Farmers Union Iced Coffee - Commercials

Commercials

Farmers Union Iced Coffee in Australia also enjoys a high profile for popular commercials featuring rough male workers acting out ballet with heavy machinery in order to take up their boss on his word that he would provide them with a truck load of Iced Coffee if all his workers took up ballet. Another well-known run of advertisements features a dramatic voice-over detailing world headlines and issues, but shows very low-key average Australian equivalents on screen. These include:

• "When the wall came down" - depicts two men demolishing a wall as part of a DIY project. This relates to when the Berlin Wall was demolished.
• "Survived the Apollo Disaster" - shows three motorists (one consuming Iced Coffee) as their Holden Apollo is towed away after an accident. This may refer to one of two major incidents involving Apollo spacecraft—either the Apollo 1 fire, in which three astronauts died during a launch-pad test exercise, or the Apollo 13 explosion, which scuttled a planned lunar landing but saw the three astronauts safely return to Earth.
• "There when the bras were burnt" - shows an absent minded male watching television as a bra is burnt by an iron in the foreground. This refers to the famous act of female liberation.
• "When Chisel broke up" - shows a construction site with a devastated builder holding two pieces of a broken chisel. Refers to when the band, Cold Chisel broke up.
• "Saw Cathy in Sydney in 2000" - shows one male supposedly meeting with an old friend in Sydney who is also named Cathy. Relates to Cathy Freeman winning the 400 m in the Sydney Olympics.
• "The Children Overboard" - shows two males in a speedboat talking as their children have fallen off the back in an inflatable that is being towed. Refers to the scandal when the Howard government falsely claimed that children were thrown overboard from a boat full of asylum seekers.
• "Lived through the Millennium Bug" - shows a man in a dinner suit in a sleeping bag drink an Iced Coffee while slapping a bug on his neck. Relates to the Y2K bug.
• "...and Trevor's Underarm" - shows two construction workers both drinking Iced Coffee; one lifts his arm revealing his body odour and the other recoils in disgust. Refers to Trevor Chappell's infamous underarm delivery on the last ball of a One Day Cricket International. Features actor Terry Rogers in an early role.
• "Strongly opposed the Bush Invasion" - shows a man cutting his neighbours overhanging bushes. Relates to the opposition of George Bush leading the invasion into Iraq.