Or rather, how they were broadcast on television.
They had a space and a time, they were not uncomfortably specific, you could make the decision not to watch them by changing the channel or go to the bathroom for a while and come back. Programs and movies were designed or edited in such a way that rather than an interruption, they felt like a pause.
Because that’s what they were: Advertising Pauses.
Not like now, which are Advertising Interruptions, Advertising Invasions.
Advertising “Disrespect for the Privacy and Time of the Users”.
EDIT: I love how almost everyone assumed that by “old” I meant commercials from the last century (90s, 80s) when I was thinking more like mid 2000s
Also, a lot of them were actually funny and creative.
Very few were funny or creative. If anything they were heavily trending away from anything funny or creative towards loud and obnoxious. They knew everyone got up to go to the bathroom or kitchen and wanted to make sure that you still heard and recognized their ad. Then with the advent of tivo type recording, they did their best to make the first and last 15 seconds as abusive as possible, that way they could force their advertising into your brain before you had a chance to grab the remote and skip it, or during that little bit of commercial you had to watch just before the show returned.
While I will admit that there were some absolutely amazing commercials, like the Trunk Monkey, those were not only incredibly rare, but also being rapidly abandoned. I think modern commercials may actually be better overall than those of the past. Just look at what Ryan Reynolds is doing. I loath commercials, but I am also subscribed to his YouTube channel and regularly watch his “videos” because they’re amusing.
Silverberg’s Law states that 90% of everything is crap.
We tend to ignore the lousy stuff and focus on the great things.