I’ll admit it. I watch Cartoon Network. That’s where I catch all the latest Clone Wars episodes (not for much longer, though).
It’s also where I catch-up on the latest and greatest toy offerings. Of all the dumb things I’ve seen, I couldn’t believe that this (post from two years ago) has officially made its way here:
What’s next?
This toy from Britain?
Or this one from 1991?
(SIDENOTE: Wow. That song is not catchy at all.)
Who am I kidding? These are both great. So it’s an Awesome Battle that ends in total win!
(SIDENOTE: I miss you, Everything is Terrible… I promise not stay away so long ever again!)
THINGS TO WATCH FOR:
This is really one of the weirdest groupings of commercials I’ve ever seen.
This first one doesn’t seem like a real ad on TV, but oh yes – it is:
Does this one feature Legos? Legos?! Who’s watching this?!
This one might (?) be (?) racist (?), but the scariest thing is the concept of a communal chocolate fondue…
I didn’t have a blog back in 2005, and YouTube was just getting started, so pretend this post took place in that very same year, about a very special brand of hero…
I’m beginning to have my faith restored in humanity, and there’s a very simple reason why:
Buddy Lee will be a write-in for U.S. President in 2008!
In case you’re unaware of his credentials, I found a new website called Yourtoob that shows videos with plenty of proof why he would make a good president. I’m sure that he could beat Dick Cheney or Hillary Clinton any day!
He stops at nothing to save the day, even if it’s just a cat:
He was a volunteer firefighter:
He was a valued police officer:
He inspired a haircut craze that was bigger than Jennifer Aniston’s The Rachel:
He even knows how to have a good time:
This series of posts imagine “what if I had a blog back then?” I originally was not ever going to use YouTube videos if the post took place before the site’s inception, but– it’s my blog, so I can change my own rules. You could presuppose that if there was a forum to blog within back in 1981, there would have been a version of YouTube… and I would have been six years old…
It reminds me of CBS' Special Presentation logo.
According to the dictionary, Magnavox translates to “great voice” in Latin. I think it should translate into “great products.” First, they invented home video game machines, with the Odyssey. Then they came out with neato-peato 19-inch color TV’s. Then they made the Odyssey 2!
I can’t wait for their newest product… the Laser Disc. They look like shiny records, or something that Spock would have played Frisbee with on Star Trek. That’s probably why they use Actor! Leonard Nimoy in the commercials. Since he went off In Search Of new technologies, he probably never thought he’d be stopping at one place. And that one place is MAGNAVOX!
If this is just a small sign of the wonders they can accomplish, they will be industry leaders for years – and decades – to come!
REFERENCES:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SCeTpWzpys&h=300&w=400]
This kind of reminds me of Magnavox's logo.
…and that’s probably because it wasn’t a drunken treat.
But I was told this while I was drunk, and I believed my friend. Moooostly because of the aforementioned boozing and unfamiliarity with the product.
Still, who thought marketing juice boxes to adults was a great idea?
Probably the same people who thought using Richard Lewis in the commercials was the bee’s knees.
(Or Richard Lewis’ hair stylist, amiright?)
Sexism in beer advertising just ain’t what it used to be.
Remember when beer ads had scantily clad women in barely there bikinis, rubbing icy cold bottles of the devil’s brew up and down their glistening– wait, there never were commercials like this?!
Take a look at the latest offering from Miller Lite and tell me if it’s sexy or not:
Well okay sure, the ladies are hot. And there’s nothing wrong with beautiful girls in full-body blue bathing suits tackling a man in a convenience shop. But I can’t help but wonder what these kind of commercials would be like if the censors weren’t watching. I’m not talking XXX territory either, just a racier ad.
After all, isn’t this an ad campaign aimed at guys? Guys that the MillerCoors Brewing Company want to drink their light beer? Or is that what this boils down to. Perhaps a manlier beer deserves a manlier campaign:
I’d rather stay thirsty my friends, than gather Taste Points…
…even though I prefer to drink Miller Lite over Dos Equis.
But that’s mostly because I’m cheap frugal!
Most of you may not know who The Victorious Secrets are by name, but last year, they won FSN Detroit’s annoying April in the D contest.
To those of you not from “The D,” April is that time of year when three of our Detroit sports teams – Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons – are supposed to be playing simultaneously… I say that begrudgingly because it requires two of the teams to make it to the playoffs, and only one has… for twenty years! (The Pistons might pull out of their slump next year with the new owner…)
Anyhoopdreams, back to the contest. Last year, The Victorious Secret won with this song:
Then they went on to win FreeCreditScore.com’s similar contest with this ditty:
And now you see them in these national commercials:
I WANT THEM TO COME BACK AND MAKE ANOTHER APRIL IN THE D SONG!
This is the crap that won this year:
They actually use the phrase raise the roof non-ironically…
It’s a sort of situation when you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. And yes, I’m saying that non-ironically…
It’s final season is days away, and the anticipation of it is killing me. Not literally. It’s killing me kind of like how people get killed on LOST. That is, what the fuck is going on in that show?
Anywidmore, when the show began airing in 2004, only a couple of the cast members were familiar faces. If you happen to have a photographic memory, these Actors! would have been familiar as well.
This first clip is an old Old Navy ad. Keep an eye out for Fran Drescher, Oprah’s Stedman, and… Josh Holloway (Sawyer).
This second video is a commercial for the phone sex live chat line, LiveLinks. If I knew I could talk to Evangeline Lilly (Kate), I might have called. What do you mean you don’t get to talk to the girls on TV? What kind of operation based on lies are they running?
Remember the old game show, Russian Roulette? Well, Jorge Garcia (Hurley) has been trying to forget about it. (Purely my speculation based on unfounded made-up facts.)
BONUS: Besides Matthew Fox (Jack) and Dominic Monaghan (Charlie), and maybe Harold Perrineau (Michael) and Emilie de Ravin (Claire), Terry O’Quinn (Locke) should have been a familiar face, courtesy of his creepy performance in The Stepfather.
From shitty to shittier indeed...
Let’s face facts… kids are dumb. I don’t mean the concept of them (entirely), but they’re suckers. Hell, we were just as gullible in our youth.
But back in the day, marketing firms fostered (word choice!) our imagination when they sold to us, and look at the consumers we’ve become today.
Here’s a commercial for an 80’s toy probably no one remembers called Army Ants. The promo was eventually pulled from the airwaves due to the fact the toys moved by themselves (and since kids are dumb they might think they’re alive… oh no!) Remember, this took place before warnings were placed on coffee to remind people that coffee is fucking hot, so the idea of putting a notice on the bottom of the screen never crossed anyone’s mind.
Now here’s a commercial for the toyline based on the new G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra movie:
Where’s the fun in that commercial? I smell no sense of adventure. I envision no afternoon of making those vehicle crash into each other. It’s all tell, and no show! Sure, there’s hints of scenes from the movie, but where’s the poking other bugs in the squishy and squashy guts, whether I have to make them do it or they do it to themselves (since they’re alive, you see).
To be fair, they are completelysort of different toylines, so I’ll draw upon an old G.I. Joe toy commercial for apples to Apple Paltrow Martin‘s sake:
Fucking Refrigerator Perry?! Seriously, a Chicago Bear is on G.I. Joe, and he kicks major Cobra ass?! And I can call him and get in on the action with only four certificates (and a 50 cent phone call plus $1 handling charge)?!
See the difference?
SIDENOTE: I recently won a chance for a free haircut at a salon that panders to men and, to be honest, that I don’t quite frankly trust, but I went anyway. (It was free…) Upon leaving and realizing it wasn’t a complete hack job, I tipped the stylist $2 and $1 in quarters. It was all I had. She made a face, and I left. Haircuts are normally $16, so I don’t know if she expected $5 or more on a FREE haircut, but it did make me wonder… what can you buy for $3 nowadays? Cigarettes? No. A beer at the bar? No. Two 20 oz. bottle of Mtn. Dew? Sometimes. Seeing that I could have got Refrigerator Perry for $1.50 really got me thinking…
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