SEGA megadrive advert from 1991.

The Mega Drive is a fourth-generation video game console released by Sega in Japan in 1988 and Europe in 1990. The console was released in North America in 1989 under the name Genesis, as Sega was unable to secure legal rights to the Mega Drive name in that region. The Mega Drive, heavily marketed as “16-bit” due to its hardware, was Sega’s fifth home console and the successor to the Sega Master System, with which it is electronically compatible.

The Mega Drive was the first of its generation to achieve notable market share in Europe and North America. It was a direct competitor of the TurboGrafx-16 (which was released one year earlier in Japan under the name PC Engine, but at about the same time as the Genesis in North America) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (which was released two years later). The Mega Drive began production in Japan in 1988 and ended with the last new licensed game being released in 2002 in Brazil.

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1991 commercial for Kelloggs CoCo Pops.

Cocoa Pops (known as Choco Krispis, Choco Krispies, or Coco Pops outside of the United States) is a breakfast cereal produced by Kellogg’s. It is a cocoa-flavored version of Rice Krispies. Containing a substance imitating milk chocolate, the cereal can quickly turn milk “chocolatey.”

The cereal is known as Choco Krispis in Portugal, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina, and Choco Krispies in Spain, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It was introduced in the United Kingdom as Coco Pops in 1961, and is also known by that name in Denmark, Bulgaria, Ghana, Malta, New Zealand, Ireland, Finland, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Israel, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, Hong Kong, Lebanon and Australia. Later in the 1960s, the name was changed to “Coco Krispies,” but subsequently reverted back to Coco Pops. In 1998, the cereal was briefly renamed again in the UK, this time to Choco Krispies. However, in 1999, after falling sales and a telephone poll in which the British public voted, its name reverted back to Coco Pops. The cereal was known as Cocoa Krispies when it was marketed in Canada, but it is no longer distrusted there.

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1991 commercial for British Gas featuring Burt Renolds.

History

In the early 1900s the gas market in the United Kingdom was mainly run by county councils and small private firms.

In 1948 that all changed with The Gas Act 1948 brought in by Clement Attlee’s Labour government. The act nationalised the UK gas industry and 1062 privately owned and municipal gas companies were merged into twelve Area Gas Boards each a separate body with its own management structure. Each Area Board was divided into geographical groups or divisions which were often further divided into smaller districts. These boards simply became known as the “Gas Board”, a term people still use when referring to British Gas.

1991 commercial for Birds Eye Health Options

1971 Irish commercial for BASS. “Ah, thats Bass!”