Monday, December 10, 2007

Some Advice on Commercials-

Have you ever encountered that ONE commercial that really pisses you off? Maybe it's the whole feather/camel scenario where it's just one more fake celebrity endorsement/stategic product placement than is alotted in Sanity Slots(tm) in your brain.

WEll, I think I may be able to help. The solution is surprisingly simple. Here, I'll give you an example that I've encountered recently, and that has been driving me crazy. It's a dunkin donuts commercial where the plucky celibrity actor fires off some fake crap about the holidays and christmas shopping, and how the only solution is a coolata enema. She inserts a whole lot of winking and what I can only imagine is supposed to be a winning giggle. It's so fake and 'holiday fever' common denominator that I imagine cutting her in half with one of those giant scottish claymroe swords every single time.

But I tell you, there is a better way. The next time you encounter your commercial weak spot, do this:

While the actor is talking, replace the name of whatever product their pushing with HUMAN BABY.

Let's try a paraphrased version of my commercial with this new technique, shall we?

Fade-in. Celebrity walks through a fake space filled with christmas junk. She turns non-chalantly towards the camera.

FAKE CELEBRITY: (stamped fresh with appropriate sympathetic attitude) You know, the holidays can be real tough sometimes. But you know what I do when I feel the Holiday Blahs? (appropriate dramatic pause, followed by a smile brigher than a thousand abombs) I go down to Dunkins and get myself a HUMAN BABY. It really helps pick me up so I can go shopping. I also love to share a HUMAN BABY with my mother, just for the holidays. Delish! (cue winking and winning giggle)

Suddenly the entire commercial is turned around. Even the incredibly annoying wink and giggle are now far more hilarious than they were last time I saw the commercial.It's all about the secret hidden context.

Go ahead, try it out yourself. You can ride Human babies through rugged terrain, use human babies to insure your car, sing along with the amazing HUMAN BABY Christmas special.

This message brought to you by: Super Non-PC-o-vision.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hahahaha! That was great - I too despise that specific commercial you're talking about. Normally I mute commercials, but sometimes I space out and find myself in that terrible trance of actually watching them. I'll be sure to try out the HUMAN BABY maneuver next time.

Mental tricks work well for a lot of things: I remember one entire boring day at work when I decided to hold my internal monologue all in an Arnold Scharzenegger accent. It made my day a lot more exciting.

Mitch - keep writing the Funny! I doubt I'm your only reader, you probably have a bunch of lurkers who don't comment. And in any case, it's good practice, both for writing and for being funny, and for doing both at the same time.

~ Nick

10:12 AM  

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