Chicken-Related Eastport Plaza Ad — 1993

This was found on a recording of the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. By that time, Eastport Plaza wasn’t exactly the most shining attraction in Portland. If you’re only familiar with this being a collection of open-air giant boxes, it was once a real mall….a very, very sad mall. It was a dead mall before dead malls became a thing. By ’93 half its stores were vacant, so here they are trying to turn the lack of crowds into a selling point. Nice spin, guys, but it wouldn’t save you.

My favorite thing about this era of Eastport Plaza, from a schadenfreude standpoint, was the gated-off venue filled by a few tables and unplugged arcade games, with the sign “THE PARTY’S HERE!” I don’t believe any parties were ever actually there.