NOW THAT WE no longer produce Holdens locally, there’s one myth that we really need to put to bed, once and for all. “We love football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars” was the catchphrase of a long-since retired television commercial and became part of the Australian vernacular. And it still gets trotted out in stories about the iconic Aussie car company.
But here’s the thing: it wasn’t an original Australian commercial, but a rework of a Chevrolet commercial from a couple of years earlier. The original lyric was “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet”. Notice how much better it scans, and it doesn’t need the additional word, “cars” either. It was written by Jim Hartzell, a copywriter with Campbell-Ewald/Detroit and the music was composed by Ed Labunski (who appeared in the original commercial). In 2006, a sequel was created for Chevrolet, created by Deutsch Los Angeles and using original footage but incorporating modern American lifestyle elements and the modern footage of baseball.
The 1976 local remake appealed to Australian patriotism, or jingoism to be precise. It featured a montage of Australian outdoor scenes (lots of sun-bronzed Aussies working on their melanomas), Australian flags and native fauna, all intercut with various mid-70s Holdens. It perfectly captured the laid-back and fun-loving Australia of the time, although it fails to depict the cultural diversity that even then was an important part of our make-up.
So next time someone quotes “football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars” as the great Aussie car commercial, tell ‘em it’s as Australian as the Holden Barina, Astra, Commodore, Captiva, Trax, Colorado and Acadia. And every other car General Motors sells in Australia. The way things are going, one day they’ll probably be called Chevrolets.
Maybe there’ll be another remake – “We love football, meat pies, kangaroos and Chevrolet”. On second thoughts, perhaps not.