Hey – I’d love a Babycham!

Old advert brought back to mind.

I don’t look on LinkedIn much, but a recent article on how Babycham was advertised from the 1950s onwards interested me.

Babycham is still available, it’s a perry – like cider, but made with pears rather than apples. At 6% it’s on the lighter side of cider-perry drinks and the little bottles it used to be sold in wouldn’t get you very drunk. From its introduction in the 1950s it was marketed at women, a departure from how alcohol had previously been advertised.

It was also the favourite tipple of Vyvyan out and off of The Young Ones. He once declared that “one glass of that and I’m anyone’s”.

The advert that comes to mind first when I think of Babycham is one from 1986, set in a low bar playing loud, industrial music¹. Two posh couples come in and one of the woman – to the consternation of the barman – says she’d love a Babycham. A deep-voice dude² clicks his fingers³ and says “Hey! I’d love a Babycham!” And then everyone in the bar wants a Babycham.

What’s memorable is the guy at the end of the bar. In this two-bit sleazy dive is a very polite young man who looks around at everyone else ordering Babycham, puts his finger up and says “Yeah, I’ll have one!”

So I did a remix of the advert

1. Literally, hammering on pipes. Not Killing Joke or Nine Inch Nails. ↩︎
2. Charles Augins, who was also Queeg 500 in the Red Dwarf episode ‘Queeg’. ↩︎
3. Which you should never, ever do to any bar staff – unless you’re being played by Charles Augins – if you still want to be able to count to ten. ↩︎