Pokey Allen Elephant Threat #3

There are Portlanders who love the Ducks, and Portlanders who love the Beavers, but neglected in a dark corner are the Portland State Vikings. Pokey Allen, the loud eccentric coach of the Vikings in the late 80s and early 90s, tried his best to get people invested….and by that, I mean he ran ads where he yelled “IF YOU DON’T BUY YOUR SEASON TICKETS NOW…AN ELEPHANT WILL LAND IN YOUR BACKYARD!!”

To show the threat was serious, a greenscreened elephant would be shown falling out of the sky. It’d be YOUR house if you didn’t buy PSU Vikings tickets.

This is one of my favorite local ad campaigns of all time and I’ve never been able to track it down. There were three ads, released between 1989 and 1991. The ’89 ad is what I just described. In the 1990 ad, he upped the ante by threatening “SIXTEEN CHEERLEADERS….AND AN ELEPHANT” would land in our backyards. The final ad was this one, where he made his greatest ultimatum by threatening the arrival of….well, you’ll see.

Unfortunately the Big C took Pokey not long after this, so we never got another ad. I still make “AN ELEPHANT WILL LAND IN YOUR BACKYARD” references to this day, even though no one ever gets it and no one ever will. ….Well, they might if I could ever find the other two ads….