DVArgh

Hello blog-dience. Long time.

How offensive and disturbing that the Beatles classic "All You Need Is Love" is used in a Chase Bank commercial. People are charging crap on their Chase cards because all they need is love....of buying crap.

I also hate that Comcast commercial with the geniuses in the laboratory and the asian guy makes a pagoda. Argh. Have we learned nothing from Harold and Kumar?

Also, we have cable and DVR now so I can fast forward through commercials during my regular shows, the names of which I am too embarrassed to mention herewithin.

DVArgh

Hello blog-dience. Long time.

How offensive and disturbing that the Beatles classic "All You Need Is Love" is used in a Chase Bank commercial. People are charging crap on their Chase cards because all they need is love....of buying crap.

I also hate that Comcast commercial with the geniuses in the laboratory and the asian guy makes a pagoda. Argh. Have we learned nothing from Harold and Kumar?

Also, we have cable and DVR now so I can fast forward through commercials during my regular shows, which I am too embarrassed to mention herewithin.

Famous Favorites

For the past few years, Honda has been trying out a new approach, its most memorable ads obviously catering to the young, hip family. This is evident purely through the songs they choose. There was a commercial last year urging yuppie moms to buy one of their ugly SUVs ***(see note) by using Modest Mouse's Gravity Rides Everything from the Moon and Antarctica. Yes, it is a disturbing trend (I don't like it when I actually pay attention to a commercial that's obviously meant for my demographic. Makes me feel icky.) but, of course, it's a great song from a great album.

Other notable examples of Honda's Newfound Hip are use of M.I.A.'s Galang and The Postal Service's We Will Become Silhouettes. Yes, I like both of these bands/songs.

I only recently noticed, however, in the latter commercial, the "Pa-pa-pa-pa"s sung on the album by Jenny Lewis (for whom I profess nothing less than hero worship) are not actually sung by Jenny in the ad! Rather, they are replaced by a synth-voice that may or may not be human. The rest of the music is the same but the non-Jenny voice is annoying. I can't imagine why they decided to replace it, unless it was so they wouldn't have to pay the artist as much. Boooooo.

I'm not entirely sure how licensing songs for commercials goes, although I am learning. I think the artist generally has very little to do with it, at least if they are on a major. But I've definitely changed my perspective on bands licensing songs to companies for commercials, particularly since I know what it's like to be broke. Daydreaming about having enough dough to play music and have nice gear and not have to work a dull office job is what keeps me going some days.

Franz Ferdinand recently turned down a huge offer for use of one of their songs in a commercial for an unnamed multinational corporation. Good for them. I think it does need to be decided on a case-by-case basis. On the other hand, The Concretes, whose Say Something New was in a Target commercial, donated a good chunk of the compensation they received to a corporate watchdog organization. I'd say that's even smarter.

*** Ok ok I used to drive a CRV, but it's not actually an SUV! It's got a four-cylinder engine, the same as a Honda Civic. It's just taller.

Cars and other stuff

While watching the last episode of Conan in Chicago, saw four commercials worthy of commentary-

Toyota: Has a new car called Yaris. Sounds more like an MTV VJ.

VW Passat: People driving around with megaphones out the window saying stuff like "Because I make more money than you" and "Because I'm making up for my shortcomings." Then a woman in a VW drops her megaphone out the window and the voiceover says, "The lowest ego emissions of any German-engineered vehicle." Ha.

GE (unfortunately): Cute elephant tap dancing in the jungle to Singing in the Rain. I like elephants.

Walter E Smithe: Vote for your favorite finalist in the Walter E. Smithe jingle contest! Dude, Lauren totally should've done it. Ok I have to go vote.

Heroes

This Wes Anderson AmEx ad is pretty sweet. Of course, for me, he can do no wrong.

Also, Amelie Gillette of the Onion's The Hater is totally my new hero. Can't believe I just found out about this.

There's a glare on the screen!

Coming home from work early = daytime commercials.

I'm pretty sure I saw a same sex couple on a Buy Owner commercial. (Either that or just two dudes who live together in a nice big house.) Thanks, Buy Owner!

This is TV-related... Apparently Corbin Bernsen is now on General Hospital. I was never a huge fan of his or anything, but I'm pretty sure this is a demotion.

Ewwwww

Ok, this is about a print ad I saw at Union Station. I always feel so weird there with all the commuters. (I do like the huge contingent of brown folks who apparently all live in the suburbs, work in the city, and take the same PACE bus to the Westmont station every weekday morning just a few minutes before the 8:05 train. I try to sit on the same car if I can. Makes me happy.)

Yeah, so the ad! It's for Microsoft Office for PDAs and it says "Is that Microsoft Office in your pocket?" They omitted skipped the second part of that sentence, but if they were trying to be classy ad, they really didn't need to.

This is mostly really eww because I think of like 40+ old dude executives. You know, the Viagra crowd.

B.O.W.

I know all I've done with this blog is rag on bad commercials, but even I can admit there are some good ones out there. Here I present the Best of the Week (B.O.W.) I'll come up with a better name later.

Sour Patch Kids. An adolescent girl wakes in the morning and looks in the mirror to find that one of her tails has pigtails has been bluntly chopped off. She squeals! Out of her closet comes a red Sour Patch Kid with who's about three feet tall, with muddled facial features just like the candy itself. It sheepishly walks over to the girl and hugs her leg. "Sour, then sweet." Ha. Brilliant.

Visa. This commercial has the best song and I don't know what it is! There is an animated worm that is kinda pop-and-lock'ing to this awesome song. We later see that the dude has made a flip book of his checks because, you know, Visa is so convenient it renders checkbooks obsolete. (Which, for me, is actually mostly true. Besides rent.) But, yeah, mostly the song makes this commercial.

ITunes. Second best song. It's the one where all the album art makes a city. The song rocks in that garag- revival-Brooklyn-sound sort of way that is so popular with the kids these days. Ironically, for a commercial about downloading music, the song's credits are difficult to find; my brother and I independently attempted to Google this song but came up with nothing.

Karm-ercials Pt. II

Two new brown sightings: A dude in some McDonalds commercial that was too boring for me to actually watch (I only noticed when my brother drew attention to it.) I think it involves some achiever guy in a tie making his slacker roommate pay for lunch. I'm glad the brown guy is portrayed as a slacker because you don't see that very often (unless I'm completely missing the point of this commercial) but then my brother said, "Why does the brown guy have to pay?"

Another more disturbing commercial that I also paid only half-attention to shows a short, dumpy brown guy with a serious accent in the IT department completely brown-nosing his grey-haired white CEO-type boss. Didn't catch the point of that commercial either (Microsoft, perhaps?) but I didn't like the portrayal, that's for sure.

I heart Dentists

This 1-800 Dentist commercial was nearly a tear-jerker, if you're into that sort of thing (eg. crying during commercials.) Apparently, this woman found her family such a fantastic dentist that now her son looooves going to the dentist more than anything else in the world. What's more, she remembers the name of the operator who set her family up with the dentist she's in loooove with. (Audrey? Unf. I don't remember.)