Did MTV influence commercials, or did the commercials' styles influence MTV? Both, probably. A joyous synthesis! All I know is that the commercials of the era ranged from the usual straight-forward stories that could have been shot in the 70s to hyper-stylized masterpieces of cultural confidence.

Now, some necessary information.

1. These aren't YouTube links, because that's off-putting for a lot of people. I know I hate them. Oh, it's one of those. An ad. Some distracting stuff on the sidebar. No, just plain small video files for your enjoyment.

2. Also, the banner says "80's Commercials" because that's how it would look on a VCR. I think. Maybe. Without the apostrophe it would look like 80S.

3. Also, the resolution is horrible. For all our boastful talk of super-high-resolution, it was a blurry mess compared to modern TV, and these clips were usually stored on a medium that degraded with unexpected enthusiasm.

There's about 70 clips total, doled out as I see fit. Click next to begin.