Ore-Ida's New Potato Ads Make Us Nostalgic For The Weird World Of '90s Commercials

The '90s were an intriguing cultural time that produced some incredibly weird commercials. The commercial for "Super Smash Brothers," for example, had all your favorite characters taking cheap shots at each other while "Happy Together" played in the background. One Slim Jim spot featured the mascot cutting through the stomach of a patient on an operating table to create a scene that looked like it belonged in the original "Alien" movie. Now, Ore-Ida's latest campaign takes a page from the bizarro world of '90s snack foods to splash consumers with a strange flavor of nostalgia.

The cast of characters the company has chosen to represent its popular frozen French fry brand is undeniably eclectic. There's a vain weather reporter, an artistic tree, a bear that gardens, a friendly camping werewolf, and more. These individuals sing along to a bouncy tune and detail the concerns and frustrations of their unpredictable lives. It's weird. It's unsettling. But for anyone who was born in the '90s (or earlier), it somehow feels like home.

As odd as Ore-Ida's ad campaign might appear on the surface, its earnestness gives it a meaningful purpose. In a press announcement, the company revealed it recognizes that our world has become extremely unpredictable, and sometimes, the one thing that can help this uncertainty is knowing that some things will never change. In Ore-Ida's case, it claims its French fries, consistently crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, are "deliciously predictable."

Jackie Britva, senior brand manager for Ore-Ida at The Kraft Heinz Company, stated, "We've always been a lighthearted and comedic brand, and our new campaign allows us to marry that tone with predictability, breathing new excitement into the traditionally duller idea of certainty ... when it comes to your potatoes, predictability is preferred."

Jan Jacobs, co-founder and creative chairman of Johannes Leonardo, the creative agency behind this irreverently charming campaign, added, "It's been an incredible journey to modernize and re-introduce an icon, and in the process unlock a core truth about the brand that's more resonant today than ever before. Few things in life are certain. So we ran at the chance to celebrate Ore-Ida's reliable outcome: crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside — in a wild musical ode to predictability."