The Idler

A Waste of Paradise

THE TRUE STORY OF THE BOUNTY BAR HUNTERS.
BY JOE CORNISH

In May 1977 the world famous Bounty Hunters first appeared on British television screens. Many still believe them to be the concoction of advertising executives, but startling new theories, revealed here for the first time, suggest a more sinister reality. Sources suggest that it was 1975 when Mars Confectionery executives first heard rumours of a mythical “Bounty Bar”, believed to be the actual “taste of paradise”. According to legend, the bar was produced by a tribe of natives on an undiscovered South Sea Island. It formed their sole diet, held powerful aphrodisiac properties, and took centre stage in the tribe’s mysterious fertility rituals. Excited executives immediately dispatched a team of sexy explorers to search for the bar, together with a camera crew, to capture their adventures and turn them into television commercials. The resulting campaign was to become one of the most famous and enduring in the history of confectionery advertising. But many believe that behind the images of beautific tropical islands lies a true story of obsession and sexual perversity. The evidence is there for all to see in the original adverts.
ADVERT ONE: THE BOUNTY HUNTERS (1977)

ACTION:

Three scuba divers, one man and two women, emerge from the shallow waters of a paradisical desert island. They undress and head up the beach to discover two Bounty Bars behind a palm tree. They settle down and bite into the bars, then proceed to eye each other up accompanied by the famous Bounty Song: “The Bounty Hunters are here, they’re searching for a paradise…”

ANALYSIS:

From the moment we first see these so-called Bounty Hunters, it’s clear they’re after something moist and tender that isn’t coconut. In a telling early shot, one of the women unzips her wetsuit to release her captive breasts, which swell forth eagerly in big close up to sparkle in the sunlight. The Bounty Hunting component of their expedition is derisory. They find the bars too easily, laid out on a palm leaf beside an artfully split coconut. One of the women then lies back on the sand and bites the top off a bar. The way she guides the top between her lips with the tip of her tongue suggests she may well have a background in porno.

The way the man watches her with an evil look in his eye suggests he might have a serious criminal record. And the way the second woman watches them both suggests that she swings both ways and that any second now they might all start to “party”. The final post-coital shot of all three watching the sun set behind their yacht suggests that they did, it was fantastic, and they’ve decided to live there together forever.

ADVERT TWO: VILLAGE OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS (1983)

ACTION:

A blonde woman wearing a skimpy bikini clambers through a tropical jungle. She arrives in a small clearing where five other beautiful scantily clad young models of both sexes have established a small Bounty Hunting commune. She’s immediately offered a refreshing Bounty Bar from a large carved wooden bowl. She sits next to a blonde man and laughs at whatever he’s saying while she eats her Bounty seductively. Soon they’re all munching on Bounties and eyeing each other up suggestively. The accompanying voice-over explains that “the Bounty Hunters have made their home in paradise, for here they have found the Bounty Bar, the taste of paradise.”

ANALYSIS:

On close observation, the people in this second commercial are recognisable as the original Bounty Hunters. They have clearly settled on the island and built bamboo huts to live in, with the Bounty Bar as their sole diet. The powerful aphrodisiac property of the bar has led them to create a Charles Mansonesque, sex-based commune. The constant sunshine keeps their complexions free from zits, and the malnutrition that results from constant Bounty eating keeps them slim and photogenic. Their beautiful new companions are either the original camera crew, or friends who have dropped out of society and traveled to the island guided by a secret Alex Garland-style map. They now spend their lives gathering Bounty Bars, lounging around eating them, then engaging in prolonged group sex sessions. One can only imagine the number of small children who must be sheltering inside the huts. It’s highly possible that this scenario actually existed, masterminded by Mars Executives, who dispatched a camera crew every few years to capture their superficially idyllic but actually deeply disturbing lifestyle.

Many believe that this is what actually happened, and the second advert, filmed six years later, supports this theory.

ADVERT THREE: CHILDREN OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS (1993)

ACTION:

It’s midnight on Bounty Island, and a perfect quarter moon hangs in the starry sky. A dark skinned girl lies on a branch over a silvery rock pool, stuffing her face with a Bounty. A muscled man with flowing black hair comes running through the surf towards her. Soon they are holding hands beneath a palm tree, and leaning in to kiss one another. A coconut falls from a high palm tree, then smashes and spilts perfectly on the rocks below, gushing moonlit coconut juice, a clear symbol for sexual intercourse. Back on the beach, the girl reclines on the man’s chest, chewing on a post coital bar. They look bored, depressed and gorgeous.

ANALYSIS:

Ten years have passed since the Bounty Hunting commune was established. However, there is no longer any sign of their bamboo huts or any of the original founder members. Instead, what we could be seeing here are their last surviving children, who have lived their entire lives on the island. Their skin-tone suggests possible inter-breeding with the island’s native tribe. There is a mix of sadness, insanity and animal arousal in their eyes as they perform the perpetual ritual of Bounty Hunting, Bounty eating and Bounty stimulated sex. Deviod of education and ignorant of the outside world, this is the only life they know. Inbreeding has meant that their siblings have long since perished. Now the two last Bounty Children live on the island like lab rats, visited only by the occasional camera crew, who capture their sad empty lives for the sake of selling Bounty Bars in the Western world.

POSTSCRIPT

It’s no coincidence that in 1997 Mars changed the Bounty adverts entirely. The Bounty Hunters and their paradise island were never to be seen again. They were replaced by a new concept featuring a girl lying in Central Park eating a Bounty, the grass around her coming alive with miniature jungle animals. Perhaps the rumours and the risk of exposure were too much for the company to take. Rumours that the current adverts use genetically bred mini-animals rather than digital effects, are unsubstantiated.

THE TRUE STORY OF THE BOUNTY BAR HUNTERS.
BY JOE CORNISH

In May 1977 the world famous Bounty Hunters first appeared on British television screens. Many still believe them to be the concoction of advertising executives, but startling new theories, revealed here for the first time, suggest a more sinister reality. Sources suggest that it was 1975 when Mars Confectionery executives first heard rumours of a mythical “Bounty Bar”, believed to be the actual “taste of paradise”. According to legend, the bar was produced by a tribe of natives on an undiscovered South Sea Island. It formed their sole diet, held powerful aphrodisiac properties, and took centre stage in the tribe’s mysterious fertility rituals. Excited executives immediately dispatched a team of sexy explorers to search for the bar, together with a camera crew, to capture their adventures and turn them into television commercials. The resulting campaign was to become one of the most famous and enduring in the history of confectionery advertising. But many believe that behind the images of beautific tropical islands lies a true story of obsession and sexual perversity. The evidence is there for all to see in the original adverts.
ADVERT ONE: THE BOUNTY HUNTERS (1977)

ACTION:

Three scuba divers, one man and two women, emerge from the shallow waters of a paradisical desert island. They undress and head up the beach to discover two Bounty Bars behind a palm tree. They settle down and bite into the bars, then proceed to eye each other up accompanied by the famous Bounty Song: “The Bounty Hunters are here, they’re searching for a paradise…”

ANALYSIS:

From the moment we first see these so-called Bounty Hunters, it’s clear they’re after something moist and tender that isn’t coconut. In a telling early shot, one of the women unzips her wetsuit to release her captive breasts, which swell forth eagerly in big close up to sparkle in the sunlight. The Bounty Hunting component of their expedition is derisory. They find the bars too easily, laid out on a palm leaf beside an artfully split coconut. One of the women then lies back on the sand and bites the top off a bar. The way she guides the top between her lips with the tip of her tongue suggests she may well have a background in porno.

The way the man watches her with an evil look in his eye suggests he might have a serious criminal record. And the way the second woman watches them both suggests that she swings both ways and that any second now they might all start to “party”. The final post-coital shot of all three watching the sun set behind their yacht suggests that they did, it was fantastic, and they’ve decided to live there together forever.

ADVERT TWO: VILLAGE OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS (1983)

ACTION:

A blonde woman wearing a skimpy bikini clambers through a tropical jungle. She arrives in a small clearing where five other beautiful scantily clad young models of both sexes have established a small Bounty Hunting commune. She’s immediately offered a refreshing Bounty Bar from a large carved wooden bowl. She sits next to a blonde man and laughs at whatever he’s saying while she eats her Bounty seductively. Soon they’re all munching on Bounties and eyeing each other up suggestively. The accompanying voice-over explains that “the Bounty Hunters have made their home in paradise, for here they have found the Bounty Bar, the taste of paradise.”

ANALYSIS:

On close observation, the people in this second commercial are recognisable as the original Bounty Hunters. They have clearly settled on the island and built bamboo huts to live in, with the Bounty Bar as their sole diet. The powerful aphrodisiac property of the bar has led them to create a Charles Mansonesque, sex-based commune. The constant sunshine keeps their complexions free from zits, and the malnutrition that results from constant Bounty eating keeps them slim and photogenic. Their beautiful new companions are either the original camera crew, or friends who have dropped out of society and traveled to the island guided by a secret Alex Garland-style map. They now spend their lives gathering Bounty Bars, lounging around eating them, then engaging in prolonged group sex sessions. One can only imagine the number of small children who must be sheltering inside the huts. It’s highly possible that this scenario actually existed, masterminded by Mars Executives, who dispatched a camera crew every few years to capture their superficially idyllic but actually deeply disturbing lifestyle.

Many believe that this is what actually happened, and the second advert, filmed six years later, supports this theory.

ADVERT THREE: CHILDREN OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS (1993)

ACTION:

It’s midnight on Bounty Island, and a perfect quarter moon hangs in the starry sky. A dark skinned girl lies on a branch over a silvery rock pool, stuffing her face with a Bounty. A muscled man with flowing black hair comes running through the surf towards her. Soon they are holding hands beneath a palm tree, and leaning in to kiss one another. A coconut falls from a high palm tree, then smashes and spilts perfectly on the rocks below, gushing moonlit coconut juice, a clear symbol for sexual intercourse. Back on the beach, the girl reclines on the man’s chest, chewing on a post coital bar. They look bored, depressed and gorgeous.

ANALYSIS:

Ten years have passed since the Bounty Hunting commune was established. However, there is no longer any sign of their bamboo huts or any of the original founder members. Instead, what we could be seeing here are their last surviving children, who have lived their entire lives on the island. Their skin-tone suggests possible inter-breeding with the island’s native tribe. There is a mix of sadness, insanity and animal arousal in their eyes as they perform the perpetual ritual of Bounty Hunting, Bounty eating and Bounty stimulated sex. Deviod of education and ignorant of the outside world, this is the only life they know. Inbreeding has meant that their siblings have long since perished. Now the two last Bounty Children live on the island like lab rats, visited only by the occasional camera crew, who capture their sad empty lives for the sake of selling Bounty Bars in the Western world.

POSTSCRIPT

It’s no coincidence that in 1997 Mars changed the Bounty adverts entirely. The Bounty Hunters and their paradise island were never to be seen again. They were replaced by a new concept featuring a girl lying in Central Park eating a Bounty, the grass around her coming alive with miniature jungle animals. Perhaps the rumours and the risk of exposure were too much for the company to take. Rumours that the current adverts use genetically bred mini-animals rather than digital effects, are unsubstantiated.