Proof We Didn’t Hallucinate the Gobbledok
80s Advertising at Its Most Unsupervised
You’ve probably never heard of it and, if you have, you may not even remember, but it existed - The Gobbledok. Hailing from so far back in the past that, like Samurai Pizza Cats and that weird alien guy they added to The Flintstones, I often wondered if I’d imagined it. Fortunately we live in the ‘information’ age and I have achieved vindication through the internet, like so many other small, petty men.
Welcome to Planet Dok (Population: Potatoes)
Birthed in 1987, in an era when advertising could be truly weird, the Gobbledok came from outer space and hailed from the planet Dok, the potato planet. Crashlanding in the equally cleverly named Australia (it means south) the Gobbledok quickly succumbs to an all-encompassing potato chip frenzy. It’s not its fault though. It needs them to live. It’s just its nature. Having evolved on Dok, the potato planet, it needs potato chips like we need oxygen. It’s not merrily chirping for its favourite food, it’s screaming in desperation as you would for air.
At least it’s cute though, right? Let’s call it… Furby levels of cute. Cute enough, but also slightly horrifying. It vaguely resembles the bastard child of Alf and Cousin It. It’s like a four foot tall troll doll with shorter hair on its head and a Chewbacca-esque fuzz everywhere else. And I mean everywhere else, as despite hailing from a civilization that has achieved space travel, the people of Dok clearly never mastered pants. Or perhaps they’ve moved beyond them. In an intergalactic society perhaps pants serve no purpose. Though they must always be wary of splinters.
The Gobbledok is not to be defeated by a lack of pants though, as it also possesses superpowers. Demonstrated in various television ads are the powers of levitation (to retrieve potato chips from high places), super speed and telekinesis (to retrieve potato chips from far places), teleportation (to escape with retrieved potato chips), and a seemingly bottomless stomach (to store retrieved potato chips). It could be out there doing gods-knows-what with these abilities, but its existential need for potato chips makes it powerless before our supermarkets and food manufacturing capabilities.
The Gobbledok evolved through the ages, much as society didn’t, and from its heyday in the late 80s, early it eventually became whatever this is. Watch as it busts out some awkward moves in awkward scenes to some truly god awful music. Small wonder that after the 90s, the Gobbledok was put on ice for over 20 years.
Legacy of the Dok
Is it officially back now? Alas, no. The 2017 showing was simply an anniversary pity party, but the Gobbledok lives on in the dark recesses of YouTube, in my memory and now also in yours. All of this to advertise Smith’s Crisps. Great job, I say, though I always preferred this ad for Chicken Chippees.
Cheers!
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