Early Installment Weirdness / Advertising

• Ronald McDonald started off as some guy wearing a cardboard hat and a cup for his nose. Also, hamburgers came out of his "magic" tray. The Hamburglar was a thin old man with a ratlike face, the Grimace had four arms and a New York accent, and the Fry Kids were radically different. The McDonald brothers' original hamburger restaurant in San Bernardino also didn't have the iconic "Golden Arches" as their logo; its defining feature was a pair of parallel arches on opposite ends of the building that were equipped with neon tubes so that they could be lit up at night.
• The first Chia Pet commercial lacks the famous "Ch-ch-ch-chia" jingle.
• The late Billy Mays had a comparatively more normal voice in his early commercials, as opposed to his trademark exuberant delivery.
• The first HeadOn commercial didn't say the slogan "HeadOn, apply directly to the forehead" three times. It was actually people discussing the product, ending with "Should I know about HeadOn?" Eventually, they had to stop claiming the product - basically wax - relieved headaches and so they took to the annoying but memorable ad that told you to apply it directly to your forehead, never promising that anything will happen if you do.
• The earlier commercials of The California Raisins, The Raisins were depicted as mostly all the same with no identity or names but sometimes wearing the same two clothes, Later appearances had them with different depictions, reduced number of members to 4 and a solid backstory with a family dynamic and more characters such as an agent, a rival band and music company, their mother and a female side group.
• Men's Wearhouse founder George Zimmer didn't even appear in the earliest commercials. Also, his delivery was much more enthusiastic compared to the deep, gravelly voice he's better known by. I guarantee it.
• The original GEICO Gecko commercials were all about the Gecko, voiced by Kelsey Grammer with an upper-crust vaguely-British accent, complaining about mistaken identity with people calling him when they were looking for an insurance company. Now, the Gecko is Geico's primary mascot and speaks with a more working-class Cockney accent (sometimes confused for Australian).
• You know Capital One's long-running ad campaign with the pillaging Vikings? When that campaign first started, they were the bad guys. Instead of Capital One, they represented the "other" guys with their unreasonable rates.
• M&M's:
  • The earliest animated ads from the 1950s portrayed the M&Ms as more-or-less identical in personality, with even their appearances being in flux (in a few early ads, Red was a peanut M&M and Yellow was a plain chocolate one). Even after the famous CGI ads by Blue Sky Studios were first unveiled in 1994, their basic format wasn't nailed down until the following year. Blue Sky's earliest commercials were considerably more subdued in presentation, with most ads featuring Red and Yellow talking with various celebrity guest stars about their love of M&Ms. Notably, Red and Yellow didn't yet have their iconic "Deadpan Snarker and Kindhearted Simpleton" dynamic, with both of them being equally witty. Yellow also had a Southern accent; his personality became more well-defined after he got his deep baritone voice, courtesy of John Goodman and J. K. Simmons.
  • One of the first commercials that had Red and Yellow hijacking Blue's commercial gave him a Blue plain sidekick who never shows up in any other ads.
• Vat19's earlier ads were more formal and less comedic in tone.
• In what is likely the first "McGruff the Crime Dog" PSA,^note The one that reminds viewers to lock their doors. he sounds more like Jack Keil's^note He provides McGruff's voice normal voice, though at some points he sounds more like would in later PSAs. Additionally, he didn't introduce himself at first, which is justified since he originally didn't have a name until about two years later.
• In the Carfax commercials, the Carfox was originally a non-sentient hand puppet used by a dealer as a means of evading people demanding to "see the Carfax", with the dealer pretending to mishear. He then became a wire puppet (the same kind as the Muppets) and was now speaking on behalf of Carfax, and instead of a hand puppet, as well as sentient in-universe. This would become more Early Installment Weirdness as he would soon afterwards become 3-D CG.
• The earliest Burma-Shave roadside advertisements were more straightforward about selling the product, lacking the quirky rhyming verse poems and highway safety messages the product would become well known for.
• Early Mr. Clean commercials depicted him as a genie who would drop in on maids and mock their cleaning skills.
• The jingle for the Empire Today carpeting service ("800-588-2300, Empire! [Today!]") was originally just "588-2300, Empire!" This was because the ads originally aired in just the Chicago market and area codes were not mandatory for local dialing at the time. Once the ads gained wider exposure, the company shifted to an 800 number and the jingle was re-recorded entirely.
• The original John Lewis Christmas advert did not have a slowed down pop song cover.
• An early 1990's Pop Tarts commercial depicted the toaster as a faceless, non-speaking toaster with a nicer and romantic personality. Later 90's commercials depect him as the Jerk with a Heart of Gold character we're used to.
• The original 60s era commercials for Pillsbury featuring the Pillsbury Dougboy (aka "Poppin' Fresh"), voiced by Paul Frees, had him and a live-action child actor or actress having a casual conversation about Pillsbury. His laugh was also completely different compared to his signature "Hoo-hoo" giggle which was introduced in the early 1980s.
• The initial Front Row Joe advertisement doesn't refer to Front Row Joe by that name, referring to him as "Joe the front row fanatic", and doesn't name Clyde or Elton.
• The modern Olympic Games originally had no emblems for each of their games. Then when they started making some, no one had any sort of style guide. Therefore, plenty of the early Olympic Rings were Off-Model.
• The earliest or two Jay Bush and Duke ads for Bush's Baked Beans actually had only Jay and not Duke - Duke was added because the company wanted a light, humorous tones to the ads and Jay suggested that it would help him to be funnier if there was a dog with him.
• The earliest commercial for Kellogg's Froot Loops featuring the earliest version of Toucan Sam's more familiar design that would be used until the 2020s, still had Mel Blanc voicing Toucan Sam and the jingle from the 1960s Froot Loops commercials. Shortly after, Paul Frees took over as Toucan Sam, thus giving him the more-familiar British accent associated with the character along with the "Follow your nose!" catchphrase.
  • The same case could also likely apply to other Froot Loops commercials from 1967 until 1970 as well, although they are likely lost with only select animation cels from them resurfacing.

---