Television commercials for Midland Counties ice cream

One of the highlights of the canal holidays we had when I was a little boy was Midland Counties Ice Cream. In Hertfordshire it was all Walls or Lyons Maid, but further north they had a different company with different lollies.

So I blogged back in 2010. Sadly, the Midland Counties television commercial in that post, with its canalside scenes, is gone from YouTube.

But do not despair. If you click on the image above you will be taken to a selection of Midland Counties commercials on the British Film Institute site.

The BFI says:

Like a Neapolitan ice cream block, these early TV ads for the frozen delights of Midland Counties are stacked together in a medley of flavours. Back to back the individual distinctions of any single advert melt away, revealing the clichés in phrases and framing behind them. 

The pause at the end of each advert, known as the “TV hold”, would have been edited out for broadcast. Left intact it marks an awkward pause in which the often flimsy set-up of the ad threatens to collapse around it.

You can read more about Midland Counties ice cream on the J. Lyons & Co. site.