Phones no longer fit in our pockets. The goddamn indignity of life continues.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Humanities’ capacity to complain about minor annoyances trumps really cool apps
Thursday, July 29th, 2010What Would You Do For An Original Idea?
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
One definition of advertising is: Popular culture, plagiarized, then made worse. As evidence for such a definition, I offer the latest ad campaign from Klondike Bar, which manages to copy, almost exactly, the chest waxing scene in 40 Year Old Virgin (so blatantly that I suppose one could guess it is intentional–the fact that the ad runs widely in movie theaters supports this idea), then makes it less funny by “upping the ante” and implying the man also has his balls waxed. Copywriting genius.
But the implied waxed balls are nothing compared to the balls Klondike has by ripping off not one, but two Apatow movies in the same campaign by tagging this ad (not seen in the clip above), with their new website, the Mancave. If that term sounds vaguely familiar it’s because it’s ripped straight out of Apatow’s, I Love You Man. Apparently there’s a copywriter somewhere who is really into Apatow, so much so that he wanted to honor his work by removing it from a humorous context and putting it within a thinly transparent plea to get Men, 18-34, interested in ice cream bars.
A bigger point should be made that the iconic trademark (“What would you do for a Klondike Bar?), which is the only original aspect of the ad campaign, doesn’t even make sense. Why are people being forced to suffer needlessly to get their hands on Klondike bars, when they can be found literally overflowing from the shelves of any major grocery store? Does anyone believe this memorable tagline has actually helped sell ice cream? Well, of course in the world of madvertising, there’s always a way to spin the numbers to make even the lamest campaign a smashing success. As in, the following.
Call me cynical, but I’ve always thought Eskimo Pies tasted better anyways.
Cracking the CW Code
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
I have cracked the formula for the CW’s primetime television lineup which includes such shows as Gossip Girls, 90210, and Melrose Place. With this formula, one should be able to predict with some 72% accuracy how individual shows will develop as well as what future shows will look like.
Here is the key.
- Plot begins with an unfortunate misunderstanding resulting from a key character drawing a wildly inaccurate conclusion after misinterpreting a piece of data. [Example: Skinny Blond High School Girl (SBHG) walks into her boyfriend’s room and discovers a scrunchie that looks similar to one her old friend, Skinny Brunette High School Girl (SBrHG), wore in 6th grade and thus, becomes convinced her boyfriend is sleeping with SBrHG].
- A strange coincidence occurs which prevents the very simple misunderstanding from being cleared up. [SBHG confronts SBrHG to see where she was the night previous. SBrHG cannot tell her because she happened to be at a restaurant where she saw SBHG’s super rich father making out with the high school principal and doesn’t want to blow his cover because he promised her he’d help her get into some terrible Ivy League School that no one would ever really want to go to. Accusations and tears follow]
- The conflict is unnecessarily heightened by a third party that, for some reason, benefits from the misunderstanding. [SBHG’s sister, who really is sleeping with her boyfriend, encourages SBHG to stab SBrHG or at least write mean things about her on Twitter]
- Irrational anger and bizarre happenstances allow the simple misunderstanding to continue through many, many episodes. [Desperate to clear her name, SBrHG goes to tell SBHG the truth, but SBHG cuts her off, refusing to talk and calls her something so horrible that SBrHG changes her mind about telling her the truth and instead decides, for whatever reason, to actually sleep with SBHG’s boyfriend, which is fine with the boyfriend who is really only a prop in this show anyways].
- A new bad girl comes to town and does bad things that complicate everything. [She probably smokes and steals things. Later we will see her softer side in an emotional episode where we learn she used to be poor.]
Of course the formula is flexible. So with the new series The Vampire Diaries we can expect the added element of people also getting bit by vampires and maybe flying. But the basic structure shouldl hold true.
PS (I have drawn this conclusion based on extensive research which includes watching 2 ½ episodes of Gossip Girls, 1 full episode of 90210 and the trailers for Melrose Place. Plus I went to the CW upfront back when I worked in advertising in 2007, where I just so happened to win a free recyclable tote bag. So yeah, I kind-of know what I’m talking about here).
On Vaccation
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009The blog and I are going on vaccation for the week to Chicago. So while I’m drowning myself in Itallian Beef sandwiches and ice cold pop, please take this time to pass along this blog to one friend. Remember, sharing is caring.
Also–littering–what’s the deal with that?
xoxo
Gossip Girl
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High Art and Its Interpretations
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
“Broadway Boogie-Woogie,” a seminal modernist work by painter Piet Mondrian, has been interpreted by many as an attempt to capture the alienated and conflicted grid-like structure of urban life. On a literal level, one can imagine the painting as a portrait of city traffic as seen from the top of a skyscraper. Notice, for example, how in the upper-right hand corner, the blue box appears to have just cut off the red box without so much as a turn signal or, god forbid, a hand wave because who cares about the safety of your fellow drivers when you can save precious seconds by driving like a complete jackass. Yeah, that’s right blue box, you hear what I just said? Yeah, well f@ck you and your goddamn new blue paint job. Want to know about paint jobs, I hear your mother gives great paint jobs if you know what I mean? Ooooooh, you didn’t like that did you? Well, why don’t you step out of that mother fu@cking car and get ready to have your goddamn cubist-piece-of-shit-inkblot of a box fu@ked in the fu@cking #%*ed@# and &za!#@-hole by the bottom of my fu@cking red boot! Oh, that’s right, roll up your window and drive away you pansy-ass bitch. Not so tough now are you? Are you??? @%%&*###!!!
In any case, the painting is very popular.
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Monet is perhaps best known for being one of the key leaders of Impressionism, which in 19th century French, was slang for near sighted. In one of his most famous sequences, “Haystacks,” Monet depicted haystacks in different lights and conditions, proving a long held theory of physics that no matter the external variables, a stack of haystacks will remain boring. Monet was known as a “lover of life,” so much so that he was often found making-out with carbon-based vegetation. Notice in the above painting “Downtown Buffalo, New York,” how the haystack on the right is larger than the haystack on the left, creating the “impression” that if you had to live in one of these haystacks, the one on the left would be more comfortable, but the one on the right will probably appreciate in value quicker.
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“Starry Night,” is often considered the legendary painter Van Gogh’s masterpiece, and why not. Just look at all those stars in the sky! I mean, you can really tell that he’s painting a night sky filled with stars as the title of the painting implies, and that’s so important in painting. Too often the title is something incomprehensible like “Red #7,” and then it’s like—uh, what the hell is this a painting of? Not so here. You can really see the night, indicated by dark colors, and the sky, indicated by the yellow things up in the upper part of the painting, which I have interpreted as stars. It’s open to interpretation of course, but I’d say the shapes below are meant to represent houses. Again, it’s a painting and there is no wrong answer when interpreting painting, but one can imagine that Van Gogh wanted us to look at this painting and say, “I can totally relate to this! I’ve been outside at night before too!” The one criticism is that it can be a little confusing to see where the sky ends and the ground begins and whether the landscape his mountains, or water or what. Some of the images aren’t exactly clear, but Van Gogh was probably busy so you can’t expect all the details to be right. When you consider he didn’t even have a computer, you realize how talented a painter he really was.
Apolgies, Corrections, & Regrets
Monday, July 27th, 2009Over the years, this blog has made some errors and misstatements. In the excitement and rush of putting out the high level of quality entertainment we strive for, we rarely get a chance to address and correct these errors. All of us at WIF would like to take the time to make the following corrections at this time:
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In the November 6, 1984 Blog Entry, “The Upset Kid Does It!” we mistakenly projected that Walter Mondale had won the presidential election over incumbent Ronald Regan. In fact, we spoke too soon as he lost in a landslide. WIF regrets the error.
Similarly, our follow up entry on September 13, 1986,“The Do Nothing President: Why Aren’t We Hearing More from President Mondale,” was pretty much entirely erroneous. WIF sincerely regrets the error.
In the December 12, 1988 blog entry, “Jarod Fogel is a Giant Ass,” we called 8th Grade Social Studies Instructor Jarod Fogel, among other things, an impotent ass-wipe, a Nazi sympathizer, a liar, a cheat, and a dog-humper. We, in fact, have no evidence that Mr. Fogel at any time expresses sympathetic feelings to Nazis. WIF really, really, truly regrets the error.
Our eight-part blog series running between October and November 1989 entitled “Welcoming the New Century: Why Flying Cars in 1993 is Definitely Going to Happen” made several minor to significant factual and predictive errors. WIF deeply, strongly, and passionately regrets the error.
In the April 2, 1995 blog entry entitled, “Yes, Canada is a Continent,” we mistakenly identified Canada as a subject people cared about. WIF is all but ready to jump off a tall building, so filled are we with regret for the error.
The November 6, 1997 blog entry entitled, “Hey Jeff Moldowsky, you Stupid Fu*king Polak, if you Fu*ck my Girlfriend One More Time I’m going to Fu*k your Fu*king Face!” erroneously implied that Jeff Moldowsky, my old next-door neighbor, was Polish. WIF feels pretty shitty about the error.
The March 1, 1999 blog entitled, “Why Putting Your Entire Portfolio in Dot.com Start-up Companies without Actual Business Models is a Sure-fire Way to Get Rich,” accidentally provided bankruptcy-inducing financial advice without the caveat that the entry was written by my 8-year-old autistic cousin. WIF pines with regret on moonless nights over the error.
The January 1, 2000 blog entitled, “Guess Whose Back? ” falsely implied that Walter Mondale was on the brink of a political comeback and poised to steal the White House away from newly elected president George Bush. While WIF stridently regrets the error, we also feel this wildly inaccurate fictional scenario would have been far less disastrous than the actual reality that unfolded. So our regret is, we should say, tempered.
The August 30, 2005 blog entry, “People We Like to Make Fun Of,” the last name of one Mary Buttface of 1424 SW North Dakota Street in Portland Oregon was misspelled. The correct spelling of her last name is in fact C-O-H-E-N and not B-U-T-T-F-A-C-E as was listed. WIF is filled with nauseous regret for the error.
The December 24, 2006 Blog Entry entitled, “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Clause,” was not only contained inaccurate information about supposed proof of Santa Clause’s existence, it was also a word-for-word plagiarism of Francis Pharcellus Church’s 1897 editorial by the same name. WIF stings with a regret so deep, it radiates out of our intestines.
Finally, the January 15, 2009 blog entry entitled, “3rd Times a Charm: Why This Time Walter Mondale is The Answer,” was just really stupid. Regret is to weak a word to capture the emotion we feel.
If you find an error in the content of this blog, please feel free to e-mail it to brian.diamond@whatisfunny.net. Thank you.
Wipeout: Most. Efficient. TV Program. Ever.
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
The show Wipeout on ABC may be the first television show in the history of television in which the title can serve as the concept, pitch, and synopsis for the entire show. If someone were to ask, “What is the show Wipeout about?” they would have inadvertently answered their own question. The show is so simple, that watching 5 minutes of it the other day is enough for me to fully understand what the show is about and why it is (apparently) popular.
First, Wipeout is a testament to American efficiency and impatience. I find its parallel in Pixie Stix from the candy world. Pixie Stix is basically the acknowledgment that what kids really like in candy is sugar, so why
waste time and effort on the complicated artifices through which the sugar is delivered (i.e., the candy) when you can just dump a bunch of colored sugar in a paper wrapper and call it a day? Why suffer through the tedium of chewing and processing through non-sugar foodstuffs just to get to what you really want?
Wipeout works from the same premise. For centuries, humankind has invented complicated systems to produce the desired effect of being able to watch grown men and women horribly injure themselves. The Greeks had their athletes run around buck-naked, covered in oil (and mostly drunk), all in the hopes that a few might crash into each other and then land in uncomfortable positions. In modern times, we’ve created sports wherein really athletic people moving at full speed, run (or skate, or jump, or drive, or whatever) toward each other in ways that are sure to, eventually, produce ligament-busting, career ending, collisions.
But really, it’s a whole bunch of pomp and circumstance for very little payoff. Even a football game produces only a handful of concussion-inducing collisions or nauseous bone snaps. In Boxing or even MMA, the fighters spend sooooooo much time avoiding getting hit—it’s really a waste of everyone’s time.
Wipeout, like Pixie Stix, cuts out the facade. The point of Wipeout, purportedly, is to run through an obstacle course, but I’m pretty sure it’s actually impossible to do. I
don’t even know if there is eve a prize for the person who finishes. I don’t know if anyone ever has finished. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. The show is literally 30 minutes of people falling down and hurting themselves. It’s the Holy Grail, what previous shows like Americas Funniest Home Videos aspired to, but could never achieve because inevitably, there was that video of a kitten playing the piano that came between the man being whacked in the face with a 3 Wood and the woman burning her face in a waffle iron.
Wipeout is just people getting smacked in the face with waffle irons over and over until it’s finally over.
I think the next step in the show’s evolution is obvious. Right now, there still is a lot of time wasted where the contestants don’t wipeout. Sometimes, through some loop-hole in the laws of physics, they manage to run over the inflatable bridge, that is only being supported by a single wisp of air, without falling into the reservoir of raw sewage below. This, clearly, is wasted time.
I suggest Wipeout 2.0, in which contestants are, one by one, pushed off a 500 foot ledge where they fall, bouncing off inflatable protrusions on the way down, sort of like a helpless pinball in a pinball game. When they reach the bottom, they get their prize—the chance to compete in Super Wipeout 2.0, which is basically the same as Wipeout 2.0 but this time when they get to the bottom there are also crotch-biting crocodiles.
Even if ABC won’t buy it, I’m sure Fox will be interested.
Friday Links
Friday, July 17th, 2009There has been some grumbling that not much funny went on this last week. Some are even dubbing it the least funny week in human history (uh, ever heard of the week of October 4, 1671?). Still, the show must go on. Here is your one-stop-shop for what’s interesting on the web this last week:
Senator Jeff Sessions Smokes Crack?
(it would explain a lot)
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Ben Schwartz Interviews Natsia Liukin
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If Only the Sotomayor Hearings Could be Like This
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(I always thought, “Jon Gets Chlamydia, Boy do Mondays Suck” would have been a provocative one)
Adverbed!
Thursday, July 16th, 2009It’s time for another addition of Adverbed!, where we take boring news stories, and make them fun and exciting with the addition of a few, carefully considered Adverbs (as well as other adjectives and modifiers).
This week we take on the (YAWN!), Sotomayor Supreme Court confirmation hearings, which are about as dry as Jon Cleese at an Oscar Wilde convention. That is, they were that dry…until now! (added language in BOLD).
The following are excerpts from the official transcript for the Sotamayor confirmation hearing:
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“You said that, quote, you would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would reach wise decisions. … So tell us, you’ve heard all of these charges and countercharges, the wise Latina and on and on. Here’s your chance. You tell us — you tell us what’s going on here, Judge?” asked Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt lustily.
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“I think it’s consistent in the comments I’ve quoted to you and your previous statements that you do believe that your backgrounds will accept — affect the result in cases, and that’s troubling me. Don’t you think that is not consistent with your statement, that you believe your role as a judge is to serve the larger interest of impartial justice?” offered Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala douche-bagedly.
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“As you know, judge, the landmark case of Griswold v. Connecticut guarantees that there is a fundamental constitutional right to privacy as it applies to contraception. Do you agree with that? In your opinion, is that settled law?” probed Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis, fisting a ham and pastrami sandwich nostalgically.
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“If a holding in the Supreme Court means it is settled, do you believe that — that Gonzales v. Carhart, upholding the partial-birth abortion ban, is settled law?” quizzed Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah anti-semiticly.
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Does the Constitution authorize the president to not follow parts of laws duly passed by the Congress that he is willing to sign that he believes are an unconstitutional infringement on executive authority?” mused Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif giggling impishly.
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“Do you believe that the Supreme Court overstepped their constitutional authorities when they went beyond the words of the Constitution, in other words, to the word purpose, and thus expanded the ability of government to take an individual’s private property?” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked fondling himself despondently.
The E-Mail Bag
Thursday, July 9th, 2009From the e-mail bag, this question comes from Uri in Wichita Falls, Kansas:
Hey–since you used to work in advertising, do you have a favorite ad right now?
Good question. While it’s always subject to change, right now my hands down favorite ad on TV is what I’m calling the YAZ APOLOGY AD. This ad is basically a ‘WHOOPS, WE SCREWED UP WITH THE FDA IN OUR LAST AD, so now we have to run this one to make up for the damage we’ve done.’ To see why it’s great, let’s just go through our hand-dandy advertising review checklist:
Hilarious back story? CHECK
All great ads have a funny back story, and you don’t have to be an advertising expert to see this one. Woops—someone forgot to run that hip, cool new birth control ad we just launched with a $100 million TV campaign by the legal department and now the FDA is going to make us spend another $100 million to apologize for all the shit we got wrong. Ha, ha, ha, ha!
I wonder how many interns were sacrificed to the client in the making of this ad?
Unnecessary branding? CHECK
Yaz is so excited about branding, they even keep their apology ads on message. But why do you even have to create a brand image for birth control? I admit I’m not the definitive expert on what women are looking for in their birth control pill, but I’d guess the most important factors are:
- Will this allow me to have sex without getting pregnant (this is pretty important)
- Does it have horrible side effects like skin lesions, mood swings, and sensory hallucinations?
- Is it covered by insurance
I’m not sure things like “this pill really reflects my cool, outgoing lifestyle” are going to move too many consumers. If I were writing the campaign, it would be something like, “Hey, do you like having sex but not getting pregnant? Try Yaz! It’s birth control and it might even do other cool things too like clear up your skin. But what it’s really good at is getting you not pregnant. If that’s what you want, try Yaz. Yaz. Yaz. Yaz. Yaz. Yaz.” The ad would just be me reading this over the Yaz logo. Totlal production cost: $113.
Nonsensical Image/Copy Relationship? CHECK
Your words may say there are differences between PMS and PMMD but your body language says le’ts do it in the woman’s rest room. You know how I like it baby–without bloating, irritability, and possible liver hemorrhaging.
Absurd Tagline? CHECK
The Yaz tagline sums up everything great about this ad: Beyond Birth Control. What the hell is beyond birth control? You know what’s beyond birth control–having a baby. That’s what happens when you go beyond birth control. How about just, Birth Control. Yaz. It’s Birth Control. There you go, mission accomplished.
Use of Talking Animals? NEGATIVE
The only thing between this ad and true ad greatness would be talking animals, or maybe puppets or something. Oh well, I’m sure they made a mistake in the apology ad that they soon can apologize for.
FINAL THOUGHT: How do you feel having your birth control handled by a company that can’t produce :30 seconds of content without making a mistake? Isn’t not making a mistake a pretty fundamental componenet of birth control?
ADDITIONAL FINAL THOUGHT: If you go to the YAZ WEBSITE, you get a sense of how the Yaz brand promise changes by country. Click on the US as your country and you get the hip, urban, woman about the town campaing. Click on the Netherlands and you get what looks to be a normal, medical looking web site. Click on Asia and you get–I don’t know–true love in spring?