My memory is a strange animal. The various bits of mental flotsam that occasionally come to the surface for most people, take up permanent residence in parts of my brain that should be reserved for useful tasks, like remembering to tell my insurance company to fax me over a copy of my car policy (which I no longer have to remember, thanks to this post).

YouTube has not helped in any way, shape or form to resolve this issue. In fact, it has exacerbated the problem. Prior to YouTube, the fleeting memories of “that thing with that guy in it” would pop in and out of one’s consciousness without any need to investigate further. Now, especially for people like me, that becomes an impossibility.

The following videos are the result of several hours (though not consecutive, thank goodness) of trying to scratch that mental itch that comes from such memory fragments:

1) Night Walk – Night Ride: Aired between 3 and 5am on Global TV in the late 80′s. Yes, I was up during those hours as a kid.

2) An anti-drug PSA with a voice-over from Mark Dailey (Local celebroty -Toronto news anchor for City-TV, and former Police Officer).

3) The new Heinz campaign is responsible for planting this jingle back in my head, and I’m not even a fan of ketchup.

4) There’s a part of this video that’s shot in black and white, where a guy’s reading Lady Chatterly’s Lover. It’s always been in my mind, and would I have realized it was from a song that I actually know, I might not have searched as hard to find out where it was from.

Perhaps that’s what YouTube will eventually evolve into – a repository for all the little bits and pieces of mental confetti that prevent one’s memory from performing more efficiently. … Or at least that’s the story I’ll stick to.

They have the ability to lie dormant for years, re-activated for any one of a thousand strange reasons. Maybe you’re at a party and someone whistles 3 or four notes that force you to stop and try and remember their origin for days. Or perhaps you’ve heard someone utter a cryptic pop-culture phrases like “Where’s the Beef?” or “Mikey Likes It!”. Whatever the reason, there’s a good chance that if you grew up in front of the boob tube, part of your subconscious is now permanently etched with countless slogans and catchphrases used to market just about everything, from Ketchup to Cars.

Think you’re different? Think your psyche’s been cleansed for the better? …

(I’m sure just those 3 videos, or any of the ones linked above, will no doubt cause a 3 hour YouTube session. You can thank me later.)

This was just a fun little post. There’s no deep analysis here. No probing question for you all to chew on. Except for maybe one. Despite their overall quality, what makes these old ads so … “appealing” 10, 20, or 30 years down the road? What is it about nostalgia that makes us praise and treasure something that was seemingly worthless and annoying (regardless of how catchy it was) when it was created?. Further, which ones are destined to become the next batch of guilty pleasures that will make future generations question their own sanity?