After creating today’s Oldsmobile Toronado Troféo Junkyard Find, it becomes my duty to share one of the most brain-scrambling examples of the “What Could GM Have Been Thinking?” genre of car commercials. Yes, it’s a version of Harry Belafonte‘s “Banana Boat Song,” with “Tro-FE-oh” replacing the famous “DAY-oh,” and sung by Belafonte’s offspring.
Let’s study the new lyrics:
It’s a new generation and we want a new Olds.
Sequential port fuel injection, anti-lock brakes,
(?) come and they want a new Olds.
Visual Information Center, handles great.
This Oldsmobile is not our father’s,
New generation for the sons and daughters.
This is the new generation of Oldsmobile.
It’s hard to figure out what GM had in mind here. If the idea was to pitch the Troféo to younger buyers considering a Detroit alternative to European marques, why use a song that was a hit in 1956? If the idea was to woo Oldmobile’s traditional purchaser demographic (i.e., grumpy octogenarians in the Upper Midwest), why use a song by a well-known Civil Rights-era activist and all-around opponent of American foreign policy, who was loathed like Satan by 99 and many more nines percent of grumpy Midwestern octogenarians? Hey, maybe they’ll buy a Reatta!
Let’s check out another Olds ad from the same era featuring equally an equally C-list celebrity. Quick, someone put that marque out of its misery!