The Sonic Ads

The Barkley ad agency’s campaign for Sonic Drive-In is of my favorites of all time. I see the ads all the time, even though the places I’ve lived haven’t even had them. No matter, there’s something addictive about these commercials. Borne mostly of loose scripts and choice improv, you can’t help but remember these, love ‘em or hate ‘em.

Each commercial opens on a shot of a Sonic, then cuts inside a car where we listen to the ramblings of two passengers at the drive-in. As far as I know, there have thus far been three pairs of characters (I do remember a one-off with the wife and her friend, however).

The first (original?) pair are played by T.J. Jagodowski (as the wily dufus) and Peter Grosz (as the wisdom-imparting driver).

The second casting pair are a married couple played by Molly Erdman and Brian Huskey. Finally, there are a few spots involving a pair of female best friends, though I’ve always considered them to be a female incarnation of the two guys who started it off.

Anyway, I’ve included a fairly extensive set of the campaign, though it is not entirely comprehensive. If you make it through them all and really want to find more, I salute you and good luck!

P.S. If for some reason you load the page, and one of the flash movies isn’t embedding properly, you may need to reload the page. It seems I’m pushing Flash to its limits here!