those were the days.
@believer06
Same for me, had them in central N.J. I use to go there in 70 and get a burger, fries and coke for $1.05. The .05 was N.J. sales tax.
it was our favorite place to get hamburgers when i was a kid
Don't fall asleep in your Hamburger when we play this song! :D
Is it pathetic that this commercial makes me nostalgic for the good ole days. Sigh.
LOL! You should've worked at some drive-in theatres in the 70s, and had to clean the lot the next morning... haha. Pitching it out the window was standard practice back then! ;)
"Put litter in it's place." On the ground. :D
My Aunt worked at the one in Wausau WI, for many years in fact that's where my cousins would hang out and eat at.
Yeah, we still have a Wienerschnitzel. It is a Wienershcnitzel/Tastee Freeze.
@tilliez I love your comment I hope someone brings the Buger Chef back Iron on for T- sshirts and all
Yea that may be so. But Wendy's took over the building, I would say in the 1978-1980 time period. The building also may have been vacant for a while or been remodeled. The building never looked like the classic Burger Chef A-Frames. FYI, it was on Cochran Road in Scott Twp, Pittsburgh, PA, if anybody else has anything further to add.
I never saw this ad when it first aired, but it is still a classic nevertheless! I miss Burger Chef too, as their burgers were better than the competition (McDonald's especially), but the memories linger on. :)
Awesome..
@ladyi7609 I agree. I was their age back then. I miss the 1970's.It was such a good decade to be a kid.We used our imagination to entertain ourselves back then.
All are whites, lovely times :)
the difference is the tomato content..catsup has less than 40%TOMATO IN IT,.plus we lost in vietnam because people ate at burgerking instead of burger chef..seabrook n.h had a awesome burger chef rite next to the nuke plant.
@carbonunit Most Burger Chef locations became Hardee's.
I drove thru BR and saw a weinerschnitsel....I thought they would have gone out of biz a long time ago...I still make homemade Polish sausage sandwiches.
Get an A on your report card and get a free hamburger.
what in the fuck is "cats up"? He just said it comes on this burger. Does it have anything to do with cats? I don't want no damn cats on my damn burger.
Every commercial from that era reminds me of a group of hippies sitting by a camp fire and playing guitar. I prefer the neon lights and cheesy synth of the 80s.
Hmmmmm...
Well, I do remember as a child seeing it spelled "Catsup" on the bottles in the supermarket. I just didn't realize there was a time that it was pronounced phonetically as it was spelled. I just assumed that they actually called it "Ketchup" but spelled it "Catsup" for what reason...((shrug))
Is there still Burger Chef's in the world??
i remember burger chef when i was very very young,,,,the cheeseburgers were like 18 cents and everybody was white
I know there are bigger issues in the world, but I don't think Burger Chef had onions on their burgers. When we ate there as kids my mom complained that there were no onions on her burger. We kids were really embarrassed, but I definitely remember it being Burger Chef!!!
Their regular burgers did not have onions. The one mentioned in the ad was a newer, bigger, more special burger.
They didn't have Burger Chefs in my part of the country. I feel so deprived...
Great spot!
I'm suprised the music made me a little sad. You'll NEVER find a sandwich that big at any fast food restaurant today. Everything was bigger in the 1970's.
Peggy got her commercial it looks like!
@tonsoffunwwe YEAH.
he sed " cat - sup "
That struck me as sounding odd when he sed catsup.
NOBODY sez catsup.
does this place still exist today?
@ToddSweeneyOnce The 70's were the best decade by far. Especially for music.
More than ever, Nixon Now for you and me!
@greekwolf The good old analog days!!!!I liked the folk sound of the early 1970's.Jim Croce, Bread, Gordon Lightfoot, and CSN
When this came out, charlie was coming out of tunnels and ambushing the big red one!
Both pronunciations of route are correct (root or rout).
LOL! and I thought my grandma was the only person on earth who said cat-sup!
Woman on roof appears to be a guest eating her burger. If I got up on the roof of the local McDonalds to eat my burger they'd probably ask me what on earth I was doing up there
Hello, Hello by the Sopwith Camel.
This commercial gives me the creeps! The singer's voice is haunting. "Are you Hungry, what would you like?" The chick eating fries on the roof of the restaurant. "Hello, Hello!" CREEPY.
Kneejerker: Life in quieter in central FL then in NYC no doubt - but I also think that a lot of what I have expressed here is also there as well. :-P Things change & we can't go back or desire for that or else we can really be in a bad place. Don't u agree?
I remember Burger Chef when people on horseback would come to the drive-thru. *sigh*
Did Burger Chef borrow parts of their tune for this commercial?
Preferred by whom? It's up to the speaker which pronunciation to use. Both are equally correct English. It's probably listed first because it is the more common way of pronouncing it.
What kind of dressing?
Heinz calls it Ketchup and Delmonte calls it Catsup.
I remember Burger Chief back in 1981. The burgers were better then Mcdonalds.
I don't know if I want to smoke a joint or eat a burger after this song.
We were still totally in Vietnam in 1970.
We should have just gone in heavy early on and taken over the North, it would have been over pretty quickly and so many lives would have been saved (much more than if we had never gone, b/c there would still have been a war).
I didn't see a kite, but I noticed the two girls riding a horse at the beginning of the commercial.
i am also in the yellow pages
At Burger Chef, we just cant stand to see anyone walk away hungry...unless they dont have enough money of course! :-) LOL!
Catsup. Yup he sure did. And where are Burger Chef and Jeff?? This is why they failed. You can't caress people with gentle music into eating fast food. You gotta drop it on them with the hard sell and quick soundbites!
She gonna fall off that roof into the salad bar.
Apparently at Burger Chef, safety is not an issue. You can sit on their flippin' roof or ride a horse about the parking lot.
That mom is waaaay too dressed up to be in a fast food restaurant
You just know that folkie singer is a vegan
Was she that way back then?
people didn't think that way back then... you had a few vegetatarians, but NO vegans... people were not as brainwashed as they are today...
My brother's trying to tell me that Burger Chef didn't have onions on their hamburgers. Is he right?
No onions on their regular burger. The one in this ad is not their regular burger.
0:37 -- They actually pronounced it "Cat-sup" in those days, eh?
At :40, mom wipes catsup in her hair. 😄
LOL!!! Whaddya MEAN, "bigger issues in the world!"??!?!? This settles the argument once and for all!! Unlike all the political ranting on RUclips. Thanks (to your Mom, too).
I love the music. It's like a burger commercial for potheads...LOL
At 00:27 a kid is riding a bicycle with another kid sitting on his shoulders- doesn't seem a very safe thing to do; I hope he didn't have to apply his brakes suddenly.