Maybe. But the real question is can I fuck them?

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising comic books food mandms news

Say hello to this year's post-Thanksgiving yard sign, Speedy Alka-Seltzer:

Speedy Alka-Seltzer was a 1950s advertising character. I don't know how many people will recognize him today. (The original Speedy was a stop-motion stick puppet, but this painting is based on a 3-foot talking doll made for mid-century promotion in pharmacies. You might have seen a surviving model on Antiques Roadshow.)

Mom was enthusiastic — it was actually her idea — so he'll be out by the mailbox for at least the next week reminding people not to party too hardy.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising alka-seltzer art diy yard signs

May I present this year's Thanksgiving yard sign, Poppin' Fresh (aka the Pillsbury Doughboy):

For reference for this piece, I bought a Pillsbury™ Moist Supreme® Chocolate Premium Cake Mix. I'm typically a make-it-from-scratch cake guy, but I have to admit, it paired quite well with Pillsbury™ Creamy Supreme® White Frosting.

Hoo Hoo!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising art cake diy doughboy food yard signs

If any commercial could get me to start drinking beer....

For those of you who don't watch the right kinds of television, I created that advertisement from footage of the 1978 The Incredible Hulk television show episode "A Child in Need," in which the Hulk solves a case of child abuse by beating the shit out of the child abuser. Violence is always the answer!

By the way, the title of that video, "Flagler Hits the Spot," was suggested by my mother. So blame her.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising family flagler beer hulk mom television youtube

A pipe burst under the kitchen sink last night. Waiting for the kitchen cabinet to dry out, I'll pass the time typing some movie reviews.

93. (1952.) The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
Every list of 70s great crime films includes Eddie Coyle, and I now understand why. It's ugly, but that ugliness feels realistic, almost like a documentary. Definitely among the best performances of Robert Mitchum's career.

94. (1953.) Remember My Name (1978)
The protagonist is so mysterious, I had to watch the first half of this movie twice to see if I wasn't missing something. I wasn't. It's intentional. The protagonist might be a very bad person, and the film protects her (and the audience) by sharing details very, very slowly. I'm still not sure I liked it, but it is something different.

95. (1954.) Grand Prix (1966)
Is "race procedural" a genre? If so, this qualifies. We follow several racers and their lovers through a season of a sport so thrilling and yet so dangerous, participating is practically suicide. On second thought, maybe this is a drug movie; that is definitely a genre.

Quick, before you die, Drink Coke!

By the way, Coca-Cola appears to have been a sponsor of the real life car racing that is the background in this stylish film, so Grand Prix is filled to the brim with Coca-Cola advertising. I actually had a hard time deciding which screenshot to show. So if you do decide to watch this 3 hour epic, I recommend having a couple of Cokes within easy reach. Watching death on wheels really builds up a thirst!

Here are a few more screencaps featuring some non-traditional Coke logos and the movie's human stars (none of whom actually drink a Coke at any point):

96. (1955.) Bandido! (1956)
More Mitchum, this time as an American arms dealer during the Mexican Revolution who falls for a rival's wife. It's not nearly as good as it could have been, in part because the sudden romance angle felt so unnatural to Mitchum's amoral rogue. Oh, well. They can't all be hits.

97. (1956.) San Francisco (1936)
I can't tell you how many times this has come on TCM and I've said to myself, "I should watch that." You see, I knew it was supposed to have impressive earthquake special effects, and I can now attest that it does. The rest of the plot, however, is worthless. But at least I have finally watched it and from now on can ignore it with a clear conscience.

More to come.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coke movies

Ah! I remembered what I forgot on Thursday!

I was going to mention that I have now eaten at Wishbone Fried Chicken.

That might seem like a strange thing to say in 2021, considering that the Wishbone Fried Chicken franchise went defunct decades ago.

"Captain Wishbone" advertisement appearing The Red and Black, November 13, 1969

Wishbone Fried Chicken was founded in 1960 by Atlantic Company, formerly Atlantic Ice and Coal Co. which had been created from a merger of three other companies in 1903 by one Ernest Woodruff, the man who bought Coca-Cola from Asa Candler. After a series of more mergers and name changes, Atlantic Jackson-Atlantic Munford Inc. — ultimately re-named by CEO Dillard Munford in honor of the company president, Dillard Munford — had as many as 102 Wishbone locations being run out of Atlanta in 1971, some of which were located inside Munford's own Majik Market convenience stores. (Franchisee solicitations claim there were 57 total Wishbones franchisees in 8 states in 1973.) After selling out to corporate raiders in 1988, Munford (the company, not the man) was declared bankrupt in 1990, and its assets were liquidated or shuttered. The refrigeration company was spun-off to become Americold, which still exists. Wishbone Fried Chicken doesn't.

But the location just a block off the court square in Newnan, Georgia, on the same lot it has occupied since 1970, perseveres with its original signage and franchise signature triangular potato cakes in pecks and barrels. The store has a rabid local following which always intimidated me, though I can now understand why its fans are so committed. They serve some pretty darn good fried chicken, even if "un-greasy" is not exactly how I would describe it.

Comments (1) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising food georgia history newnan wishbone

There's a new commercial in which an animated child holds up a piece of cereal and says, "I wonder where Froot Loopsâ„¢ come from." Then the camera pulls back to reveal Toucan Sam perching on the top of a box.

I don't think this commercial is selling what Kellogg's® thinks it's selling. I've spent too many hours birdwatching not to know what you'll find under a bird's perch.

Follow Your Nose to Froot Loops World (2021), youtube.com

Think I'm reading too much into this? Then why have the animators included a giant prolapsed asshole at the top of the screen?

No breakfast for me today. Or maybe ever again.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising cereal youtube

I think all commercials should be like perfume/cologne commercials.

I want to see a movie star digging holes in the desert to sell me the invigorating fragrance of Charmin Flushable Wipesâ„¢.

I want to see a model riding a unicorn across the Seine to hold up a magical box of Hefty® Ultra Strong Drawstring Kitchen Trash Bags.

I want to see a rock star BASE diving off the Empire State Building to showcase the ethereal sensation of eating Campbell's® 25% Less Sodium Cream of Mushroom Soup.

Sell me a feeling this Christmas, Madison Avenue. I've already got plenty of stuff.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising television

It's election season, and the television is flooded with campaign ads.

I have repeatedly seen an advertisement for Kelley Loeffler's reelection campaign for her U.S. Senate seat in which a young black man extols her virtues not as an embarrassingly rich owner of a sports franchise and a stock exchange but as someone sympathetic to those less fortunate than her. Yet her supporter mispronounces her name throughout the whole commercial. (He says "loff-ler", yet she appears at the end of the commercial pronouncing her own name "leff-ler," almost like she is passive-aggressively correcting him after the fact.) Why would the Loeffler campaign air that? Could they not find a single person who could praise her who actually knew who she was?

Another advertisement for current president Donald Trump's reelection campaign claims that if former vice president Joe Biden wins the election, the United States will go to shit. What condition are we in now? Uncontrolled pandemic, record unemployment, race riots, oh, my! If this shit show is the current administration's idea of greatness, I'll take anyone else, please.

I suppose it's some small comfort that Marjorie Greene isn't adverting over the air in the Metro Atlanta market in her run for the state House of Representatives. Greene has become infamous as a candidate so openly racist that state Republicans have widely disavowed her, which takes some doing considering that the current Republican governor ran on a platform of successfully befouling state citizens' ability to vote. Even Facebook has said Greene has gone too far in her most recent gun-toting ads. When you're too far afield for Facebook, it's time to stop auditioning for a government seat and start looking into some professional mental help.

That said, there's nothing new to watch between those campaign commercials anyway, so maybe I should just leave my television off until December. Being too aware of who's making the decisions that impact my life is bad for my own mental health.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising politics rant television trumps america

The Hollywood Reporter reports the totally inevitable news that Disney is remaking Bambi as a "live-action feature" as a "companion piece to its remakes The Jungle Book and The Lion King." I can't tell you how much it bothers me that Disney insists on calling its computer-generated eye-candy "live-action." I also can't tell you exactly why.

A large part of it must be related to my distaste for Disney itself. I once had a great deal of respect for the company that Walt built on the back of an animated mouse. Mr. Disney was an imperfect man, but he really did believe in making disposable entertainment into art. His successors less so. These days, the powers-that-be at Disney are obsessed solely in their quest to be the only entertainment company on earth. They'll do anything that gets them an extra almighty dollar, mostly including exploiting pre-packaged nostalgia for Walt's corpse.

However, a bigger problem is the lie itself. Computers are powerful, but outside of Weird Science, they remain incapable of breathing life into binary code. Nothing about The Lion King was live action, but Disney has been very careful to avoid saying so. (For example, they refused to submit the movie for consideration for Best Animated Feature Film Oscar.) I don't know why. Movies aren't real to begin with, so why mislead people about how they are made?

It increasingly looks like we're living in a post-truth society. The man in the White House can't say two sentences without a lie. Facebook will not restrict political campaigns from spreading intentional, demonstrable mistruths in paid advertising. Enemy states are using face-switching technology to promote propaganda on social media. With politicians already doing such a great job at it, why should we let corporations continue to degrade America's tenuous grasp on "reality" any further?

Sigh. I know I'm over-reacting. It's just promotional press for a movie that I won't watch. (Unless they shoot Bambi this time.) I know I'm just getting old and weary. But these uncontested, re-reported lies are really starting to get to me. It feels like 1984 is getting closer ever day, and now it's coming soon to a theater near you.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: disney great deer uprising of 2010 movies rant trumps america walter