Old-School Connecticut Commercials From the 60’s – 80’s

This legendary road-side stand in Stevenson, CT on Rt. 34 on Lake Zoar is home to the celebrated Zoar Burger and past award winners of the best hot dog and best burger in Connecticut. They serve Hummel Brother's hot dogs exclusively and they're opened for breakfast at 6:30 am Monday through Saturday. Make sure to bring along an extra wad of napkins especially if you're ordering their Zoar Burger. Guaranteed, you're going to need them.  For their menu selections, click on lakezoardrivein.com/menu. Dig the clothing and hairstyles in the video!

Subway debuted in Bridgeport, CT in 1965 and has now grown to 42,000 stores in 100 countries and is currently headquartered in Milford, CT. The following Subway commercial is from 1977 before the sandwich shop became a tremendous success.

Trash American Style, the underground music and cultural store closed up their retail location at 12 Mill Plain Rd. in Danbury back in 2007 because their landlord refused to renew their lease. After the closing, they continued their web presence and began traveling to various festivals and record expos selling their merchandise. TAS owner Malcolm Tent described their shop saying:

The idea we had for a store was a psychotic thrift store.

Check out this vintage TAS commercial which illustrates Tent's description.

After 50 years of entertaining Connecticut residents with miniature golf, go-karts, car shows, and bumper boats, Connecticut Golf Land at 95 Hartford Turnpike in Vernon finished their run after the 2013 season in favor of subdividing the land to sell. The facility also contained a par three golf course, a batting cage, and a game room.

The original Volkswagen Bus was created in 1947 to carry around parts in a mammoth Berlin VW factory. It was originally just a 170 cubic foot box sitting on a chassis but as their popularity grew, the VW Bus improved the engine and interior. Hundreds of thousands of VW Bus's were sold until VW discontinued the line in 2014.

The following commercial made in 1960 features the Danbury Drum Corps filmed in Wilton and was titled, 'Band With A Bus."

Even though Crazy Eddie's wasn't a Connecticut company, I felt the need to include this Brooklyn based company because of their loud, obnoxious, commercials. They were much like a train wreck in that you couldn't look away when they came on the TV or radio.

Radio DJ, Jerry Carroll was the loud arm-waving personality who threw his hands around while screaming that Crazy Eddie's prices were 'insaaaaane!' Their unique advertising made the company a monumental success because, at their peak, Crazy Eddie's had 43 stores in 4 states until the law caught up with co-owner, Eddie Antar who decided to cash in millions of dollars worth of stock and resigned from the company.

Antar was arrested for a number of crimes and spent a couple of years in prison. He died at the age of 68 in Sept. of 2016.