22 July 2009

Pseudo-Blog Post

I've long had mixed feelings about advertising. Like anything that puts the world into a context, it's a legitimate form of art that can be surprising, funny, and moving. And yet I still don't want to buy your bullshit, you whorish corporate shill, please stop interrupting my programming with your sales routine. Whenever I see an ad I enjoy, I try to keep in mind what a college professor said about children's advertising - that it's one of the most evil things possible because kids have no defenses to it - and think about how that may or may not apply to advertising at large. Of course, as an artist, I'm sometimes called upon to pimp my own products. Those Ferraris aren't going to buy themselves.

There's also the matter of "selling out," whether it's for commercials or for an obviously terrible film project. I'm not one to begrudge someone in need of a check the right to appear in someone else's crap - hell, if Michael Bay walked up and offered me cash money to write Transformers 3: T&A Robot 'Splosions Epilepsy, I'd haul out my laptop and ask him how many Uncle Toms he'd like me to throw in - but I think we've become too tolerant of it as of late. An actor or musician looking for exposure and a bit of steady income shouldn't have to stay away from the corporate teat, but multimillion dollar stars worth more than African countries need to get Satan's pecker out of their mouths, pronto. Have some goddamn respect for yourselves and stop hawking dog piss Budweiser and appearing in High-Strung Neurotic Meets Easy-Going Free Spirit to the Nth Power.

All of which is an extremely muddled way of introducing what I really want to write about, three advertising figures that have become the bane of my television existence. I share these with you in an attempt to spread the pain, and exorcise the demons occupying my precious mental space.

The first one is the Six Flags Old Man. I first recall him appearing on the scene several years ago in a series of commercials in which he defied the laws of God and Nature by frenetically dancing as he loaded people onto Six Flags-destined buses to the turbulent cacophony of "We Like to Party." The Old Man didn't just dance, he constantly pistoned his arms and legs in a spastic display of undying energy, as if the Perpetual Motion Machine existed, and it was buried deep within his soul. But his inhuman dynamism wasn't what made him memorably creepy - it was the pounds of makeup slathered on his face in an attempt to hide the presumable youth of the performer playing him. This makeup only made him look like an aged Ken doll, a living and breathing embodiment of the Uncanny Valley.

The commercials gradually disappeared, and our moment of national crisis was put behind us. Until recently. For the ad wizards that conceived of this monstrosity thought, "Hey, everyone remembers Creepy Old Man! Let's bring him back!" And so they did.

When I first saw this commercial, I felt like running into my bedroom and barricading myself inside to keep out the bad man. I considered myself lucky if the only place he haunted me was my dreams. This new one is so much worse than the original. At least back then, the Old Man was kept at a safe distance. Here though, he's in our face, in a hideous close-up, causing babies to cry and dogs to piddle on the carpet. The effect is like the scene in Twilight Zone: The Movie when the gremlin's face appears right outside John Lithgow's window.

They also give him actual dialogue to say. His voice sounds unnatural, like an alien attempting to mimic human speech. Frankly, the only words I want to hear him say is "Six Flags is a hellscape where fun goes to die! What have I done with my life?" These words would, of course, proceed his suicide leap from the top of Batman: The Ride.

I liked him better when he played Junior Soprano

The next advertising figure that causes me to have panic attacks is the Axe Body Spray Chocolate Man. I find him horrifying because we see a regular guy spraying on Axe-brand Shitty Body Spray, which transforms him into a Chocolate Man. Once again, we have the problem of the Uncanny Valley - the set, rigid look of happiness and candor on this idiot's face is disconcertingly human yet robotically artificial. It's the same look a particularly stupid and sadistic torturer has as he lights up his victim's nutsack with electricity.

That's not even the worst part. No, that's when he begins BREAKING OFF PIECES OF HIMSELF AND FEEDING THEM TO PEOPLE. Remember, before he became Chocolate Man, he was Average Dipshit. Which means that beneath those layers of chocolate, there's still a man. And so when people tear off his limbs, I cringe, expecting to see gouts of blood spraying from his dismantled body (the cherry syrup inside, if you will). And when he melts his hand inside a coffee pot, I want to scream, "That's your hand, you need that to do shit! Now you're crippled for life!" But he just goes on, smiling like a big asshole. Which happens to be Axe's target demographic, so perhaps these people know what they're doing. Just thinking about those advertising fucks high-fiving themselves with all the awards they won for this fills my stomach with bile.

The last guy I probably wouldn't care about, except for another notch on his resume. If you watch NBC's current incarnation of its Must See TV Thursday nights, you know that during the transitions between some of the smartest and wittiest comedy shows on the air, a disembodied voice makes appalling, brain-deadening "jokes" that create lazy sperm and barren wombs. I think of him as the Thursday Night Fuckface, and every time I hear his voice I want to kick in the television as if he's hiding behind the screen, taunting me from within my own home. His moments are so small and fleeting - usually ten to twenty seconds of "Hey, if Jim and Pam had a baby, what would it be called? Jam. 'The Office,' up next." - but they are enough to puncture eardrums.

It's not just the lame banter I find risible, it's his very tone. He doesn't have the deep bass of your usual authoritative Voiceover Man; it's more of a "I'm just a dude like you!" kind of thing. Within that is an unearned smugness, a too-cool-for-school quality that has the utmost confidence in his ability to leave the entire room laughing their asses off at his hi-larious bon mots. But he has no physical audience with him to rebuke his inanity and throw their weighty liquor glasses at his dumb head. It's as if the NBC executives said "Find us an even more vanilla Dane Cook!"

With all those shows on hiatus, I thought I'd get a respite from the Fuckface. But Time Warner Cable has begun airing commercials where I noticed a familiar voice. (Lucky for you, I couldn't find any clips of the commercials or the NBC transitions.) It's bad enough that I already have Time Warner Cable, I don't need more commercials with The 21st Century Douchebag telling me to get it all over again. Outside of his presence, these commercials are largely innocuous, but the mere sound of his voice completely ruins their forced innocence. It's like browsing through a kid's pop-up book and finding that one of the illustrations is a giant middle finger with an additional "Fuck You" tattooed on it.

So those are the commercials currently testing my thin patience. Please feel free to give me your thoughts on them or any others you may detest in the comments. The very fact that you care enough to leave a note will brighten up this otherwise positively negative post.

1 comment:

  1. The Thursday Night Fuckface has always bugged the shit out of me. It's like the network wants everyone to realize just how special the surrounding shows are. "Watch them or we'll give THIS GUY a show. Written by us!"

    The Six Flags ads are a strange case. They have a pitchman beloved by no one that they feel compelled to continue using. Someone high up must love this character, the old man with a young man's body. I bet there's an actual guy who looks just like him, paralyzed and hooked up to machine. His son, the vice president of marketing at Six Flags visits regularly, VHS tape in hand.

    "Look Dad, look at you dance!"

    The Chocolate Axe man is horrific, and I wish I had never laid my eyes upon it. It does open up this idea of reverse sexism, where the guy is just junk food for a woman to eat and shit out. Now the man you marry? Fucking Stetson.