June 27th, 2007

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Television, Vancouver
18 Comments »

Get Malacca For the Money, Rattan To Go

Does anybody else remember that phrase? It bubbled up out of the hazy corners of my memory today, as it does every once in a while. There are only three results for the phrase “rattan to go” on the Web, but Nadya over at Retro Junk offers a good introduction to this strange local commercial from the eighties:

What was it advertising? I think it was a furniture store; in fact, I could be almost positive it was a furniture store. Yes, actually, it had to be. Now that I’m recalling the deeper meaning of the lyrical content, there’s no way that it couldn’t be an advertisement for a furniture store. As a child, it was just an astonishing, mesmerizing array of visuals, accompanied by a few scant lines of dialogue containing words that were meaningless to me, as I didn’t understand them. Allow me to illustrate: an ebony-skinned man with a large smile, wearing a white suit and white gloves and matching white top hat, slinking around a darkened environment.

Stavros fills in a few more details.

I wonder when in the eighties that was? Some time in the mid-eighties, I’d guess. You probably have to be over thirty to remember it.

I recall that the actor–one Blu Mankuma, apparently–had the darkest skin I’d ever seen in my young life. There was a very kind of colonial, Caribbean groove, and there may have been a woman dancing around in the background. I’m probably confusing that with an ad for champagne from the same period (I can still hum the jingle. The woman sounded like Julie Andrews and the name of the wine sounded like ‘hawktala’).

Do you remember this ad?

I’m incredibly tempted to give Mr. Mankuma a call, and see if he has a copy of the video.

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Comments: 18 Responses so far

Rebecca
June 27th, 2007
3:27 pm

The wine “hawktala” sounds like it could be Hochtaler. And I found the video (very “Cabaret”-esque) here. The image looks like it’s broken, but click on it anyways.

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Derek K. Miller
June 27th, 2007
6:34 pm

It is Hochtaler wine, and Malacca Rattan was (not surprisingly) a furniture store in Vancouver that sold…wicker rattan couches, chairs, and so on. The campaign ran for a pretty long time, probably from the late ’70s to the mid-’80s.

The overall vibe of the Malacca Rattan commercial reminds me quite a bit of the first Roger Moore 007 film, “Live and Let Die,” with the freaky voodoo priests and such, but much tamer, obviously.

Certainly it seemed like an homage to the movie to me at the time, even though I was a (James Bond-obsessed) kid.

Here’s another link about the commercials.

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Derek K. Miller
June 27th, 2007
6:35 pm

Oh, and…

I’ll sing you of Hochtaler
As we share glass
And whenever you sip it
You’ll say “This wine’s got class!”

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gwendolyn
June 27th, 2007
7:14 pm

Oh my god, the memories! I totally forgot about the rattan commercial, but one late night at the Herald a couple of us were reminiscing about the Hochtaler commercial, so we youtubed it.

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Maktaaq
June 27th, 2007
9:21 pm

I remember that commercial too!

And, er, I wish I had the courage to call the guy and tell him how much I enjoyed that commercial…I really wanted to visit the Caribbean because of him. (Though I now know that Malacca is not in the Caribbean.)

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Ryan Cousineau
June 27th, 2007
10:31 pm

I don’t think the local-ads trifecta will be complete until someone mentions The Captain.

Okay, I know, Hochtaler wasn’t local, its ads were just cheesy.

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john ounpuu
June 28th, 2007
8:01 am

Oh my god. Both of those commercials are etched permanently in my Brain. I moved to Vancouver in the summer of 1981 and spent a LOT of time watching television before school started and I had a chance to make some friends my own age. Both of those ads were fixtures.

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Derek K. Miller
June 28th, 2007
9:14 am

“Ever been to sea, Billy?”

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filmgoerjuan
June 28th, 2007
3:49 pm

The line that nobody seems to remember from the jingle is “Fabrics to get ready, baby”. I, too, have strong memories of this ad. I wonder if I have a copy of it sitting on a tape somewhere in the garage? I have a bunch of stuff from KVOS in the mid to late 80s, so odds are pretty good — I’m too lazy to search for it, though ;)

Oh, and to this day, I still think of the line “It’s always a good year” from the the Hochtaler commercial whenever I’m shopping for wine at the liquor store.

Yes, I’m old and I have no life.

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LJ
June 28th, 2007
10:57 pm

Any time someone says rattan - I hear “Rattan to go” in my head. Said in that lyrical Carribean/Jamaican accent.

Same goes for $1.49 - “It’s dollar forty-nine day, Tuesday ..”

My head is full of that kind of stuff.

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Ryan Cousineau
June 29th, 2007
9:14 am

It’s official: we’ve all turned into The Simpsons, and ad jingles are the folk songs of our generation.

LJ: it’s not just you, I can still whistle the eight-note Woodward’s leitmotif.

Derek: wrong Captain. Think “aye aye, and good bye!” Big fat used-goods/pawn store owner who more or less pioneered buying late-night ad space on Vancouver TV stations.

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Tony
September 20th, 2007
3:53 pm

Like others mentioned in this post. I can’t hear the word rattan without thinking, “Rattan to go…”

I grew up in the U.S. right next to the Canadian border. We didn’t have cable so I grew up with Everything coming out of Vancouver. Channel 8, Chek 6, Channel 10 (I remember when it was U tv) and of course CBC. So I to have memories of the Captain, Hochtaler, and Malacca.

I’d give anything to find a clip of that Malacca commercial.

The Hochtaler commercial also just blew my mind back to being a youngin.

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Chris
December 12th, 2007
7:54 am

Hey, I was just thinking about this commercial this morning for some reason. I think the exact text was:

Take Malaca for the money, wicker for the show. Fabrics to get ready, baby…..rattan to go.

Thanks for the memories. : )

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fred
February 29th, 2008
11:45 pm

This fact made this Ad hilarious, for those aware of this fact. The meaning of the word “Malaka” in greek.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malakas

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Kate
July 13th, 2008
11:10 am

I loved this ad and have sung it often with my friends over the years. “Get malaca for the money, wicka for the show, fabric to get ready baby, rattan (pause) to go!” You have to say “wicka” not wicker, because of the accent. I loved that ad. The Hochtala ad was big too (in my memory) but not AS permanently (happily) etched.

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Dennis Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 4:27 pm

I am not even 30 (though admittedly very close) and I too am forever unable to use the word “rattan” because of this commercial.

Tried looking for it the other day, because I remember as a child being convinced that this commercial featured the same guy as in the 7Up commercials of the era. It’s not Geoffrey Holder, but hey, I was four.

While listing off infamous Vancouver advertising of the early 80’s, can we have a shout-out for Daniadown. What Malacca did to “rattan”, this blonde temptress did for “qvilts” and “qvilt covers”

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High On Markers
February 28th, 2009
8:45 pm

I found your blog looking for the Malacca Rattan ad - sad to know my search is probably doomed.

There was another ad that seemed to vanish - not local though. It was for Marina toilet paper. It featured a woman by the seaside, and when she’d think of Marina toilet paper, a huge breeze would pick up and blow back her hair. Then the song would start up: “Marina, soft as the seabreeze yet strong as the sea”.

My partner absolutley will not believe that a toilet paper ad would feature that jingle and a huge wind blowing the woman’s hair all about. If only I could find it again…

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helly
April 21st, 2009
2:55 pm

This ad made an impression on me because it was one of the first ads that I watched right after I immigrated from Seoul to Vancouver. I believe it was aired in 1987 for a funiture store/brand. I even remember the actor, and I know he still acts in Canadian TV shows.

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