Yogo Gorilla!

I was walking through Franklin’s (a relic of the 80s/90s) at Westleigh (also a relic of the 80s/90s) and saw some Yogo. The 90’s was the heyday of Yogo, it had the best commercials and I loved the taste of that chocolatey custardy shit. So Brooke and I bought a two pack and ate it when we got home. It was delicious. Probably not as good as I had remembered, but still... delicious.

I wouldn’t have known about Yogo, or had those fond memories had it not been for a certain Gorilla and his sidekick Snake. The stop motion Yogo ads of the 90’s were really good and in my mind rose above the usual shitty kids commercials (as memorable as some of the jingles may be).

Here is the first:



I don’t remember that one either. Regardless, here the Gorilla and the snake appear for the first time. It’s quite a crude representation of what they would eventually become...



“Barry... BARRY!!... I’ll get back to you Barry...” Haha!

That is the full-length 90 second version of the commercial that we saw most often cut to 30 seconds. Looking at the debut and then at the feature length shows a huge change. It’s like ‘Please Please Me’ vs ‘Abbey Road’. You can appreciate both, but the production values of the later are undeniably superior. The ad also features drumming by the guy from ‘Regurgitator’ and ‘The Hard-Ons’ (kinda famous) and a bunch of references to films.

I don’t like most children's advertising, but when it’s this creative – how can I not? I’ve only posted two ads here because that's all I could find (I know there were more). But with this series the ongoing use of the Gorilla and Snake was great and the fact that they were stop motion meant a good deal of effort had to be invested. All Hail Yogo Gorilla!

- Dogman