Comes Up Peanuts

I just watched this advert from 1977 for the new flavoured Marathon. It has a weird wrapper, and features Keith Chegwin. but it’s boasting a new extra flavour – what does that mean? And what did Marathons taste like before I was born?

People in adverts hold their Marathon bars in such a peculiar manner. I know the way it’s unwrapped is scripted to show the bar’s logo, but why are they holding these like they’re in the Planet Of The Apes?

The Marathon bar has been around since the 1930s, and was named after a horse that the Mars family owned. Snickers everywhere else except the UK and Ireland, there was a Marathon in the US which more resembled a Curly Wurly.

So come 1990, Stephen Fry helped to sell us on the idea that the bar was changing its name.

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