I thought the old lamp pretty clearly played off the Brave Little Toaster and Pixar models.
I think the creamer one aired in Chi during Sat aft rerun of BTVS. Ms D thought it was inappropriate (as we were watching it with our young’uns - on tape, and muted, tho, so I couldn’t hear what the voyeur said.)
I’ve never set foot in Ikea, and would be glad to keep it that way.
I have PMS and I almost cried with the lamp and the creamer commercial.
Awww, don’t feel bad, there’s something compelling about lamps. I’ve never seen the commercials, because we don’t have IKEA in this part of the country (at first I thought it was a gas station to tell the truth) but the little shorts before **The Toy Story **movies? Those get to me every time- especially the one before the second movie when the baby lamp has trouble with his ball.
I didn’t go for the creamer one that much, but the lamp one made me laugh my ass off. Yes, that guy IS creepy (but I don’t think he’s German—I assumed Swedish since Ikea is Swedish).
Ah, yes, 1986’s Luxo, Jr. One of Pixar’s earliest shorts, and two of the finest performances ever by lamps in motion picture history. Pixar seemed to personify objects in those old days. The next three years, they did Red’s Dream, about a unicycle reminicing about the good old days of its life. Then came Tin Toy, and the hilarious Knickknack, about a snowman attempting to leave a snowglobe. Pixar didn’t do anything after that until Toy Story six years later.
Personification of inanimate objects is an old theme, and Spike Jonze does it as well for Ikea as John Lasseter did for Pixar-and adds a hilarious twist.
Best lamp cartoon I ever saw was at a film fest for cartoon shorts. It was in sketchy line art.
A little, old, man with a friendly European accent opens his lamp shop one marning and he tells all the lamps to get ready because he has a “very important customer” coming that day. All the lamps wake up and snap to attention, pull their chains so they are all lit proudly. Except a little one that’s still sound asleep. Another lamp gives him a jab in the “ribs” and he startles awake, accidentally smashing his light bulb.
Mortified, the Little Lamp hops down from the shelf in blind search for a new bulb. He feels around inside a cabinet (since his bulb was smashed, he is sort of headless and therefore blind). The little old man is coming back, so the Little Lamp, in a rush, grabs the first “bulb” he gets his hands on – which isn’t a bulb, it’s a mickey of voldka – and quickly screws it in place. He yanks his chain to turn on the light. The entire contents of the liquor bottle drains into his Little Lamp “body” – little drunken lamp on the loose! Bedlam ensues.
It was probably only a three minute flick, but man-oh-man it was funny.
I feel so bad for the little guy, I want to go out and buy a lamp just like him now. sniff
I’m such a sap. 