Kenny MotherFucking Powers

I try to keep the profanity to a minimum on this blog because I figure I should challenge myself to think of better descriptions of what I dislike about ads instead of just swearing at them. That said, there was no other title one could give this post. I mean its about the awesome Kenny Powers' amazing new K-Swiss shoe ads which bring joy to all who are blessed enough to gaze upon them.  (Unfortunately there is not one in my subway stop. Instead I have an other Katherine Hiegl ad. It just went up, in that same spot right by my the entrance I use that I previously ranted about the terrible poster for her movie "The Killers" was in. I really hope this trend of her terrible movies being advertised in that same exact ad space doesn't continue.

I've been trying to ignore it, but I assume at some point in the next month it will annoy me so much that I will have a short angry post about it. so look forward to that. Or actually don't. I'm not looking forward to thinking about it any more than I have to. Maybe I'll just post a photo of it and instead of commentary I'll just post a video that can serve as a metaphor for my feelings. The guy in the movie Scanners sweating until his head explodes would be apt.)

This rapidly turned into angry rant so lets bring it on back home and get right down to topic at hand. The man, the myth, Kenny Fucking Powers. Here is the K-Swiss MTA ad and an awesome 4 minute K-Swiss ad were Kenny tells the K-Swiss executives his ideas for commercials starring him.

Kenny Powers Gets Signed By K-Swiss - watch more funny videos

How great are those ads? To quote my cousin Shawn, "Who wouldn't buy those 
stupidly ugly shoes with Kenny Fucking Powers as their spokenman?"

This actually brings up an important point. K-Swiss may be best known for making shitty over priced shoes for members of Yacht Clubs to play Jai alai in, but please everyone buy two pairs of these shoes in hopes that their success causes more companies to hire Kenny Powers as their spokesman.  

Footnote(s)

Video via WithLeather

Yay! Here is an Ad for Strippers!

This ad is much funnier if you don't know what product it is gonna be for when you start watching it. So I put it into tube chop since Youtube lists the title of videos at the top when you embed them. This is probably a little excessive but I figured if I'm gonna post this I might spend the extra minute so you can get the full effect.



As I am inclined to do when I want to discuss an ad without spoiling it. Here is a Bruma Shave ad to act as a buffer:

Join


Our happy


Brushless throng


Six million users


Can't be wrong

This is a cute promo, but obviously the reason it works so well if because the string dance has this element of recent history nostalgia attached to it. Conan went off the air on January 22nd, and with today being September 22nd, this means that sometime next week conan will have been off the air longer than he was host of the Tonight Show.  Admittedly 7 months isn't that long a time, but Conan after getting fired cause of dick moves by NBC and Leno, I really don't think its an exaggeration to say he has become a folk hero for folks under 30. Here is another ad that uses the same song and concept to promote Conan (the proletariat's late night host).



I don't have much to add in terms of Analyzing the above ad, its a clever concept and I like the angles they chose for the shots. Instead I'm gonna talk about the awesome beard conan has been rocking in the print ads and viral videos for the new show, because, well, beards are cool. (My concept of the criterion of cool is the original Brawny Paper Towel man.)

I hope he keeps the beard, or at least has it for the first episode and has Tom Selleck come and shave it down to a mustache for him on camera. I wrote that previous sentence hoping that I could follow it with a great old clip of Tom Selleck shaving off half of his mustache on "Late Night" but apparently that clip does not exist on the internet. I did find a random news article about it though so I proof I didn't dream this event.

So instead I with some Late Night clips, because I ended my last post with one and that post didn't even have anything to do with Conan.



I Can't find this one with the intro for some reason but here is a clip from when Conan used do a bit where they would pretend to use the NBC satellite dish to watch obscure TV channels. This clip is what was on the "Men Without Hats conversation Channel"



I probably could and should just stop after posting two reasonable length clips here, but instead I'm going to post the funniest 20 minutes ever to be on television. Here is Norm MacDonald on Conan from back in the 90's. (a 20 minute clip of Late Night with Conan O'Brien is the kind of cutting edge entertainment you won't find on other blogs about advertisements.)







Footnote(s):
First video found via WarmingGlow

Burma Shave ad text from the awesome Burma-Shave.org

Double Rainbow all the way!

So everyone on earth saw that double rainbow viral video back in July, except for me. I only became aware of the awesomeness that is a stoned (sounding) guy describing for the camera a rainbow with another rainbow on top if it a few weeks back when my co-worker Zena showed me both flavors of it. The original recipe, and the extra krispy  the Gregory  Brother's autotuned song version of it of it. I've been unable to get either out of my head since then.



They guy is awesome. He is so excited about that rainbow, and I'm so happy for him.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who didn't see this video until August, because someone at Microsoft apparently saw it a few weeks ago too, and then that person immediate filmed two commercials starring the famed Double Rainbow photographer and narrator, who is apparently name "Bear."

These commercials are okay,  but not amazing, the first is him pretty much Bear reenacting himself getting excited:


Its just what you would expect, but still cute.

The second is a pretty boring  1 minute and sixteen second long interview were bear talks about trees and Windows software. It really needs a lot more B-roll, one can only look at a guy talking about trees for so long, and this video is 1 minute and fifteen  seconds longer than that amount of time. I wouldn't really recommend watching this unless you forgot what a guy walking looks like.



These may not be the best commercials ever, but I'm writing about them because I'm genuinely happy for Bear. I bet doing these commercials is a lot more lucrative for than his previous careers of: guy who does drugs in the woods,**  andlooking like the "If they mated" answer for Willie Nelson and Horatio Sans.

BONUS ROUND!
This video is only tangentially related but I thought that the opportunity to post one of those classic Conan "If they mated" videos should not be passed by.

(I'm with Coco. and so is slash***)



footnote(s)
*I shouldn't be too hard on the guy. He made me so happy by being so excited for that rainbow, and he appears to be a nice person, even if the second video proves he is a terribly boring interview subject. (at least when not high)

**For legal reasons I should point out that I have no evidence that bear does drugs I just assume it. Look at or listening any single second of  Bear in any of the posted videos to discover why I hypothesized this theory.

*** If you haven't seen this about slash preforming on Jay Leno wearing an I'm with Coco Pin and the show's director almost never showing slash on camera in an effort to keep the TV viewers from seeing the pin you should check it out at Gawker.

Double Rainbow Microsoft ads discovered via URLesque, which is a site that, based on their name, likes to write "esque" at the end of things as much as I do (See: Michael Cera-esque earlier this week)
P.S. I'm obviously super pissed Conan got fired from Tonight Show but I really think TBS will let him relax and be his awesome funny self, which is something NBC never let him to do on in the 11:35 time slot.

Michael Cera Plain and Tall*

This video isn't as funny as I wish it were, but figured I was just complaining about Michael Cera so and this video was just created by LandlineTV today. So clearly they made it for me. Which was nice of them, so I figured should post it.

Its an advertisement for the Michael Cera school of acting. The idea of teaching people to act like that awkward mumblecore enthusiast is really funny and though I think the video could be tighter and vary the gags more I'd much rather watch a 2 minute ad for a fake Michael Cera acting school that have to watch 1 one minute of actual Michael Cera.**
Footnote(s)
*Title stolen from a commenter's name on filmdrunk.com Video found via Filmdrunk
** I'm not sure where my dislike of Michael Cera came from, maybe because he is the only person refusing to commit to the arrested development movie, dispite being one of least funny actors on the show. (He said he would might buy a shredder just to shred the script. Really)

Huge Disparity Between Coolness of Poster and Coolness of Actual Product

Here is the kickass poster for the Broadway play Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Everything about this poster makes it seem like the most hardcore thing to hit live theater since Evil Dead: the Musical.

Elements of  pure, 180 proof awesome which reside in this poster:
1. It has a central image which homages Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. album cover. Born in the U.S.A, mind you, was an album cover so cool that it caused almost everyone in America in 1984-including the entire Reagan Administration, who tried to license it for Reagan's reelection campaign-to assume the Springsteen's catchy but cynical and anti-establishment anthem was patriotic.

2. He is wearing a musket in a holster. Not only does this make the ad even more compelling from an aesthetic point of view, it reminds potential costumers who remember any of their 11th grade history that Andrew Jackson was the biggest badass to ever be allowed within the borders of D.C. let alone be allowed to run the country. This was a man who dueled people more often than he changed his shirt, who once purposely got shot in a duel so he would have more time to aim for a killshot while his opponent reloaded. A man whose stated one of his major goals during his presidency was to dissolve the national bank, and personally opposed paper money, but was put on the 20 dollar bill anyway. (He was put on it in 1928, replacing Grover Cleveland*, an action I can only explain through my theory that Andrew Jackson's ghost visited the head of the Treasury in 1927 and threatened to ghost-duel him to death if he didn't put Jackson's face on the denomination of bill that would be most widely used 70 years from that time due to its availability in ATMs.

3. The show is called "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" for god sakes, and the poster wisely displays this in a huge and impactful font**

The "History just got all sexypants" tag line is pretty dumb, but even if the rest of the poster was of puppies frolicking in a field, that would not be able to negate the badassery of the title and central image, all of which are aided by the fact that its a play about the President who shot the most people (Richard Nixon's post-resignation string of botched liquor store robberies excluded).

Its too bad they didn't let the guy who designed this poster write the entire musical. I just suffered through the soundtrack album stream over at this musical's official website, and its terrible.

Andrew Jackson's ghost is gonna duel the shit out of everyone involved in this musical. It portrays him as a whiny emo kid. Really this isn't an exaggeration. It is even in the plot description. The music from the entire play is in the genre of Panic! At the Disco style pop emo drivel. With Jackson screaming agnstily about how much he loves Populism. Wiki  says this is supposed to be a satire, so I reserved judgement until taking in all the material available on the show's official site, and can now safely say, whatever the intentions where, it comes across as a play trying to earnestly portray Andrew Jackson as angstfilled and and Michel Cera like.

Their seems to be an alarming trend recently toward wussifying our most Pirate-esque President. Drunk History (a web series from Will Ferrel's "Funny or Die" website) recently did a piece where they had Andrew Jackson as a conscientious objector and he was actually played by famed whiny emo douchebag Michael Cera.

Obviously the video's makers decided to use Cera to portray Jackson since the narrator trying to relay the story from memory (who is legitimately drunk) seems to think Andrew Jackson was like this, and they made a video of Cera in a costume acting like a wimp to continue the gag.

But I still don't cotton to people trying to Hipster-ify our most cantankerous of Presidents. Which is why I'm not posting any of the music from this play here, or the drunk history video where Michael Cera "acts" by having that same stupid expression he has in every movie he is in. Instead I will leave you with 30 seconds of Jon Stewart making stuff up about Andrew Jackson:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Intro - Old Hickory Andrew Jackson
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Footnote(s)

*This is neither here nor there but I rarely get to point out that Grover Cleveland is one of my favorite presidents, so I thought i would do so here. This for a myriad of reasons, but obviously partly because he shares his name with my favorite character from Sesame Street.

**Though not in the font Impact

Search: Posts dated "September 11th"

I haven't gone to bed yet so I was honestly a bit taken aback when I published my previous post and saw September 11th as the date for it.

I've never been in a position where something of mine, even something like this silly blog, was date stamped September 11th.

I figured I would be remiss if I just posted the "Inception A Capella remix" on this date without commenting briefly on the fact that it is Sept 11th, so hear it goes:

This is my stupid blog where I make dumb jokes about my love hate relationship with advertising and this would not be the place for serious reflections on a national tragedy even if I was eloquent enough to do this date justice.  So instead I will leave you with two pieces of news media I always try to remember to revisit every 9/11.

The first is touching and thoughtful*  piece written a few years ago by author and former head editor of the Philadelphia City Paper, Duane Swierczynski. Its called "World without a Superman" and I am not ashamed to admit I holding back tearing as I reread it right now.  Read it here.

The second is Jon Stewart's heartfelt and tear filled speech on the Daily Show from his first show back on the air after the events. It one of the most honest things I have ever watched.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
September 11, 2001
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Footnote(s)
*I realize "touching and thoughtful" is uber-cliche. I really which I could think of non-greeting card words for the occasions I'm trying to positively describe things, my vocabulary is better at thinking of ways to describe being angry at the Television that it is at sincerity.

http://citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/01/world-without-a-superman

Its takes a lot more work to think of jokes for posts about ads I actually enjoy.

Presenting: the trailer for Inception, with all of the video exactly the same, and all of the audio replaced by people making sound effects with their mouths. This includes the dialogue, which I actually find even funnier than the guys making sounds of the film's score.

(I know I could have made that sentence alot shorter by just saying A Capella, but I hate the term A Capella because it brings to mind every shitty College A Capella group ever. And College A Capella groups always consist of a bunch of guys with undecended testicles making stupid noises in background while a mediocre singer warbles out a rendition of a song you vaguely remember thinking was boring when you heard it while waiting in line at the Stop-n-Shop 6 years ago.

And where does "A Capella" get off being two words anyway? I've have to type the space bar seven extra times for this post to make that damned thing two words each time. And this is made difficult by the fact that I was born without thumbs, so every time i have to use my feet to hit the space between that A and that C its like a a chasm of mockery filled with a river of taunts gushing at me out of the computer monitor.)

That escalated quickly.

Anyway, here is the trailer, its awesome, its so good it will make you want to be a better person.* 




Footnote(s)
* I stole that line about watching something and it making me want to be a better person from either the blog FilmDrunk or WarmingGlow, I forget which. But I also first saw the trailer on film drunk so they deserve a double shout out.**

**Also as the rant immediately before it probably clued you into, I failed at being a better person and went right back to being cantankerous and lying about having no thumbs. both of which I'm pretty sure are mortal sins.

Wlad Vants Some Wodka

Here is a Times Square billboard for a vodka brand called Wodka Vodka.

The slogan is kind of cute and gets across the fact that it is cheap, but the reason I am bringing this ad to your attention is their awesome spokesmodel.
That guy looks like he is having more fun on that billboard than any man in the history of photograph based advertising.
The goofy grin, and 1970s cloths remind me of that hilarious "wild and crazy guys" sketch Dan Ackroyd and Steve Martin used to on Saturday Night Live, back when both those guys and all of that show were funny instead of painful and terrible.
It may be just me but, I would really want to have a drink with those guys, so the idea of an Eastern European of the same mold being the pitchman for vodka makes me inclined to try the band.
I think this ad works best if you picture that guy walking in the door at a party. As soon as you see him with that goofy grin, holding those bottles so excitedly, you know he is there to have a good time, and that no matter how much fun you already thougt you were having, your is now going to be so fun that you will start pronouncing all the "v"s in the words you say as "w"s.
So basically this is a russian and 1970s themed ad for one of my favorite types of alcohol.
The only way this ad could contain more things i dig is if it somehow found a way to incorporate Aquaman and Groucho Marx.
Or if the text next to him simply read: "the wodka of choice for wild and crazy guys."