16mm TV Commercial: Fruit of the Loom (Laundry Basket)

Fruit of the Loom
Northwest Industries
Jeff Dell Film Service Inc.
Laundry Basket (NXPU2343)
30 second, color
16mm trailer for Underwear (1978)

Fruit of the Loom became well known for a series of colorful and humorous commercials featuring the Fruit Guys, which were grown men in fruit costumes who would generally start out as regular fruit-sized characters until someone spoke the words, “Fruit of the Loom,” causing them to instantly grow into human sized mascots and pitch-men.

This commercial from 1978 featuring character actress Loretta Tupper as Emma, an elderly woman who summons the Fruit Guys from her laundry basket, is one of the most iconic (and truly bizarre) television commercials of the 1970s, and the first follow-up to the commercial that debuted the Fruit Guys campaign. I am fairly certain that the video linked is the correct one. The reel is pretty clean and the film is odor-free. The film is on its original plastic reel, which measures 3 in. tondo, and comes in a cardboard box, which has the title and agency info on a label on the front. I don’t have a 16mm projector to be able to project and record it, but I did unspool it to be able to provide the photograph herein from the reel which seems to match a scene from the embedded video (which I found on Youtube). The film reel appears to have been manufactured and distributed by Jeff Dell Film Service, Inc.

Collectors of 70s era advertising art and memorabilia are sure to love this rare slice of insanity form the golden age of oddball commercials. Promotional-only items from the era when commercials were provided to TV stations on film reels are becoming exceedingly rare.

See photos for condition reference. Sold as-is.