Filed under: Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

Let's talk turkey. Actually, let's talk Thanksgiving Day commercials, which may or may not involve actual turkeys.

I know, you probably can't remember a Thanksgiving commercial to save your life. There have been a ton of them over the years, but 99.9% of them have to do with department store sales ("Before Thanksgiving Sale!" and "After Thanksgiving Sale!" with a "Thanksgiving Sale!" thrown in for good measure) and they all seem to blend into each other after a while. But there are have been a few over the years that are worth looking at again, and after the jump we'll take a look at them.

Continue reading Brought To You By... - VIDEOS

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Video, Commercials, Celebrities, Reality-Free

Long before he was wishing 100 year-old people a Happy Birthday on Today, Willard Scott was a clown. A pathetic, oddly dressed clown.

After the jump is the very first commercial that McDonald's ran featuring Ronald McDonald. Sure, it's easy to dismiss the low-budget look of this ad because of the time it was created, the bad special effects, and the knowledge that later the character would be refined and would look a lot different (and better). But then you look closely and you see that the guy has a freakin' paper cup on his nose. It's like the last minute Halloween costume a father would put together to entertain his kids. He and the other parents think it's hilarious, but the kids are thinking "what's wrong with daddy?"

And does he really need two trays of food, one on his waist and one on his head?

Still, it's a cool look at a different TV era, and it's great to see how McDonald's television advertising started out. Hey, it's better than the "I'm Lovin' It" campaign.

Continue reading The first McDonald's commercial - VIDEO

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: OpEd, Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

Let's talk (again) about commercials we hate.

Or maybe I should say commercials I hate, though I think you'll agree with me on some of these. They run the gamut from silly to ineffective, from dumb to just plain jaw-dropping. Let's start with jaw-dropping.

1. DirecTV's Poltergeist ad. This is...creepy and tasteless. Do the makers of this ad really not know that young Poltergeist star Heather O'Rourke died at a really young age? Even if they didn't (I'm kidding, of course they did), the star of the ad, Craig T. Nelson, is aware of it. So why use footage of her in the ad? It's just bizarre to me. Then again I'm not a DirecTV exec. They must know that what they're doing by using footage of a deceased child star (and a stand-in) to sell satellite TV service.

Continue reading Brought To You By ... - VIDEOS

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Programming, OpEd, Commercials, Reality-Free

Have you checked out ABC.com at all today? If you do, get ready to be caught off guard. To generate some buzz, the Alphabet network's home page opens up with an advertisement for their new drama Life On Mars and it looks an awful lot like some funky virus just invaded my computer.

Continue reading I love ABC's crazy web promo for Life On Mars

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Industry, Commercials, Reality-Free

Last night, I was in New York's East Village attending a panel discussion that was being given at the Cooper Union. As I was walking around killing time before the seminar, I came across the sign on the right, taped to a light pole alongside various bumper stickers and other posted offers. It made me do a double-take, because it yells "HAVE YOU DATED THIS WOMAN?" in all caps. The picture is of a pretty woman who looks like someone just about anyone in New York could have dated at one time or another.

Was she in trouble? Was someone waging a campaign to trash this poor young woman? All those questions filled my head until I saw the phone number below, typed repeatedly in those all-to-convenient tear-away strips: 1-877-7-BELLA1.

Bella. That name sounded familiar. That's when it hit me: It was Elizabeth Reaser's character from CBS' new sitcom The Ex List.

Continue reading CBS's odd viral promotion for The Ex List - AUDIO

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Video, Family Guy, Commercials, Reality-Free

For years Seth MacFarlane has worked in the small animated universe that contains Family Guy, American Dad and soon The Cleveland Show (with some wading in the Robot Chicken pool). During that time he has provided voice and picture to the trials and tribulations of two typical American families. Yet, deep down inside, you knew that he wanted to do more than work with the Griffins and the Smiths. You could see it with in the amount of fantasy sequences placed during a typical episode of Family Guy.

Now, thanks to a combination of Internet and fast food, Seth is getting his chance to explore the world outside of his FOX Sunday night offerings. YouTube -- the dusty video cabinet of the World Wide Web -- will be hosting all new MacFarlane cartoon shorts under the short title Set MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. Sponsored by fast food giant Burger King (and featuring the giant-headed king in the opening sequence), the YouTube channel will show one to two-minute cartoons featuring all new characters and scripts. According to a press release sent to TV Squad, there will be 50 shorts that are custom-made for the web (and eventual DVD release, I'm sure.)

Continue reading Seth MacFarlane + Burger King + You Tube = new cartoons - VIDEOS

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Video, Commercials, Celebrities, Reality-Free

We talked about this when they announced that Jerry Seinfeld had signed on to promote Windows for Microsoft. If you were watching the big NFL kickoff Thursday night, you might have seen what that looked like. If you missed it, it's embedded after the jump. I've watched the commercial a few times now, and I'm torn. I agreed with Brad's take in the original post, that Seinfeld may be a few years past the point of ideal pitchman.

That being said, the first half of the commercial is quirky, and pretty funny. The idea of stumbling on Bill Gates in a discount shoe shop is an amusing place to start. And Gates does a good job as the straight man for Seinfeld. I really like the odd cut to the family watching through the glass. "They run tight." It all pays off nicely with that familiar image of Gates on his Platinum Shoe Circus Clown Club card. It loses steam when they leave the mall. A moist and chewy cake computer? I think the writers got tripped up by the iffy tag. The future. Delicious.

Continue reading Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld go to Shoe Circus - VIDEO

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Video, Commercials, Doctor Who, Retro Squad, Reality-Free

Okay, when I posted about the television personalities that have pitched computers, I didn't think that this would become a series. Yet, when I saw a comment from reader ThomasD, I had to prep another one because, frankly, this one is weird.

The ad features the fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker, and then-current companion Romana, played by Lalla Ward, which puts the commercial sometime around 1980. The Prime automated office system seems to be a part of Prime Computer, a Massachusetts-based company that produced microcomputers from 1972 until 1992. According to the wonderful world of Wikipedia, the office automaton system that Who and Romana talk about featured electronic mail that functioned between Prime networks only and word processing on dumb terminals.

This is a very unusual ad. Even for the Doctor Who episodes of the era, the writing on this commercial was sub-par. Plus, why would the doctor need a rigid computer system like this when the systems on the TARDIS could probably handle billions of processes trillions of nanoseconds faster. Coming from such an advanced race as the Time Lords you would think that they would have some form of word processing! Unless, they were all using Windows. Ohhh, the horror!

Continue reading Even Dr. Who promoted computers - VIDEO

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Sports, Programming, Commercials, Chuck, Life, Reality-Free

If you've been watching NBC's Olympic coverage, you must have seen all of the promotion they have been doing for their fall season. New shows My Own Worst Enemy, Crusoe, Knight Rider, Kath & Kim, and America's Toughest Jobs have all had plenty of play. As have the returning Chuck and Life. Given that the latest Olympiad is closing in on becoming the most watched television event of all time, you might think those promo spots were pretty valuable.

Apparently, not so much. The Hollywood Reporter runs down the record for the network promoting new shows during past games. In 2004, the Athens games led to one show, Joey, making it beyond its first season. Likewise for the Sydney games in 2000, which brought us Ed, and nothing else. Things were a little better in 1996 from Atlanta. Profiler, The Pretender, and Suddenly Susan all lasted another four years. Not a stellar track record and it leaves you thinking that those precious spots might have served the network better pitching more beer. It has the makings of a good poll though. After the jump, place your vote for the one new show that will make it out of season one.

Continue reading What are all those Olympic promos worth?

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Video, Commercials, Celebrities, Retro Squad, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free

Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to take you into the world of how a writer of TV-related items thinks during his day. After reading about Jerry Seinfeld's new role as pitchman for Microsoft's Vista operating system my mind didn't turn to thoughts of how Jerry has become a corporate shill and will do anything to get his mug back on television. Nor did I think about the many pluses and minuses of Microsoft Vista. No, what I reflected upon was the fact that Jerry is not the first high-profile television personality to promote a computer.

That, in turn, brought me to YouTube and its glorious library of video history, from which I was able to cull a few examples of those other big-time TV folks who expounded on the glories of those new-fangled personal computers. New-fangled, you question? Yes, because these examples all come from the 1980s: the dawn of the personal computer era. Here are five examples of our favorite stars promoting the dickens out of their Commodore, Atari, and Texas Instruments computers.

Continue reading Five more television personalities who have pitched computers - VIDEOS

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: OpEd, Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

For once I'm not talking about any of the Burger King spots that have that creepy King guy, with his terrifying blank stare and equally scary son. No, I'm talking about the commercial with the guy hiding in a motel late at night, eating one of the new Cheesy Bacon Tender Crisp chicken sandwiches. A cow shows up at the door to confront him ... because the guy isn't eating burgers.

Huh? Why would a cow -- which is made of burgers -- be upset that a customer isn't eating him or his friends? Does he own stock in the company and wants customers to eat burgers instead of chicken? That wouldn't even make sense because even if the cow did hold some BK stock* selling chicken would be just as good as selling meat. Or maybe this is an example of the "death wish" type of advertising that Pete Campbell talked about in the Sterling Cooper pitch to Lucky Strike?

Even those cute M&M guys don't go around saying "eat me."

*This will probably be the only time in my life that I write about cows owning stock in a corporation.

Continue reading The new Burger King commercial really baffles me - VIDEO

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: OpEd, Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

If there's one thing we can all hate the Internet for is that it has given an amazing array of people the ability to just sit back and complain about everything in the world, even if it doesn't warrant complaining or insults (especially if it doesn't). Today's example: the new commercials for Boston Market (video after the jump).

The ad shows those twins that have been doing the most recent ads for the chain talking about the new meals they offer that cost only $4.99. Only the brother on the left in the video is clearly saying something else, "$5.99," and they dubbed a "4" over the "5" when the price dropped. For some reason, this is causing controversy on blogs from Gawker to Mediabistro's AgencySpy. Oooooo, they caught them in a "lie."

Continue reading Stupid non-controversy "controversy" of the day: Boston Market ads - VIDEO

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

And now, a post about busting balls.

Oh, come on, get your mind out of the gutter! I'm talking, of course, about the strategy board game from Mego in the 70s. The game was called Ball Buster, and the object of the game was (and I'm not kidding) "to bust your opponents balls." Take a look at the video of the commercial after the jump. It wouldn't be so funny if the announcer wasn't trying to sound all sleazy and knowing ("and for adults, it's exciting"). The wink by the mom at the end doesn't help either. I can picture the cast of Swingtown playing this.

Continue reading Brought To You By ... - VIDEOS

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Industry, Commercials, Reality-Free

Advertisers are starting to bail on the controversial CBS drama Swingtown.

This is predictable, if a little confusing. What exactly did the advertisers think they were sponsoring? (In the case of Dannon Yogurt, actually no - they just bought rotating advertising on CBS and didn't know when their ads would appear.) When they were told the show was about swapping, did they think it was recipes? And isn't the show on at 10 PM and come with a warning at the beginning? Proctor & Gamble won't advertise on the show at all.

Continue reading Advertisers starting to bail on Swingtown

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: OpEd, Commercials, Reality-Free

Digg has noticed a case of really unfortunate ad placement for Hotels.com during an MSNBC news cast. Right after a commercial airs touting the hotel bargains at the site, a news report begins about how Hotels.com users are at risk for credit card fraud.

Video after the jump...

Continue reading Ad placement gone wrong - VIDEO

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

Let's do a little "Whatever happened to..."

Commercials can be a really strong jump start for memories and nostalgia. In fact, I think they can sometimes trigger a certain feeling in us even more than TV shows because they were repeated 700 times when we kids and we remember them strongly, even though we don't see them any longer.

After the jump we catch up with three classic commercial icons from the 80s. One famous for swinging a hammer, one famous for getting confronted by his dad, and one famous for fishing.

Continue reading Brought To You By ... - VIDEOS

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Video, Commercials, Celebrities, Retro Squad, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Reality-Free

Our pals over at AOL have a fun new list up featuring their picks for the Top 25 ad icons of all time. As with any list, you can debate the results. I'll not spoil the list for you, but my pick was bumped all the way down to number nine. I bring it up here for two reasons. First, it's a fun trip down memory lane watching all of the old commercials. Seeing a young David Naughton singing and dancing about Dr. Pepper, or David Leisure pitching for Isuzu, is certainly a better use of your time than anything your boss had planned for today.

More importantly, given that this is Buffy week, a familiar face pops up on the list -- it's the one and only Anthony Stewart Head. If you're not of the Hanna Montana generation, you probably recall the series of spots for Nescafe from years gone by. They featured an ongoing story about a couple, Head and Sharon Maughan, tracing their relationship. It had all the classic bits. There was another woman, jobs getting in the way of their courtship, and even a Three's Company-style misunderstanding that gave him all the wrong ideas. In the end ... well, you can watch it all unfold, after the jump.

Continue reading Iconic ads ... and Giles - VIDEO

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Industry, OpEd, House, Daytime, Family Guy, Commercials, Game Show, Talk Show, Upfronts, Reality-Free

TV syndication upfront ad sales are brisk, with syndicators expected to sell higher levels of ad inventory, similar to the broadcast networks.

Sales are more than 50% complete, with one syndicator, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, more than 70% sold out of its 2008-09 ad inventory, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

What's it all mean? It means that syndication upfront totals are expected to be around $2.4 billion, up 4.5% from last year.

Maybe one reason is that syndicators are incorporating more product integration into their packages, especially with talk and entertainment shows. Strong categories include packaged goods, pharmaceuticals, movies, and fast food.

Hmmm ... I wonder what they're saying. That TV viewers sit around eating Big Macs, doing drugs, and woofing down Cheetos? Yeah, that can't be right.

Continue reading Syndication Ads: Are we hooked on Big Macs, Cheetos and Drugs?

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Commercials, Reality-Free

Have you ever noticed that men are often the butt of jokes on television? Whether it's the goofy, lazy husband on sitcoms or the incompetent, oversexed guy on TV commercials, men are often shown in a bad light (I know, I know, woman only make 70 cents for every $1.00 a man makes, but it's almost Father's Day so let's talk about this, OK?). AskMen.com has a list of the 10 worst male-bashing commercials on television.

Continue reading Ten commercials male-bashers will love

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments

Filed under: Commercials, Web, Reality-Free

TV viewers will remember the series of commercials that featured the animated law enforcement icon McGruff The Crime Dog, the ones that told us to "take a bite outta crime." He now has a blog.

Yup, the crime-solving (or crime-preventing) canine takes his paws and taps out blog entries for the kids to read, handing out advice about safety, health, and life in general. You can also read stories on how McGruff became a crime dog (he used to hang out at the local police station and listen to cop stories and asked cops how he could help - the cops said "what's a dog going to do to fight crime?" - I guess a talking dog was OK but a talking dog that fought crime was completely unrealistic) and play McGruff games.

Continue reading McGruff the Crime Dog has a blog (E-I-E-I-O)

 

Permalink | Email this | | Comments