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
You took too much, man, you took too much, too much. There is a song that sums up this review:
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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.
Like, um, like, somebody call the dork police, and the fashion police, because this spot is so totally 30 seconds of dork-alert-5000.
This commercial is a recipe for a dork-disaster: 1) the commercial is driven by a kids’ bop rendition of the “Bly Gotta Feelin’ kick-start-party-song by the Black Eyed Peas. 2) the opening line of the song is, “Didn’t know, couldn’t see, what was around the corner for me. Let’s go!” 3) the kids bop vocalist is dressed in autotune, and this is a textbook example of a creative team shamelessly jumping on the ephemeral autotune bandwagon.
4) The commercial flagrantly targets caricatured demographics — only those who can afford a weber, of course — which, in this case, is the widowed, prim and proper, affluent grey panther; the wholesome African-American male who lives in the suburbs and is happy; the lonesome librarian who lives by herself and has fun by herself; and the jolly bearded gas station attendant (he’s the lil shocker). This blogger will omit the rest of the dorks, because I respect you, and because this dork-ball video-mash subsequently welters into an unsightly meatball — hot and ready to be charred on the ole’ web grill.
However, I do appreciate the female backing vocals, 0:26 in, when we hear a passionate, “Come on — yeah!”
Rating:30 Seconds of hot-and-ready propane gasy hell
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
Sometimes you need to take a break from television commercial reviews, simply because you are overwhelmed by how much you love to be sick by television.
*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?
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.
