As a child of the 1970s and even now as an adult, this is still my favourite advert ever. I admit that in this day and age this is not saying much, as the quality fell off a cliff decades ago.
Featuring Joe and Petunia, it is laugh-out-loud while containing a serious message. The animation is great, and the narrative is imaginative and funny. With the new technology no one has to endure the corporate blandness that adverts have become. However, back in the 1960s and 1970s, they used to be entertainment in themselves.
Enjoy Joe and Petunia, and don’t forget to call the Coastguard if necessary.
This film has had an enduring impact, not least because the issue it addressed has remained surprisingly persistent. Even decades later, surveys revealed that many people still did not know the Coastguard could be reached via 999. This enduring gap in public awareness led to revivals of the Joe and Petunia campaign. In 2006, the characters were digitally remastered and updated—Joe now carried a mobile phone while Petunia sported an iPod—but the core message was unchanged. In 2018, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the original film, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency revived the characters once again, this time in a modernised style, to reinforce the same instruction: dial 999 and ask for the Coastguard.
More from Joe and Petunia
Looking back, Joe and Petunia are emblematic of an era when public information films were both earnest and inventive, using humour and storytelling to cut through. They stand alongside the Green Cross Code Man, Tufty the squirrel, and the Charley Says series as part of a uniquely British canon of safety films that mixed entertainment with education. Yet few others were quite as deft in using gentle comedy to convey something so vital. More than half a century on, their “Coo-eee!” is remembered not just as a comic refrain but as the prelude to an instruction that has saved countless lives. What began as a light-hearted cartoon in 1968 endures as a cultural touchstone and a reminder that sometimes the simplest public messages are the ones that last.
