15-Min Of Fame - Big Budget Commercial Costs More Than a Feature Film

All thanks to my younger brother, Michael, who has spent what I'm sure amounts to a huge number of hours converting many old videos from the 80s and 90s to digital and uploading to the internet. In this particular TV commercial, I (Aussie Pete) am just a mere 17 years of age, and by the looks of things, would be lucky if I weighed 65kg dripping wet.

Displaying my best 1980s hairstyle in all of its glory, this TV commercial for 'Breaka' flavoured milk, was the most expensive ad ever produced at the time in Australia and was more like a huge budget mini film. In terms of $$ per second, it in fact, cost more to make than a full-feature film.

The commercial, the first for the then new beverage and the begninning of a long-running campaign ('It's a Dream of a Drink'), ran for 5-years across all TV stations in prime time and in cinemas along with all new releases... it got so that I could not walk the streets of Brisbane without being recognized as 'the Breaka Boy'.

The pretty models sourced for the ad, were Australia's best and most well-known, and some people old enough to remember might recognize one as the drummer from the popular 1980s all-girl band, 'Sheeba' (hope I spelled it correctly).

The video here is a conversion from the original VHS video to digital of the one minute version of the commercial, along with a current affairs story (Brisbane's 'State Affair') covering the 'behind the scenes' and interviews with producers and directors.

Finally, if you stay watching long enough, somehow a small snippet from my DJ days (no sound) at Manhattan nightclub - the largest and most popular venue at the time - regularly at least 2000 to 3000 patrons on any night of the week - owned and run by my then bosses and good friends, Gerry Bellino and Vic Conte, who were portrayed in the fourth series of 'Underbelly'. (It was the 'in' place in it's day).

Not surprisingly, I was known in my DJ days of the 1980s, as 'Breaka'... a nickname long since forgotten.

The attached is a very rare 'blast from the past' - enjoy!!

BREAKA - IT'S A DREAM OF A DRINK....