Ken Bruce went completely mad and Melbourne loved it
REMEMBER his classic ads? Ken Bruce went completely mad and Melbourne couldn’t get enough of him. But he’s been keeping a secret all these years. WATCH THE VIDEO
VIC News
Don't miss out on the headlines from VIC News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Classic TV ads of the ‘70s and ‘80s
- The ads you can’t get out of your head
- Faded food icons we’d love to revisit
- It’s 30 years since our first mobile call
- Why this betting ad is causing a stir
KEN Bruce went completely mad and Melbourne couldn’t get enough of him.
Straightjacketed, with a talking parrot on his shoulder, he rocked back and forward on a chair as a voiceover screamed “KEN BRUCE HAS GONE MAD”.
Ken Bruce’s first ad was like nothing we’d seen before on our television screens - and for some reason it was a huge success.
The Ken Bruce legend had begun.
As the 1990s went on, his ads got more and more ridiculous. A crew of zany characters joined Bruce like his twin sister Madonna and a bunch of other crazy relatives and friends.
More than a decade after the ads last aired Melburnians still remember him lovingly.
But the truth is - there never really was a Ken Bruce.
WHO IS KEN BRUCE?
The Herald Sun can reveal Bruce’s real name is actually Bruce Krass, but he did once legally change his name to “Ken Bruce’s Twin Sister Madonna”.
Say what? But more on that later.
It was a mate in advertising who first suggested Bruce do a few commercials on late night television.
He had his doubts, but eventually agreed.
Bruce knew his only hope of making the ads a success was to get people to laugh.
“Forget about selling products — that’s only a by-product,” Bruce, who is now 83, explained.
“You’ve got to get the attention of the public and have a bit of fun while you’re doing it. That’s virtually what we did.”
DO YOU REMEMBER THE KEN BRUCE ADS? TELL US BELOW
One of Bruce’s daughters created the famous straitjacket from a terry towelling dressing gown, which he put on backwards.
Tears of laughter streamed down the faces of Bruce and his crew as they made the ads.
All the while customers continued to shop in the store.
“We used to make them and we’d think we were so funny,” Bruce said.
“The ads were very memorable and quite stupid.
“’We can’t do this! Or yeah let’s do it’.
The ads costs as little as $300 to make.
“The first ads were very basic, it was just me saying ‘Ken Bruce has gone mad, Ken Bruce has gone mad’,” he said.
Despite how funny the ads were, they originally aired between midnight and dawn and Bruce expected only a few hundred people would see them.
But then came the Gulf War.
Channel 10, which was airing the ads, had the exclusive rights to air CNN’s coverage and a huge audience tuned in to watch the world’s first war covered live on TV.
“It bloody worked would you believe, people started to pour in,” he said.
By the time the Gulf War ended months later, new characters had been created and the ads were part of Melbourne television folklore.
“We had Ken Bruce’s twin sister Madonna and his mad cousin Fred, we dressed up as pirates and Vikings ... you name it all the many mad characters,” he said.
“We did as we did 39 ads over the 10-year period.”
People loved the storylines around the heavily lipsticked, blonde wigged Madonna — like when she fell pregnant with child and they didn’t know who the father or was, or when she was arrested for table top dancing.
There were also the many references to popular culture like the In Bedding With Madonna ad, a reference to the movie In Bed with Madonna, and their take-off of the Village People’s YMCA.
But mostly, Bruce says, they just thought of the most stupid thing that came into their head - and did it.
Each ad was like a new episode in a popular television series and audiences eagerly anticipated the next chapter.
The impact continued to grow and Melburnians started to use terms like ‘he’s gone a bit Ken Bruce’.
“The ads were quite amazing — it sounds like I’m boasting, but it wasn’t me it was the ad,” he said.
“It was this character who became an icon, he became a real cult — all the kids would go around singing ‘Ken Bruce has gone mad, Ken Bruce has gone made and there were Ken Bruce parties I heard about later.
“One time (his wife) Rebecca and I were on a holiday and we went up the Eiffel Tower in the
lift and a fellow tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘Hey are you Ken Bruce’ and we couldn’t believe it.”
Today Rebecca cringes and says ‘enough’ when she watches her husband replay his many characters in his famous ads.
But she’s glad they aired.
“We started with nothing and when we advertised it just happened to be the right time,” she said.
“Those stupid ads blew him up into a legend in his own lunchtime.”
Bruce agreed it was a combination of good luck and good timing.
“I don’t know much about advertising, but I knew what worked and what worked for us was what we did. It was quite a huge success,” he said.
“We did it on the cheap and it worked. That was then. I don’t think you could do it today — it’s a different environment.”
HOW KEN BRUCE GOT HIS NAME
THE Ken part of Ken Bruce came from the name of the man who established the stores with.
After a short time Bruce bought out his partner, but he kept the Ken Bruce name.
In the early days Bruce would read the Trading Post in the morning, before driving a truck out to buy second hand appliances and then take them back to his Chapel St, Prahran shop and sell them.
But as the ads hit the air the Ken Bruce empire grew and grew.
People flooded into his Prahran store and soon more Ken Bruce stores sprung up across Melbourne.
But as retailer Harvey Norman started to take hold in Melbourne, Bruce began closing his stores.
He sold the business to his son-in-law in 2002.
These day Bruce spends his time with his grandchildren and volunteering.
WHEN BRUCE BECAME MADONNA
IT was Ken Bruce’s maddest moment of them all — the day he changed his name by deed poll and didn’t tell his wife.
His ad guy told him he was now so popular that it would be great publicity if he nominated for the local Port Phillip council, but there was a catch.
He couldn’t use his own name Bruce Krass, because no-one knew who that was.
And Ken Bruce wouldn’t do either.
It had to be Ken Bruce’s twin sister Madonna.
“So I went to the deed poll place and I changed my name legally to Ken Bruce’s Twin Sister Madonna,” he said.
But his wife didn’t see the funny side.
“We were going to go for elections and we were listening to the Rumour File (on 3AW) and (Ross Stevenson) said I’ve heard that Ken Bruce is going to go for council as Ken Bruce’s Twin Sister Madonna,” he said.
Bruce’s wife screamed.
“She said: ‘Don’t you dare’ and rightly so,” he recalls.
“I went back and changed it. The guy in the deed poll office said: ‘normally we don’t do this’ and he’s laughing like mad, but I’ll do it this time for you’.”
“So I managed to change my name back to Bruce Krass.”
But the change didn’t exactly work.
When Bruce went to vote his name wasn’t on the electoral role.
Bruce had to vote as Ken Bruce’s Twin Sister Madonna.
Bruce’s fame drew many admirers and people came into the stores just to see him.
One day he was serving when he noticed a man looking at fridges and he asked if he could help.
“The man said to me: ‘I’ve got to be honest with you I didn’t really come in to buy a fridge, I’d like to take you out for dinner,” Bruce said.
“I got so embarrassed I said look I know I’m portrayed as a female in the show, but I am not gay I’m sorry.
“I’m as red as a beetroot. The fellow says ‘oh look I’m sorry and walked out.’
‘Angels’: Hero Coles workers save mum’s life
A mother of three has opened up on how her life was saved after she suddenly collapsed while doing a routine supermarket shop.
Wildlife and traffic fears over music festival
Wildlife advocates fear a weekend music festival in central Victoria will endanger native animals including rescued joeys.