Tim's Favorite Blogs
Media Matters
Blog Directories
Sunday, April 17. 2011
Strictly Commercial
There’s a new, annoying, commercial on TV. Maybe you’ve seen it already: the guy starts screaming, “I have a winner!” It’s a new taco from Taco Bell. It’s a double taco. My bad; the Cheesy Double Decker Taco. No doubt it’s delicious, as much of Taco Bell’s menu, but the commercial! It’s got a couple of hot chicks, as all winning commercials do, but the screaming guy — yeesh!
Couldn’t help myself, had to go find it on YouTube. YouTube: it’s either the savior of the oppressed or a wasteland of mindless dribble and adolescent high jinxery. That’s a real word, isn’t it? “Jinxery”? No matter.
Remember when adolescent high jinxery consisted of making a dummy for Halloween and scaring the bejesus out of the neighborhood kids and then taking the dummy up to Kinnickinnic Parkway and throwing it in front of unsuspecting motorists? Well, some of us remember doing that.
One year a perpetrator of such crimes was gonna get his ears clipped and hung on deer hooks, or something like that. Ah, the good old days. Now, you make an ass of someone and post the video on YouTube. Or, we have these yahoos who beat, or even kill someone and record the event on video.
What’s wrong with just throwing dummies out on lightly used thoroughfares in the middle of the night? Well, actually there’s a lot wrong with that — I guess — but it doesn’t involve torturing and/or killing someone just for yucks.
Times have changed. Is it the technology? Is it the decline of religious influence? I doubt it. The United States is one of the more religious nations on Earth. If anything, religion drives people crazy. People in this country commit murder in the name of Christ everyday. In other parts of the world the deity goes by a different name. But I’m getting off on a tangent here.
Television advertising has been around since 1941 when the Bulova watch company ran a spot during a Brooklyn Dodgers-Philadelphia Phillies ball game in New York. “America runs on Bulova time.”
As a kid I remember the Bulova commercials. They were a part of the space program and presidents gave them to famous people and dignitaries as official state gifts! I’m thinking I might go out and buy a nice new Bulova watch! Don’t need a new watch, but just writing about Bulova …
The most popular commercials have an unforgettable catch phrase, like “Where’s the beef!”
Who can forget that commercial? If you were cognizant in the early 80’s you remember the commercial. The old woman, taking the top off the hamburger bun, looking at the peanut-sized piece of meat and hollering that catch phrase: “WHERE’S THE BEEF!”
Then it started getting used for just about everything, including politics!
Just an aside: Did you know political advertising on television is banned in Norway?
Speaking of political commercials, there have been some very memorable, like “It’s Morning Again in America,” Ronald Reagan’s 1984 campaign slogan, or maybe it was his “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Most people weren’t, but heck, Reagan just made you feel so good, it had to be better than 1980!
One of the most memorable political commercials for TV was used by the Johnson campaign in 1964 against his Republican opponent, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater: “The Daisy.” It showed a little girl picking petals off a daisy. As the screen fades to black, zooming in on her eye, a white flash replaces the black and a mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion appears. “The stakes are too high,” the commercial intones and Johnson wins in a landslide.
That is without a doubt the most memorable and controversial political TV commercial of all time, with maybe George H.W. Bush’s 1988 “Willie Horton” commercial in a close second place. In that one the Bush campaign reached out and touched the racial fears and bigotry of the White community by showing the mug shot of an African-American man (Willie Horton) in prison for murder who had been released from prison on a furlough program. While on this furlough he committed burglary, assault and rape.
Horton had been in a Massachusetts prison on a life without parole term after murdering a gas station attendant when he was released on that furlough. Michael Dukakis was governor at the time of his furlough and in 1988 was the Democratic opponent of Republican George H.W. Bush.
Like Johnson’s “Daisy” commercial, Bush’s “Willie Horton” ad was controversial and roundly criticized — and successful. By implication, Dukakis wasn’t just a party to rape, the Black Man had raped a White Woman.
Bush’s political point man Lee Atwater received the scorn and credit for the ad and for many years after he bragged about its success. Although he didn’t create the ad (the official campaign didn’t use it, an independent group, Americans for Bush produced the ad) Atwater vowed to make Horton Dukakis’s running mate.
“Reach out and touch someone.” That was the tag line for AT&T and the Baby Bells starting in 1984. We got so much sexual mileage out of that one! Reminding me of a man “getting in touch with his feminine side.” I won’t even go there … err … very much.
I have no idea how or where that phrase came about, but it’s rich with comedic possibilities!
Commercials … sex sells of course. Back in the previous decade Playboy had an online feature called “Sex Cells” in which two Playboy models would be given cell phones with cameras and then given a few days to take photos of each other. Some of the results were wonderfully picturesque!
Getting back to commercials, the most overtly sexual ones come from GoDaddy.com, the web domain giant. Their top spokesperson is Indy Car racing’s Danica Patrick. They save their best and most sexual commercials for the Super Bowl.
Then of course there are beer commercials. Drink Miller Lite and every hot chick in the bar will be looking for you … to fetch her another round. Or, it could be Heineken, Bud Lite or Michelob Lite. Or any beer for that matter, even Guinness.
My favorite beer commercials were those Miller Lite ads that featured the “Miller Lite All Stars” arguing, “Tastes great!” “Less filling!” Or, the two I remember most vividly featured Mickey Spillane (“Ohh! Mickey!”) and Bob Ueker (“Must be in the front row!”).
Now, when you go to a Milwaukee Brewers game in Milwaukee’s Miller Park, you can buy one-dollar tickets for the “Ueker Seats,” located in the highest, farthest reaches of the grandstands, right behind Home Plate.
Just viewed a few on YouTube! I still crack up watching them!
The men in the popular commercials lately are all the new version of “Metrosexual.” You know the type: a couple days worth of stubble, or maybe a sparse beard; an ill-kept — but clean — look to his apparel; wears a sport coat over a t-shirt or maybe a button down shirt that isn’t tucked in. Michael Sorrentino isn’t a “good” example of the new Metrosexual. “Who,” you ask? The Situation from the MTV show Jersey Shore.
Men, is this what we’ve come to? We’re represented by Metrosexuals or The Situation? Say it ain’t so!
Anyway, getting back to Taco Bell’s newest commercial: PepsiCo, the parent company of Taco Bell, probably has a winner, pardon the pun. The two women talking about the idiot shouting about his double decker taco. I don’t see it having the same staying power as “Where’s the beef!” But it will get replicated in any number of unrelated situations.
All right, this is getting mightily verbose and categorically without socially redeeming value so it’s got to come to an end, but I just saw Macy’s new commercial. Making a cameo is the newest big name in the birther movement, Donald Trump. O Dear …
Wonder if I can get a job acting in commercials?
•••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• ••••
My thanks to Frank Zappa for the title. Comes from his song “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow.” As you may recall, the fur trapper was strictly from commercial (“strictly commercial”).
Couldn’t help myself, had to go find it on YouTube. YouTube: it’s either the savior of the oppressed or a wasteland of mindless dribble and adolescent high jinxery. That’s a real word, isn’t it? “Jinxery”? No matter.
Remember when adolescent high jinxery consisted of making a dummy for Halloween and scaring the bejesus out of the neighborhood kids and then taking the dummy up to Kinnickinnic Parkway and throwing it in front of unsuspecting motorists? Well, some of us remember doing that.
One year a perpetrator of such crimes was gonna get his ears clipped and hung on deer hooks, or something like that. Ah, the good old days. Now, you make an ass of someone and post the video on YouTube. Or, we have these yahoos who beat, or even kill someone and record the event on video.What’s wrong with just throwing dummies out on lightly used thoroughfares in the middle of the night? Well, actually there’s a lot wrong with that — I guess — but it doesn’t involve torturing and/or killing someone just for yucks.
Times have changed. Is it the technology? Is it the decline of religious influence? I doubt it. The United States is one of the more religious nations on Earth. If anything, religion drives people crazy. People in this country commit murder in the name of Christ everyday. In other parts of the world the deity goes by a different name. But I’m getting off on a tangent here.
Television advertising has been around since 1941 when the Bulova watch company ran a spot during a Brooklyn Dodgers-Philadelphia Phillies ball game in New York. “America runs on Bulova time.”
As a kid I remember the Bulova commercials. They were a part of the space program and presidents gave them to famous people and dignitaries as official state gifts! I’m thinking I might go out and buy a nice new Bulova watch! Don’t need a new watch, but just writing about Bulova …
The most popular commercials have an unforgettable catch phrase, like “Where’s the beef!”
Who can forget that commercial? If you were cognizant in the early 80’s you remember the commercial. The old woman, taking the top off the hamburger bun, looking at the peanut-sized piece of meat and hollering that catch phrase: “WHERE’S THE BEEF!”
Then it started getting used for just about everything, including politics!
Just an aside: Did you know political advertising on television is banned in Norway?
Speaking of political commercials, there have been some very memorable, like “It’s Morning Again in America,” Ronald Reagan’s 1984 campaign slogan, or maybe it was his “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Most people weren’t, but heck, Reagan just made you feel so good, it had to be better than 1980!
One of the most memorable political commercials for TV was used by the Johnson campaign in 1964 against his Republican opponent, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater: “The Daisy.” It showed a little girl picking petals off a daisy. As the screen fades to black, zooming in on her eye, a white flash replaces the black and a mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion appears. “The stakes are too high,” the commercial intones and Johnson wins in a landslide.
That is without a doubt the most memorable and controversial political TV commercial of all time, with maybe George H.W. Bush’s 1988 “Willie Horton” commercial in a close second place. In that one the Bush campaign reached out and touched the racial fears and bigotry of the White community by showing the mug shot of an African-American man (Willie Horton) in prison for murder who had been released from prison on a furlough program. While on this furlough he committed burglary, assault and rape.
Horton had been in a Massachusetts prison on a life without parole term after murdering a gas station attendant when he was released on that furlough. Michael Dukakis was governor at the time of his furlough and in 1988 was the Democratic opponent of Republican George H.W. Bush.
Like Johnson’s “Daisy” commercial, Bush’s “Willie Horton” ad was controversial and roundly criticized — and successful. By implication, Dukakis wasn’t just a party to rape, the Black Man had raped a White Woman.
Bush’s political point man Lee Atwater received the scorn and credit for the ad and for many years after he bragged about its success. Although he didn’t create the ad (the official campaign didn’t use it, an independent group, Americans for Bush produced the ad) Atwater vowed to make Horton Dukakis’s running mate.
“Reach out and touch someone.” That was the tag line for AT&T and the Baby Bells starting in 1984. We got so much sexual mileage out of that one! Reminding me of a man “getting in touch with his feminine side.” I won’t even go there … err … very much.
I have no idea how or where that phrase came about, but it’s rich with comedic possibilities!
Commercials … sex sells of course. Back in the previous decade Playboy had an online feature called “Sex Cells” in which two Playboy models would be given cell phones with cameras and then given a few days to take photos of each other. Some of the results were wonderfully picturesque!Getting back to commercials, the most overtly sexual ones come from GoDaddy.com, the web domain giant. Their top spokesperson is Indy Car racing’s Danica Patrick. They save their best and most sexual commercials for the Super Bowl.
Then of course there are beer commercials. Drink Miller Lite and every hot chick in the bar will be looking for you … to fetch her another round. Or, it could be Heineken, Bud Lite or Michelob Lite. Or any beer for that matter, even Guinness.
My favorite beer commercials were those Miller Lite ads that featured the “Miller Lite All Stars” arguing, “Tastes great!” “Less filling!” Or, the two I remember most vividly featured Mickey Spillane (“Ohh! Mickey!”) and Bob Ueker (“Must be in the front row!”).
Now, when you go to a Milwaukee Brewers game in Milwaukee’s Miller Park, you can buy one-dollar tickets for the “Ueker Seats,” located in the highest, farthest reaches of the grandstands, right behind Home Plate.
Just viewed a few on YouTube! I still crack up watching them!
The men in the popular commercials lately are all the new version of “Metrosexual.” You know the type: a couple days worth of stubble, or maybe a sparse beard; an ill-kept — but clean — look to his apparel; wears a sport coat over a t-shirt or maybe a button down shirt that isn’t tucked in. Michael Sorrentino isn’t a “good” example of the new Metrosexual. “Who,” you ask? The Situation from the MTV show Jersey Shore.
Men, is this what we’ve come to? We’re represented by Metrosexuals or The Situation? Say it ain’t so!
Anyway, getting back to Taco Bell’s newest commercial: PepsiCo, the parent company of Taco Bell, probably has a winner, pardon the pun. The two women talking about the idiot shouting about his double decker taco. I don’t see it having the same staying power as “Where’s the beef!” But it will get replicated in any number of unrelated situations. All right, this is getting mightily verbose and categorically without socially redeeming value so it’s got to come to an end, but I just saw Macy’s new commercial. Making a cameo is the newest big name in the birther movement, Donald Trump. O Dear …
Wonder if I can get a job acting in commercials?
My thanks to Frank Zappa for the title. Comes from his song “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow.” As you may recall, the fur trapper was strictly from commercial (“strictly commercial”).
Calendar
Quicksearch
Archives
Categories
AD Links
Referrals
Syndicate This Blog
Blog Administration
Powered by
TheForkesReport