PicoDash

Ah, Valentine’s Day. Corporate America’s oasis of spending in the traditional winter drought that follows the splurge of the holiday season. Still, businesses try to put their best face forward with advertising: People are still paying off holiday expenditures, the weather is miserable, and theoretically, the holiday only extends to about half the population.

So that’s why retailers everywhere have traditionally swung for the fences on and around Valentine’s Day. Their efforts, by and large, have not aged well, which is why we’re taking a look back at some of the best vintage Valentine’s Day commercials from years past, just in time for V-Day 2K17: The Revenge.

Cantel Amigo (1996)

Have you ever wanted to watch two competently-animated Motorola flip phones dance the tango? Well, here’s your chance. If you signed up for the plan by February 12, you got a dozen free roses! No word on whether the phones spoke in outrageously caricatured accents.

Scope (1988)

Pro-tip: Do not ever give a loved one mouthwash as a present. Follow-up pro-tip: Especially do not tell them it “matches their eyes” in the creepiest way possible. Mouthwash burns when someone throws it in your face. Trust us.

Hallmark (1985)

Quality jingle, but the best part has to be the right-leaning top-ponytail at :05. Also the male protagonist’s enormous, baggy semi-turtleneck sweater.

Hallmark (1983)

First of all, it’s important to note that these commercials are drawn from a broadcast of My Smurfy Valentine. About midway through, there’s also an amazing McDonald’s commercial where a competitive diver thinks to himself, “I gotta give it 100 percent,” presumably spurred on by McDonald’s promise to do the same. But at 4:40 comes the main attraction, a Hallmark ad with a morose dance student suddenly heartened by a card from her apparently long-term paramour. Then it cuts directly to another McDonald’s ad. Ah, love.

Wild Syde (circa 1990s)

Wild Syde, in Bricktown, New Jersey, was apparently a kind of one-stop rock ‘n’ roll and/or adult shop throughout the ’80s and ’90s. They emphatically do not make them like this anymore, folks. (Well, they probably do, but not with such stellar ad values.)

Genovese Drug Stores (circa 1980s)

Nothing says “romance” like an elderly man talking directly into the camera about the values offered by a circular coupon mailer.

1-800-Flowers (circa 1980s)

Personally, we sympathize with the little boy in this ad, whose entire contribution to the spot is “yuck.”

Publix (2007)

Okay, this one’s the nice one. But it does have that whiff of saccharine cheesiness that we love so much, even as it tugs ever-so-unsubtly at the heartstrings.

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