"famous" Pilot Elite S Commercial

[kajsidog]

Lambrou & Sunami's book Fountain Pens of Japan mentions on page 230, "The company (Pilot) recovered through the succesful launch of the Elite S, which was backed by a famous television commercial."

 

Does anyone know what that famous 1968 commercial was? I failed at digging on youtube & google for it.

[kamakura-pens]

I vaguely remember the commercial you are talking about. Part of the charm of the commercial's charm was that it was very short, about three seconds long. A famous comedian, Happa Fumifumi (that's the name that rises from the quagmire of my memory) recited a silly haiku and then held up a Pilot Elite. It made quite a splash in Japan, and if you ask any one of age over here, they will remember it. I had a screen shot somewhere of the commericail. I will now have to go search my old laptop and see if I can find it.

[kajsidog]

I appreciate it and am jealous of your memory kamakura. A famous commercial for a pen really peaked my curiosity. I had been working on an ad for the E95S when I first listed the question.

 

If you do find a screen shot I would appreciate seeing it but regardless thanks for sharing the gist of the ad.

[analogwriter]

I found this FB video of a 1969 Pilot Elite S TV commercial. Is it related to this discussion?

 

Edited September 28, 2015 by analogwriter

[analogwriter]

Here's another 1969 commercial, this one in colour.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I2JjKLdy0Q

 

Btw, why is the actor sitting behind a wire music stand?

Edited September 28, 2015 by analogwriter

[analogwriter]

I couldn't resist posting a more recent Pilot - American - commercial carrying on the tradition of humour in pen sales, this one titled "Pen Envy."

[Flounder]

Hey!! It's the guy from Hot Tub Time Machine!

[kajsidog]

Thank you Analogwriter!

I passed along that video to a co-worker for a rough translation who was able to provide the following information.

————

 

Anyways, I listened to it several times and this is what I gather..

The actor’s name is Kyosen Ohashi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyosen_%C5%8Chashi


He’s reading a sales pitch written by someone else for the Elite S pen. The wording of the sales pitch is written in old Japanese.
It’s written in a Haiku style, syllables per line is 5,7,5,7,7.

As he is rehearsing the sales pitch before he reads it on air, he notices a couple wordings in there that he doesn’t like.
He suggests that the last 7 syllables be Happa fumi fumi.

It doesn’t mean anything.
In fact, when they were filming this CM, it was adlibbed.
Then he follows that by saying to the audience, “you know what I mean, right?”

No one knew what it meant.. but no one could say anything about it because of his popularity at the time.

So, to mock the fact that no one could question it, he repeated this phrase “happa Fumu Fumi” every chance he got.
For example, it could have been an interview about a book he read, and he would answer “it has an essence of the happa fumi fumi”.
People would nod in acknowledgement but having no idea what he was talking about.

For some reason, people caught on to this phrase, got very popular, and as a result, The Elite S became a very popular pen as well.


So, it really doesn’t have too much of a meaning.
I actually looked up the Happa Fumi Fumi online to see where it came from.
Everything I read explains that no one in Japan really knows what that really means.
It was a witty move on Kyosen to say gibberish, laugh at himself, then confidently support his gibberish.

People who are in their late 60’s, 70’s in Japan will know Happa Fumi Fumi.
I’m not sure if anyone else will know this…

————

 

 

Again, I really appreciate you sharing the video link here Analogwriter.