The Vauxhall Griffin

(first posted 13th August, 2017)

Summer 1973 Vauxhall Griffin advert (click to play)

We were out of the office, auditing the books of a small Vauxhall dealership in Selby. The owner thought Vauxhalls nothing short of wonderful: the Viva, the Victor, the Ventora, the greatest value, the most reliable, the most beautiful cars you could buy. Why would anyone consider anything else? He told us to watch out for the new Vauxhall television advert to be shown for the first time that evening. It was going to be incredible.

The following morning he was seething.

“Did you see it last night? Bloody awful! I don’t know how they expect that to sell any cars. A great puffy bloke leaping around in tights! Who the hell’s going to buy a Vauxhall after that?” I wanted to ask whether he and his staff would be wearing the costume too.

Watching again now I can see what he meant. This dubious Jack-in-the-Green-type character, loitering behind bushes in what looks like the gardens of a crematorium, seems the kind of guy who might have difficulty passing a DBS check. What on earth was Vauxhall thinking?

Along with lots of other dealers, the owner was straight on the phone to Vauxhall and the ad was pulled within the week. I never thought I’d see it again. The company must surely have tried to erase it permanently from the history books. Yet like all things embarrassing, it has resurfaced on the internet.

Most commentators on YouTube dislike it too. They describe the character as creepy: “scares the kids...”, “... and the adults”, “if that thing appeared on my Vauxhall it would get shot”, “talk about a marketing mistake”.

Yet having now seen it a few times, I wonder whether Vauxhall should have persisted. Is the griffin any less disagreeable than the meerkats, dogs or opera singers of today’s ads? We might have warmed to him. We might have begun to find him likeable and amusing. The supercilious catchphrase “Like me!” might have caught on.

The actor was Julian Orchard in one of his typical roles: what Wikipedia describes as a gangling, effete and effeminate dandy. With his long horse-face he was one of the best and funniest comedy support actors in the country. He reminds me a little of the comedian Larry Grayson who before the nineteen-seventies was considered too outrageous for television. Perhaps we weren’t quite ready for this kind of campness in 1973.

Imagine a different outcome, the country taking the griffin to heart, a series of griffin ads: “You’re never alone with a griffin”, “Put a griffin in your tank”. Imagine a family of cuddly griffin toys, plastic griffin figurines free with every gallon of petrol, a griffin hit song on Top of the Pops, children in griffin outfits and Julian Orchard making his fortune. Sadly, he died in 1979 aged only 49.

The more I watch the ad the more I like it. It’s brilliant. Ahead of its time: “Like me!”

What Is Wrong In These Pictures? (13-15)

Not sure how good an idea it was to post five of these in a week but with some relief we’re on to the last set of three pictures from my dad’s 1927 edition of the wonderful Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia. Each contains an error to identify. My answers and the answers are below.

I’ve not posted so frequently before and wonder at the energy of bloggers who post every day. There are more picture puzzles in the ten-volume encyclopedia but I need at least six months rest before looking at any more, and maybe then only one set of three pictures a month. What do people think?

My overall score so far is 6/12. Got them all wrong last time. Hoping for better this time.

Back to pictures 10-12
Back to beginning


MY ANSWERS AND THE ANSWERS

13. Easy. Everybody knows spiders have eight legs. 7/13.

14. The flower looks like a concoction of all kinds of things, but I don’t know exactly. Evidently it is a passion flower and should therefore have five petals and sepals rather than six. Did the gardeners get that one? I didn’t. 7/14.

15. Once a train spotter always a train spotter. Got it right. The flanges should be inside the tracks on the inside edges of the wheels, not the outside edges. As drawn it would only work after a complete redesign of the track and points. 8/15. (And incidentally, there may be a second error which is that by 1927 British Railways had no such three-headlamp code. Apart from the Royal Train they used a maximum of two headlamps to identify the type of train. They were placed in different arrangements on the funnel and across the buffer bar, but only two were used. Furthermore, what is called a railway carriage in the answers is actually a locomotive. Do I get a bonus point?) 

So, overall, with a little generosity, eight out of fifteen = 53%  Much better than with the room and the steamer puzzles linked to the first set of three. That would have been a 2:2 in my university days. Not acceptable. I’ll have to find another set and try harder.

Back to normal posts next time. 

Here is the whole page followed by the answers .