Great Commercials

Cafe Society
41

A couple of months ago there was a commercial by Rogers Wireless (Rogers is a Canadian cable/wireless/internet provider). The opening shot was of a guy in the lobby of a ski lodge, all decked out for skiiing. He’s talking on a cell phone saying “I made it safely, sorry I couldn’t bring you…”

The shot cuts to a close up of an answering machine, taking his message, then back to the ski lodge “…I hope your still not mad at me…” back to the answering machine, pan out to a bunch of photos of the guy and his cat. The answering machine continues “…anyway, I’ll see you when I get back…<beep>”. Switch to a shot of the cat sitting on a sofa that’s been completely shredded.

The expression on the cats face it what makes the commercial. It seems to say “you will pay for this for the rest of your life”. I laughed every time I saw it.

42

I can’t believe no-one’s mentioned the Honda adverts yet!

They’re hard to explain, as I can never remember the exact details. What happens is they start with… something, let’s a screw rolling across the floor, and it hits a lever, that triggers something else to happen - water to spray across the room? And the water will hit a windcreen, which prompts the wipers to start, which knocks something else into happening, etc, etc…

It’s like a cartoon, or like the board game Mouse Trap, because it all goes perfectly, until the end, when something triggers a ramp into moving down so a Honda car comes rolling serenely off it, and a little banner descends behind it.

The caption is: “Don’t you love it when things just… work?”

If anyone can explain this better, please do.

There’s another advert I like, that I saw once ages ago and haven’t seen since. It was for Hewlett Packard printers, and it begins by showing us some of the guys responsible for the design of the printer and some other guy, who’s writing a review of said printer. He looks at it and says, “This printer will do everything except mow the lawn!”

Cut to the designer of the printer, who has a thoughtful look on his face, and the words, “…except mow the lawn…” echoing through his head. The screen goes fuzzy to indicate time passing, then we see the designer sitting at an ordinary PC, clicking on File, and then we see the mouse arrow move down past New, Open, Edit, etc, until he reaches, “Mow.”

I cracked up as we pan to see the printer out in the garden, moving up and down by itself and mowing the lawn into neat stripes.

43

First, the Dr. Pepper commercial featuring the Retirement Village People (old coots dressed in Village People costumes) performing in a mall singing “It’s fun to eat at 4:30 P M.” to the tune of YMCA

Second: the G.E. commercial with the burly Viking-types using all their muscle rowing the ship when along comes a similar ship moving easily under sail, burly Viking types relaxing and ogling shapley blondes, a BBQ, a steel drum playing, and a guy on water skis behind the ship.

If you haven’t seen these, my description doesn’t begin to do justice to either one. Crack me up every time.

44

Anyone seen the one for the joint pain releiver with Frankenstein? It shows a clip of a really old Frankenstein movie with him talking: “That used to be me. I was a real stiff.” Then it shows him gardening, doing thai-chi…etc. Love that one :D.

45

One of the most effective ads I’ve seen had no dialogue; it was just four young people driving at night in, if I recall, a VW Passat convertible with the top down, on their way to a party. The Nick Drake song “Pink Moon” is playing. When they arrive at the house party, they look at the drunken, noisy frat types going in and out, look at each other, and drive off again, having decided they’d rather just feel the cool night wind in their faces as they drive under the stars. Very understated, and the music really made it for me.

46

I meant “unnecessary” of course.

47

It is for a cruise line. And acutally, they’re on a glacier tour in Alaska. Cracks me up, too!

48

In which case, it was probably a Visa ad. Visa’s been doing “combination” ads where they extoll the virtues of some other real-life company, but then warn you at the end that “they don’t take American Express.”

49

There was a Japanese commercial from maybe about 5 or 6 years ago that cracked me up.

Two guys, a young Japanese salaryman and an elderly Caucasian businessman, are standing in an elevator and doing the awkward no eye contact thingy. The old guy, who looks very dignified and is dressed very well, has two HUGE, bright yellow bananas jammed in his ears. The blurb “Yes, we are this good” is superimposed on the screen.

After a few seconds, the Japanese man (still staring up at the floor indicator) says very quietly, in English with Japanese subtitles, “Mr. Smith? Bananas are sticking out of your ears.”

Naturally, Mr. Smith cannot hear him.

Eventually this dawns on the Japanese guy, who peeps cautiously to the side to again ask, “Uh, Mr. Smith…?”

The company:

An English-language instruction school supposedly so thorough that students come out knowing what to say even in absurd situations like this.

50

I only saw this once - about ten years ago.

It was for a Honda scooter. It was a street scene, and began with the bass run from “Walk on the Wild Side,” then segued into the “and the colored girls go” “doo doo doo doo” part , then cut to a guy leaning up against a lamp post playing sax, then finally cut to Lou Reed in leather and shades, who says, “Hey - why settle for walkin’?” Then showed a picture of the Honda scooter.

Made ME want to run out and buy one, but I guess it was too subtle, because I never saw it again.

51

Or at least, on TV in North America. It was for a car company, though the name escapes me at the moment. My friend had it on his computer for a presentation that he was going to do on advertising.

Anyway, it went as follows. I will try to do it justice.

It opens with a wealthy older lady driving down the road in her brand new car. Sitting beside her is a young handsome stud, of the boy-toy variety. As she approaches a stop light, she happens to see her husbands car just ahead, at the stop line. She reaches down beside her door, and flips a switch to lower the passenger seat, so that her husband is none the wiser to the occupancy of her car.

She pulls along side at the light. They notice each other, exchange waves and blown kisses, and then the light changes, and she is off on her merry way again.

Just before the husband drives away, we see him reach down beside his door, raising his passenger seat, to reveal…

Another handsome lad, wear next to nothing.
When i saw that I just about dies laughing. It was just too perfect, and completely unexpected. Now, if I could only remember who it was for, it would be a perfect commercial.

52

It was a French car commercial, I can tell you that much. Oh, and it was hilarious. I especially like how vacant and complacent the boy toys looked, chewing their bubble gum. One was wearing a pink (?) cowboy hat.

53

Some commercial on the superbowl about 4 years ago , with cowboys herding cats.

Ten years ago i believe , commercial from Dodge about the then new automobile , the stealth. Set in the background was what turned out to be a 1/5 scale B-2 stealth bomber , for the record , we released ours before they released theirs.

Bud light commercials, best one was a russian that stole a lazer from the states , gets sent to siberia because the party wanted bud lite .

Declan

54

Ah good, someone other than me has seen it! French you say? I’ll have to see if I can find it somewhere.

Oh, and as I re-read my post from yesterday, I realized something. I really have to proof read better. I mean, that was just embarrassing.

“I just about dies laughing”. Seesh.

“Me fail english? That’s unpossible!”

55

Easier to show people.

56

The car ad in which both husband and wife are hiding their male lovers is for Hyundai, btw.

57

Oh cool, thank you!

58

My current fav commercials of all time are:

  1. Herding cats

  2. Aaron Burr “Got Milk?” ad

  3. First Blockbuster Guinea pig ad

59

The Hyundai ad.

My favorite commercial is for Snickesrs. There’s two versions of it but they’re like two halves of the same ad. Some guy is standing outside an office looking for people to go to lunch with him, so he can talk about his new issue of “Panda Fancier” magazine. “You know what pandas eat for lunch? Bamboo!” <holds up panda centerfold and in “panda voice” continues> “Coooome to luuuunch! Haaave some bamboooo with meeeee!” Cut to his co-workers huddled together insdide the office. Voiceover: “Not going anywhere for a while?” The other version includes panda guy making the panda in the magazine do a little dance. Cracked me up every time.

Now panda man is gone, replaced by those dumb “side effects of hunger” spots. Although I do like the one with Barky the sarcastic theme park dog. “I’m not Barky. I’m a 34 year-old man who’s made a lot of mistakes.”

60

Here’s the audio for the panda commercials Couldn’t find the video.