Last weekend’s “SNL” featured the above skit, a spoof home security commercials. I didn’t find it particularly funny or 
memorable, but it merits another watch because it will ready your palate for the video below (from Best Week Ever), a compilation of Brinks Home Security ads that ALL have white women in big houses getting attacked by home invaders until the phone call from a Brinks representative in a button-down shirt. It’s amazing the way Brinks taps the same plot in every commercial. It’s also amazing that none of the criminals are minorities. What? C’mon, I can’t be the only thinking that. Oh, I’m racist? Take a look at our prison system; it’s the institution that’s racist, man.
Anyway, one thing at a time. Watch the video first. We can overhaul the prison system some other time. It’s not like those guys are going anywhere.
This commercial has made the Internet rounds before, but it’s new to me and it rocked my world, so I’m sharing it with you. Believe me, this is a tremendous way to start your Friday.
Anyway, Gary’s Mattress has opened up new locations, and to advertise that he does horribly racist impressions of Asians (excuse me: “Orientals”), Jews, Arabs, Native Americans, and Italian-Americans — then for good measure, he offers to kick a puppy and punch a kitten if you can find a mattress for a lower price. He really hits all the wickets.
Sadly, from what I can tell, this was never a real commercial, and Gary’s Mattress does not actually exist — regardless of how badly I want it to. Hell, I’d buy a mattress from this guy. But only if he put on a kimono and a flapping dickey.
This is an IHOP commercial from 1969, and it absolutely gives me the creeps. There are children with balloons running in slow-motion, and some kind of goblin-chipmunk song, and… well, you just have to kind of watch it for yourself.
This is what happens when people with jobs do drugs. Do you think Don Draper and the “Mad Men” crew would come up with something like this in the show’s era of the early ’60s? Hell no, because those people are under the steadying influence of alcohol and nicotine. This is what happens when you let a couple of creatives slip away to Woodstock for the weekend. Stay away from hallucinogenics, kids. Tripping balls is no way to make commercials.
[via BuzzFeed]
That’s not a Mercedes! Don Draper even cheats on his car companies!
There are plenty of interesting videos and story out there today, but all that stuff’s gonna have to wait until tomorrow, because Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” is the new voice of Mercedes commercials.
Beginning on Sunday, [Hamm] gets to do some advertising work in the real world as the new commercial voice of Mercedes-Benz USA. Mr. Hamm’s voice will be heard in a commercial that Mercedes-Benz USA will run on local ABC stations in the carmaker’s 16 largest markets during the ABC network’s broadcast of the Academy Awards. [NYT]
I know this seems like kind of an inconsequential story, but I’ve always hated my voice, so I’m fascinated by famous actors who do uncredited voice work for ads, like Will Arnett for GMC and Jeff Bridges for Hyundai. And I’m excited by this because Jon Hamm’s got one of the most badass voices around. The only dude whose voice I’d rather have more than Hamm’s is Liev Schreiber. That guy’s voice is like chocolate-covered gravel. Go ahead, call me gay. It can’t hurt me unless you sound like Don Draper.
There’s a new Priceline “Negotiator” commercial starring William Shatner, and in this one King Shat also plays his own evil twin (you can tell he’s evil because he has a goatee and a skull ring on his pinkie — video below). In it, the Rip Torn-lookin’ Evil Shatner is giving bad advice to a man booking online travel plans when Good Shatner busts through the wall and saves the day. As AdFreak noted, the first YouTube commenter scored a win with this bon mot:
Is he really the “good” twin? After all, he did just cut a hole in the side of that guy’s house to tell him that he could save $80.
This is kind of getting away from the point, but Shatner and Rip Torn were born six weeks apart in 1931. Not only do I want them to play evil goateed brothers in a movie, I want that movie to be The Evil Bucket List. It’d just be two hours of them getting drunk and high and pistol-whipping smart-mouthed teens and stranding hookers in the desert.
Here you go, here’s my $12, I’m watching that on opening night.
Hey, remember Paris Hilton? Well, she apparently still exists, and she stars in this Brazilian commercial for Devassa Bem Loura beer. It’s typical “pretend this fake-looking blonde is sexy” stuff, but it doesn’t seem likely to air in Brazil. Ad Gabber says:
No less that three investigations into the ad have been launched. It’s too “sensual.” It encourages excessive consumption. It’s sexist and disrespectful to women.
Um, this is the Brazil on planet Earth we’re talking about, right? The Brazil where it’s okay for JOURNALISTS to pose for pictures like this (NSFW)? Sorry, I hate to point out the obvious here, but if anything this commercial is going to get banned for not being sexy enough. There are millions — literally, millions – of women in Brazil who could make that commercial sexier than Paris Hilton.
