With this commercial, 30 Seconds of Hell kick-starts our continuing “Tall as a Damn Mountain” series, wherein we cull commercials with the tallest people in all the land.
Part one of our series features another clever commercial from ESPN’s Sportscenter. This commercial features former-NBA Allstar, Gheorghe Muresan, a 7′ 7” center who played for the Washington Bullets in the ’90s. He is really tall. Gheorghe is such an erudite — a damn tall erudite — that he starred in My Giant (1998) with co-star, Billy Crystal.
In a white-collar office setting, we observe colossal hulking Gheorghe Muresan as dances. This may sound like a TALL TALE; however, this did happen, this really happened, in real life, this is not a tall tale, it’s tall entertainment, a tall pleasure every dance-step of the way.
I like to think of the creative board meetings, the pre-productions phases of this project that prefaced. I imagine the creative team being like, “Hey, what we got, whose got a pitch, hurry up, I’m not listening.” Soon after, someone meek stands up and says, “I colored-penciled storyboards with Gheorghe Muresan dancing in the office.” The creative director, whilst smoking a cigar, turns and says, “Colored pencil? Oh brother, not more colored pencils. Kid, are you shitting me?” The meek man replies, “24 piece Crayola. Sharpened as a Native American arrow head.” The cigar-ed boss replies, “Kid, you’re promoted, I’m so sick of all these schmucks drawing with those garbage brands Rose Art and Color Busters.” Cigar boss turns to Belinda, the secretary, “Get Gheorghe Muresan’s agent on the phone, pronto, or YOU’RE FIRED.”
Before I wrote this digressing review, I thought of transcribing the entire commercial — then I realized that would be a waste of time, for I’m watching CNBC right now, and American Greed is on. My point is this: take your money out of banks and stuff it under your mattress, pay attention to the simple dialogue in this commercial, and enjoy yourself whilst Gheorghe Muresan dances.
After writing this, I now realize that most of Gheorghe’s fame and success in the public eye has focused only on his height, and despite the title of this post, this post is about the joy Gheorghe spreads. It’s not all about his height, it’s about what’s inside of his tall body, and inside of his tall body is a big, warm heart.
Rating: 30 Seconds of Heaven
Sky-tops Gheorghe Muresan greets us at the door with a sky-high welcome
“Credit card, you got it.” — Macaulay Culkin, as Kevin, in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992).
Credit card, you got it. Credit Cards: can’t live with ‘em and you can’t shoot ‘em. Card Credits: our nation is in debt. Dear credit cards, in the 1990s, you bought so many damn speed boats and jet-skis for people, and someday you will be burned at the stake like a witch, and hanged, like Bernie Madoff, in town square.
Discover Card, on the other hand, seems to be the ‘indie’ credit card (does urban outfitters have a credit card special savings signup? Umm, don’t know, don’t care) and this commercial with the faux hair band is pretty clever.
The commercial runs like a VH1 Behind the Music documentary, a show I have always admired, and it certainly packs a punch within its 30 seconds. This commercial is effective, and glory glory hallelujah, it’s watchable.
We hear the band’s story, starting from the glory-days — lil red corvette, cover of Rolling Stone, giant credit card, jacuzzi-limo — and travel in time, to the future, with our 30 Seconds of Hell helicopter landing on the inevitable 30 Seconds of Hell helicopter landing pad, where we exit the helicopter, and walk to an ending where one of the dudes from Danger Kitty works a hot dog stand.
The commercial is much like the teachings of an Aesop Fable, teaching us: be frugal with your money and stop buying jacuzzi-tubs, plush spa robes, summer homes in Maine, and a three-fleet of shreddin’ jet-skis, colored hot green, electric pink, and outrageous orange, respectively.
Their slogan is clever: “For the slightly smarter consumer.” Here we have a credit card company telling the consumer to, and I am paraphrasing, ‘cool your jets on the spending.’
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this ad from 1982 was aired right around that time that AIDS (the disease) was becoming a global crisis. I’m not sure how they didn’t see this as the “worst possible name for a diet pill,” at the time. That’s like naming a tobacco product canzer.
“I’m going to get my hands on your data.” Chck, plicka, keyboard-chck chk, blk chica chica. Whence that onomatopoeia? One word: yourkompacpresariokomputerkeyboard or wordprocessor unit from the early ’90s. “I’m going to get into your system.”
Once upon a time beofore the monumental cgi of the awe-inspiring film Titanic, a movie that made me cry in the 5th grade, Leonardo Decaprio gave an honest effort to inform ambivilant white-collared workers of the importance of computer safety. Soon after, James Cameron, mastermind director of Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2 : Judgement Day (1994), had a dangerous run-in with a flanneled computer hacker (marrymeleo!!!). Honestly, this problem stemmed from the fact that Cameron named his password ‘corvette,’ due to the fact that 99.99% of the time he was day-dreamin’ of riding in a candy-apple corvette. He would wake up in the morning: candy apple corvette. Before nighty-night: candy apple corvette.
29 seconds in, we hear an insightful testimony from an insightful asian man whom tells us, “someone got my password (much like Camron, the password was [little-red] corvette, a password derived from the subconscious of our world).” “Soon after, some flanneled dude [sic] has the audacity to walk in with a yellow toolbox and ask my smoking-hot red-blazered sexy-secretary [sic] something stupid, but smart.” The secrety confirms this occurrence: “He had a special toolbox.”
This public service announcement spurred an epiphany within meee-self: every night, I see strangers digging through my dumpster — now I know they are looking for my top secret 4″ floppy discs. Those are those plastic things capable of storin’ 7.11kb of data, and sometimes I even store my MS paint artwork on there — my illustrations of important things. No worries, though. I can turn back time. Yeah, baby, belly that.
“Usually when you think hackers, you think [super] computers, and the data stored in those computers.” adds an unknown but authoritative guy, “sometimes the hackers try to get the data in our heads.”
The truth is out there.
2:20 in, a wild sighting of Delaney Driscoll, a supporting actress that starred in Alexander Payne’s Election (1999). Wow, is this really true?
The following still-image sequence features impeccable use of the diagonal yellow-to-blue graphic gradient. This gradient was created in MS-Paint, version 2.0. This is teamed with impeccable use of beveled borders on the title captions.
So team, what have we learned? Many things, one being the importance of cause-and-effect. Be safe with your computer passwords and floppy discs; that, and take your time, everything is perfectly fine, and have fun whilst at work. Both men and women at work.
Dear diary, hi again, this is your friend Bi-Bi, and after my daddy bought me baby rollerblade we went to Tahiti, and Bi-Bi and baby rollerblade went rollerblading with mommy. When did many super-fun things.
(1) Went rollerblading. check √
(2) Drank fruit punch. check √
(3) Bi-Bi played with rollerblade baby. check √
(4) Daddy bought Bi-Bi a new doggie. check √
(5) Bi-Bi eat ice cream. check √
(6) Bi-Bi spend money. check √
(7) Bi-Bi throw a hissy when mommy fight with daddy. check √
(8) Bi-Bi throw frisbee with rollerblade baby. check √
(9) Bi-Bi get hungry and go pee-pee. check √
(10) Doggie go pee-pee in hotel room a me hidey. check √
(11) Mommy and daddy take Bi-Bi and rollerblade baby to believe-it-or-not museum owned by Ripley’s. check √
This commercial is low fidelity — no excuses — this kid is speaking martian.
Some say, in the late ’80s and early ’90s, that Nerf was a government subsidiary with a mission to mint condition the minds of children for an oncoming intergalactic war with “unknown and unseen ‘invaders.’”
After many botched theories, the U.S. Government concluded that Nerf Corporation would move forward by, “just selling toys, packaged in radical and booger-ish boxes, with GPS tracking chips implanted”; notwithstanding, this video speaks martian, in plain broken english.
Here’s a fun one. This Willie Horton ad is a classic. Notice how the words “Kidnapping”, “Stabbing”, and “Raping” appear on the screen. Michael Dukakis personally let Willie out of his cell. Willie kept saying “Mike, I cannot wait to get out of this jail cell so that I can commence with the rapin’” and Dukakis was like, “Hold your horses, we’ll get you out on the streets in no time. God George HW Bush would totally kick my ass if he knew I was doing this, haw haw, gimme some more blow (COCAINE), haw, haw.”
The ad played a significant role in getting Bush elected. Dukakis is the president of his cell block in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
And that is why we won the first Gulf War so decisively. And then Ross Perot.
Rating: Thirty Seconds of Heaven
We may be breaking our rules here; however, this is one dandy television infomercial. This guy is frivolous:
He wears a white buttoned all the way to the tippy-top!
His maniacal laugh.
16 seconds in, we hear him fall off his car whilst off-screen. (Whilst, whilst, whilst, whilst).
“Insert finger here.” Later on, “Insert two fingers here.”
No one in their right mind would have such zest whilst selling clam earrings, earrings made from the same metal material as those crumby, made-in-China rings you buy from the gumball machine for 50¢.
Whilst talking to a guy off-screen, he begins his ventriloquist lip-syncing act. Riotous!
Oh, but how I love the lavender picture-in-picture that frames he whilst the close-up of the clam earrings hang on screen. This spring, oh have I longed, and whilst longing, I have looked for thee, and now I have found the ne plus ultra picture-in-picture infomercial where a frivolous guy deals clam shell earrings at DOOR BUSTER prices.
The ultimate highlight of this spot is when the riotous guy demonstrates a ‘how to: insert earrings into your ear.’ I love this guy … come to think, I wouldn’t mind being an infomercial dude who sells clam shell earrings. As a matter of fact, I would probably model myself after this guy. Wow, this guy is really great. I hope he reads this. I wonder how many earrings he sold that day. Thousands.
*This post was written by Chris Tucker, 30 Seconds of Hell guest blogger and star of the Rush Hour trilogy.
Hey! Did you know you that you just a skeleton under all that stupid skin your body wear? Nah? Well, I’m gonna rip your skin off by playin’ a nasty ass highlight reel of the mother f**king Sega Genesis games — games like Helicopter®, Wolf®, Sports®, Football®, Sports®, and motha f**king LING LING®.
Hey! Sega CD is meritorious because it introduced the compact disc into the sphere of gaming; it initiated the epoch of the compact disc; without Sega CD, God neva wouldda created the Sega Saturn — God’s gift to women — Sega Saturn was the best system in the history of the world, because it gave us Virtual Cop 1 and Virtual Cop 2, enough said, you ask your Grandmama, she know, and I’m out!
Now it time for you to geta damn spatula and you just go now a scrape your lil cat fluffy off your bunk-ass walls nah. And you know you betta white wash them walls clean now.
Do you understand the words that are coming-outta-my-mouth?
L. Ron Hubbard is the founder of Scientology — he was either a compulsive liar — or he tapped in to the deepest darkest secrets of the Universe.
Hubbard claims he became the protege of a revered Native American shaman at the early age of four. This may have fueled his fire to write 1,084 fiction works, one of which he was awarded the faux IG Nobel Prize — a prize that is awarded to works that “first make people laugh, and then make them think” — the prize is then presented by a group that includes genuine Nobel Laureates at a ceremony at Harvard University’s Sanders Theater.
What, exactly, does Scientology say about space aliens? Well, according to OT III (Operating Thetan level 3), L. Ron Hubbard writes:
… 75 million years ago, the head of the Galactic Federation, made up of 76 planets, was a being named Xenu. Faced with an overpopulation problem, he brought beings to this planet, blew them up with hydrogen bombs, and packaged them. Their spirits now infest our bodies: he says “One’s body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.” Scientologists at this level try to rid themselves of these thetans (spirits) by helping each one to remember the painful experiences of being blown up like that.
I must state that I have no understanding of this ‘Galactic Federation’; it recalls TV shows like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica; I wonder if this book advertisement played during commercial breaks of the aforementioned. Also, I have not read the “Operating Thetan Level 3″, I pulled the above citation from scientology-lies.com, and judging by the domain name, this has a high probability of being bias.
Now, I’m not writing to brief you on the beliefs of Scientology, nor the ‘parasitic’ aliens that have infested our bodies, I’m writing to highlight how shitty this commercial is — and my review is in the title.
Rating: 30 Seconds of Truth?
End Note: I do admire how this commercial is a book advertisement. When is the last time you saw a book commercial that wasn’t a get-rich-quick infomercial?
I hope you’re not hungry, because this is yet another jumbo meal deal from the McDonald’s Corporation (the other meal deal can be found here). Dikembe Mutombo — the NBA’s most notorious finger-wagging, shot-blocking king — endorsed this jumbo deal 20, 30, possibly 100 years ago. Seemingly since television has existed, McDonald’s has affixed this notion that NBA superstars, e.g., Dikembe ‘Jumbo’ Mutombo, eat a large plate of the double quarter-pounder, or depending on the decade, the triple cheese, before they hit the court for that championship game. This long-standing link is upheld by way of basketball superstars — Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Bob Cousy, Dwight Howard, Trooper Washington, Tiny Archibald, Goo Kennedy, Kirby Boobiblatz, Detlef Schrempf, Dom DeLuise, — wow … wait … eight minutes ago the associated press reported that NBA superstar LeBron James reaches multiyear deal to shill for McDonald’s.
Here’s a fact: This commercial for the Monster Ballads compilation has been on television for over 10 years — that’s admirable. Other commercials don’t have the balls t0 run the same commercial for 10 years — Monster Ballads must be experiencing success with this spot — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and if it bringing in the cash, run with the cash dogs.
The American people recognize that this commercial has been running for over 10 years; seemingly this compilation garners public support with each year; here is a candid instance in form of a youtube comment: Read the rest of this entry »
LA Gear used to be the leader of cool sneakers, and more importantly, the leader in sneaker sales.
Painted in a neon tetra palette, LA Gear successfully trademarks their image as sexy, youthful, and everything else that was en vogue in the late ’80s and early ’90s. On top of that, LA Gear generated an effectual jingle that embeds itself in the brain of the buyer.
It is possible to buy this life — only if you buy LA Gear — after your purchase, you gain these friends, these basketball memories, and you even earn the hot pair of legs (featured at the end of the article).
Part one of our series features another clever commercial from ESPN’s Sportscenter. This commercial features former-NBA Allstar, Gheorghe Muresan, a 7′ 7” center who played for the Washington Bullets in the ’90s. He is really tall. Gheorghe is such an erudite — a damn tall erudite — that he starred in My Giant (1998) with co-star, Billy Crystal.
