commercials


23
Feb 10

What if it were you hanging up on this wall?

So I kind of live in a pop-cultural vacuum, and often rely on the kindness of my friends to fill me in. Example: the following exchange, which happened in January.

Me: Hey guys, what’s this song?
Exasperated friends: Uh, this is “Empire State of Mind.” By Jay Z. Featuring Alicia Keys.
Me: Really? It’s pretty good.
Exasperated Friends: No shit. It was the number one single on three different Billboard charts in November.

So this weekend, when I saw this commercial for the first time, I was totally amazed:

Evidently it’s a revisitation of this commercial, which came out this time last year (in other words, just in time for Lent. Don’t think we don’t know you’re catering to lazy Catholics, McDonalds):

This means I’m only about a YEAR out of the loop. Not too bad, right? I love this for so many reasons. One, the singing animatronic fish is protesting the guy eating him. I wish there was a specific word for when animals are anthropomorphized to discuss/protest our consumption of them. It happens more often than you would think, for it being such uncomfortable trope.

Second, I love how idiotically catchy the song is. The slurred vocals, the crappy synth accompaniment. It’s more or less perfect. Which probably explains this:

And why this is somehow less funny:


15
Jul 09

My Mother’s Red Hat

I know this is a parody, but I would actually pay money to see this movie:


Alicia Silverstone + Alanis Morissette + Soundtrack Movie cannot equal anything other than an epic fucknut insane piece of cinema. Thanks for the heads-up, Liz!


6
Apr 09

Shelter your livestock, then, take shelter yourself

From the marvelous Internet Archive, we have these vintage PSAs from 1965:

“Get your free copy of Your Livestock Can Survive Fallout From Nuclear Attack.” I would love a copy of that government pamphlet. Almost as much as I love that they did these PSAs with puppets.


26
Feb 09

Oh my! Oh me! That lunchmeat’s bourgeoisie!

While I may watch a lot of movies, especially during these wretched winter months, I don’t watch a lot of TV. A constant struggle of mine is wanting/trying to participate in popular culture while being horrified by a lot of it. Once in a while, though, I’ll find something that’s just off-kilter enough that it’s a complete delight. Such as this Hillshire Farm commercial for, uh, lunch meat:

I could go into an analysis of how this is fanfuckingtastic for some of the same reasons as musicals, but really, I just want to say, “Bang bang choo choo train! Eat lunch meat on the aeroplane!”