You gotta love the YouTube algorithm. Thanks to it, I’ve had a bit of a deep dive into classic television commercials, including a series of ads for a 1980’s-era diet supplement. And in this commercial, several svelte, easy-on-the-eyes women offer their own personal testimonials about losing a lot of weight with a specific diet caramel supplement candy.
The candy’s name? Ayd’s.
No, I’m serious. It was called Ayd’s.
And if you look at this commercial, you can see a woman identified as “Karen Parker, Schenectady, N.Y.,” talking about how the Ayd’s candy has helped her lose weight … as she stands in the dining hall of what has to be her spacious digs in Niskayuna or Glenville or some other “sundown-town” neighborhood.
Now to be fair, the Ayd’s candy was originally created in the 1940’s as part of a diet supplement and wellness program, and has existed off and on over time. But it returned to prominence in the early 1980’s with these ubiquitous commercials and glowing testimonials from models with come-hither bodies that look as if they never had weight issues.
And you gotta love this commercial, where a wife looks at a snapshot and bemoans that she’s gained weight. Well, yeah, if you’re looking at a shot from a Polaroid SX-70 camera that was taken by your husband … hmm … those were instant photos … that could be developed at home … maybe we’re not seeing WHERE that weight exists on that woman’s shape. Were these photos taken after their neighborhood “key party?” One must ask questions.
Yeah, this candy had some serious branding issues. In fact, these commercials became both laughable and painful as the AIDS epidemic (that’s AIDS as in “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome”) took hold. And one of the side effects of AIDS was severe weight loss. Well, yeah, as the disease ravaged the human body, it would destroy muscle and tissue and blood cells.
And after attempts to rebrand Ayd’s (the candy drug supplement) as something called “Aydslim,” the product was quietly discontinued in 1988.
Oh well. Wherever Karen Parker of Schenectady is today … I hope she spent that royalty check on something nice for her parlor. 😀
Chuck The Writer 
What could go wrong…with chewing and ingesting a tasty confection whose active ingredient was the topical numbing agent benzocaine?
And how far we’ve come. Today, in this old man’s opinion, there’s something in the litany of unpronounceable chemicals listed on today’s snack packaging that may well INDUCE continuous eating: “Betcha can’t eat just one!”
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