Excellence in Advertising: Johnson Outboards

Before God invented Netflix and PVRs, you had to sit through a battery of commercials every time you turned on the idiot box. Most of them made you wonder why the hell Philo Taylor Farnsworth didn’t also invent something to block out commercials. Like Netflix or PVRs. 

But occasionally, a television ad struck gold to where you’d sit through a seven-hour Cannon marathon to see it again. And now, thanks to the magic of YouTube (which we can thank God for inventing) you can relive the magic at the touch of a mouse. Here’s today’s nomination for Excellence in Advertising.

With all due respect to certain people we know and love, the name "Johnson" makes us snicker. It's not that the name itself is somehow inherently amusing, it's just that at some point in the history of the English language (at least as far back as 1863), it came to be used as a euphemism for the penis. 

Johnson is still a perfectly respectable surname, of course, especially if you happen to be interested in boating. Johnson outboard motors are legendary, and even though Bombardier bought the company and retired the name a few years ago, for many people "Johnson" still evokes images of good times on the water.

For the rest of us, however, it evokes entirely different images, which is what makes this commercial from the early 1980s laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Almost as amusing is this print ad from 1923, which suggests you make your Johnson the focal point of your next holiday.