Hammer Movies American Titles

We all know about Hammer Films and their fun, sometimes awesome and sometimes silly horror movies. But what some people don't know is that they had to alter their titles sometimes for the American market due to previous movies from Universal Pictures.

So Frankenstein became: "The Curse of Frankenstein"

And Dracula became: "The Horror of Dracula"

But since they had to do it, why didn't they have more fun with it? Like:

The Dastardly Deeds Done by Dracula

The Frightening Feats of Frankenstein

The Naughty Escapades of the Mummy

(Oh, you think I can't do an alliteration title with the Mummy? Okay, then how about: The Most Murderous Mutilations Made by the Mummy. How's that? Happy now?)

Cheeri-Os Knockoff Brands

Dreary-O’s

Bleary-O’s

Weary-O’s

Teary-O’s

Leery-O’s

Sneery-O’s

Feary-O’s
Curi-O’s

Samuel Goldwyn

I was watching TCM recently, and a movie produced by Samuel Goldwyn appeared upon my screen. It’s funny, because Samuel Goldwyn’s name was actually Sam Goldfish. I don’t know why, exactly, he changed it, but my guess is he felt that Goldfish, while a nice animal for children, isn’t the best name for a movie mogul. So he changed it to Goldwyn.

Why did he change it to Goldwyn? Well, it’s kind of an interesting story if you care about old movies, which most people don’t. But Sam Goldfish entered into a production company called Goldwyn with a family called Selwyn. And they came up with the name by merging their names into, that’s right: Goldwyn. And after this company dissolved, like most of his did (reportedly he was hard to get along with), he decided that Goldwyn sounded better than Goldfish, so he legally changed his name to Goldwyn.

Well, that appropriation did not sit well with the Selwyns, and so they sued him. I would love to have been there to see that case argued in court. He stole the last three letters of our name! Well, can you still use them? Yes, but these are the three most important letters in the alphabet to us, and he’s disgracing them! So, then, nobody should be able to use the letters W, Y, or N without your approval? Exactly! Okay, case dismissed.

But they didn’t have to sue him to hurt him: all they had to do was wait and watch him do it to himself. Samuel Goldwyn got kicked out of pretty much every company he co-founded, mostly because people didn’t like him. Goldwyn was a silent movie production company, and he got kicked out of that. Then, he co-founded MGM (The G stands for Goldwyn, or Goldfish, if you prefer), and he got shut out of that company too (and they even kept his brainchild of the lion logo at the beginning of every movie!).

So, finally, Sam Goldfish, um, I mean, Goldwyn, struck out on his own, and he produced some of the greatest movies ever made. No, really. He was still a jerk everyone hated, but once he had his own company he couldn’t get kicked out of, he made good.

So I guess the lesson here is: Trust no one, never work with other people because they will stab you in the back every time, and start your own business! (Entrepreneurs rule, man!) And with YouTube, everyone can! And if they can’t make a decent movie, there’s always YouPorn, I guess…

It’s Always Something…

I read Gene Wilder died today. He was so amazingly funny. And I would say I’m sorry he’s gone, only the love of his life, Gilda Radner, died so young, and he always seemed so sad after that. Maybe he can be with her now?

Yeah, Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner: their comedy stuff was so amazing! Only you can’t watch it unless you buy it. I tried to look up Gilda’s famous: “It’s always something!” but I’m not allowed to see it. Most people don’t even know who she is anymore, but still, if you want to see her stuff: you have to PAY!

I have an idea: How about when some comedy legend dies, everyone gets to see their stuff for free for a day just so everyone remembers who they were. But most people might not know for a few days, so how about a week? Like we couldn’t see that on TV for free?

I seriously do not understand the miser attitude of content owners sometimes. Yes, let’s hoard all the content nobody knows about! We’ll make so much money once everyone has completely forgotten!

Pirated stuff on YouTube at least makes us remember things we’d like to own, or else makes it so people can see something for the first time when it’s totally unavailable otherwise. But cool: let’s kill content people want to see and sue everyone who likes it. They deserve it for trying to share what they love with other people.

Most of us can see Gene Wilder’s stuff, but it’s a lot harder to see Gilda Radner’s stuff. They were equally talented, so why isn’t it equally easy to see it?

Here’s the story about Gene Wilder’s death (But I would prefer to think of him being killed by some Young Frankenstein monster, or maybe someone like Mongo):

https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/remembering-gene-wilder-gilda-radners-000000404.html

(BTW: That thing she said as Rosanne Rosannadanna is so true, it's brilliant! There is always something about everyone that annoys everyone else. It is totally true, and so smart of her to point it out in such a funny way! I miss her fun outlook on life every day! And she died in 1989. That's not fair! We all lose when people like her die, but especially when they die so young. What a gyp!)

Mr. Clean Punk Band Ad

Wow, I never thought I’d see Mr. Clean in a skinhead punk band! I know I have joked about it before, but here he is! Sure, it’s not as badass as it ought to be, but we know what he really means!

Here’s Mr. Straight Edge Punk’s ad:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/Apyi/mr-clean-jingle

(I wonder if Mr. Clean is a Straight Edge Punk, or if he is secretly the singer of Skrewdriver. {Skrewdriver was some white supremacy skinhead punk band, I think.} No wonder why he wants everything bleached white! And he calls everything that isn’t white “dirt” and “grime”! {I knew it!})

Movie Theater Ramones Ad (Proposed)

There are lots of pre movie videos encouraging patrons to turn off their cell phones. Well, how about one featuring the Ramones’s song: “Loudmouth”?

The lyrics are:

Well you’re a loudmouth, baby,

You’d better shut it up,

I’m going to beat you up,

Well you’re a loudmouth babe…

And we could see someone talking on the phone during the movie, and the Ramones come off the screen and beat them up. (Or else other theater patrons beat up someone talking on the phone during the movie.)

(I see the movie theaters have taken my lead in ads like this to make them genre specific. Good idea.)

Here’s the great Ramones song: Loudmouth”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoOWot3efxY

Koch Clean Water Ad

This highfalutin spot for Koch Industries begins with some scientist saying: "Two-thirds of our planet is covered in it, so why do nearly 800 million people suffer from lack of clean water around the world?"

The sentiment of wanting to solve this problem is nice and all, but the thing he says at the beginning of the spot is not true. He says two-thirds of the world is covered in clean water: it's not. He says: "covered in it", and then he reveals later in the sentence that: "it" is clean water. But most of the water covering our planet isn't clean water: it's salt water.

They spent tons of money on this, I'll bet, and they didn't bother to correct this guy's quote? There's no excuse for that kind of mistake. It's a simple idea being expressed, and they still managed to mangle it with misleading and dishonest wording. Nice going, guys.

All he had to do was say: "Two-thirds of our planet is covered with water, so why can't we get clean water to the nearly 800 million people who currently need it?" Or maybe just say: "water" twice in the sentence ("Two-thirds of our planet is covered in water, so why can't we get water to the nearly 800 million people who currently need it?") and then go into the bit about cleaning the polluted or salt water.

Advertising is the most expensive form of video medium per second, and it has the least amount of dialogue of anything short of a Road Runner cartoon. So it's especially important to get what little text there is correct and accurate and succinct and everything, right? Otherwise, all that money is wasted. (I mean, the Koch Brothers have plenty of money to waste, but my guess is they'd rather not waste any anyway.)

Here's the polluted pitch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipQ0EEYpU2c

Am I being too nit-picky about this ad? Maybe so, but I don't think so.

When you only have a couple of sentences in a TV spot, the sentences should be word perfect. Ads like this cost a fortune, and with what's at stake for that cost, we really shouldn't have to give anyone the benefit of the doubt and say: "Well, he misspoke, but I think I know what he meant to say." They should just get it right, plain and simple.

Cat Treats Queen Ad (Proposed)

In this proposed ad for a brand of cat treats, we see a cat playing in various circumstances while we hear the chorus from the song: "Killer Queen" by Queen play, but with altered lyrics, like so:

She's a kitten, (We see a cute kitten walking up to its owner)
Cute softness, agility, (We see the owner pat the cat, then we cut to the cat walking on a thin windowsill)
Dynamite with a laser beam, (We see the cat chasing a laser pointer)
Guaranteed to blow your mind, (The cat jumps up into its owner's lap and nuzzles their nose)
Every time!

Then the cat's owner gives it some cat treats, and the announcer says: "She blows your mind, so give her something that will blow her mind too: (whatever brand of) cat treats!"

Here's "Killer Queen" by Queen (The part starting at about 0:28 is what I'm referring to):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E9TyGxxosk

(I take care of my sister's cats sometimes, and I always find myself singing songs with new cat-related lyrics to them, like the above altered song. Cats don't seem to understand singing, though.)

Also: Obviously the Dynamite with a Laser Beam line with a cat chasing a laser pointer would be the kicker here. I guarantee you everyone would laugh at that. If you doubt me, try it at home with a cell phone camera and that quote from the song. That will prove it.

Preparation H Welcome to Kiester Ad

Preparation H has a new tame double entendre spot featuring a woman on a bicycle talking all about all the things you'll find in Kiester, the town she's from, apparently. And if she's comfortable telling you all about what you'll find in Kiester, then you'll be comfortable finding Preparation H in your keister. Or that's the drift, anyway.

I think after this one, the only place left to go will be to have some normal wimpy man complain of hemorrhoids in a biker bar or a gym or something, and some huge threatening guy holds up a package of Preparation H to his face and says: "Shove it up your ass!"

Then the tagline is, obviously: "Preparation H: Shove it up your ass."

Maybe that can be the movie theater or internet commercial for this product you may also find in Kiester. Somehow I think people would remember that ad.

Here's the keister commercial:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/AGVy/preparation-h-welcome-to-kiester

(They spelled keister wrong, I'm guessing on purpose. Maybe it was so nobody could tell they were making a joke reference to a butt? But that's the whole point of the ad, so then why not just spell it correctly?)

Infiniti Q 60 Kit Harington Ad

Hey, what do you know? Infiniti has hired Game of Thrones heartthrob Kit Harington as their ad huckster.

You know, I think a competitor of Infiniti, such as Lexus or Cadillac, should hire Rose Leslie* as their ad personality, and she could say: "An Infiniti? You know nothing, Jon Snow!" And then she could showcase her company's car. (Or we could see her drive the whatever brand of luxury car competing with Infiniti, and then she simply says: "You know nothing, Jon Snow!" and we'd all know what she meant.)

Here's a longer version of the Infiniti Kit Harington spot I just saw on TV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTD3qJ95kkw

* Rose Leslie played Jon Snow's Wildling girlfriend Ygritte on Game of Thrones, and she liked to say: "You know nothing, Jon Snow."

You know, Infiniti could also use Rose Leslie, and her: "You know nothing, Jon Snow" could simply be in reference to her preferring a different model of Infiniti, like maybe an SUV full of her Wildling buddies, and with axes and spears all sticking out the windows and a battering ram hanging out the back.

And then Infiniti could get Emilia Clarke to be in an ad for a sport coupe, and we see her as Daenerys Targaryen flying on her dragon Drogon, and then through CGI we see her morph into Emilia Clarke's normal look as she drives in a black sport coupe, and then we cut to the back of the car, and as fire sprays out the tailpipes, the announcer says: "Ride the dragon: the new (whatever model of Infiniti)."

P&G Ashton Eaton Ad

Ashton Eaton won the Olympic Decathlon again. Amazing! And then NBC showed a P&G ad of him talking about his mother, and he said: “My strength came from watching my Mom. She’s put on a lot of good examples of putting herself before others.”

Putting herself before others? Is that what he meant to say? Shouldn’t the ad agency have caught that and said: “Um, is that what you meant to say?”

They really should have caught that and fixed it. Seriously. That’s on them, not on him. That’s their job, and they didn’t catch it. Oh, well…

I cannot seem to find this ad online. But it was on right after he won his second consecutive gold medal for the Decathlon in Rio on Thursday.

Olympics Shot Put Death Metal Ad

I’m not sure shot put is the biggest TV draw for the Olympics. But maybe an ad could change that? Here’s my suggestion:

We hear extreme death metal music, like, say Deicide, while we watch an American shot putter throw the shot put in competition, and the announcer says: “The Shot Put: It’s like 30 minutes of death metal energy condensed into three seconds!”

The music to go along with this video would be, let’s say, from Deicide’s first album, at around 0:48 on the attached video, where the singer screams: “Yeeeaaaggghhh!”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23P3J5ovxsc

Photo Finish Camera

What’s wrong with the photo finish camera? I think it’s stoned or something.

Seriously: Look at these pictures and tell me it’s not stoned (Is this what it looked like to you? I watched these races, and it looked normal to me.):

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/16/04/3746B8C600000578-3742587-image-a-119_1471317658816.jpg

I don’t remember Allyson Felix having those claws of death, or Shaunae Miller being Plasticwoman. Did I miss it?

Here are some other examples of the mind-bending quality of the angel dust smoking photo finish camera:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/img/8/7/3/i/1/2/1/p-large/Photo-finish-Usain-Bolt.jpg

https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/thisdayintech/2013/01/photofinish_500px.jpg

Seriously: If it’s not stoned, why doesn’t it look like a normal photograph? Because they want us to smoke angel dust too to see what they see? Is that what they want?

Energizer Batteries Speaking Truth to Power Ad (Proposed)

After a splash screen that says: “Speaking Truth to Power” we see the Energizer Bunny (or just an Energizer Battery) standing on a pedestal, and fans cheer it and yell things like: “You’re the best battery in the world!” and “You always last longer than anyone else!” and “You power amazes me!” and “You’re the most powerful of all time!”

(This idea could actually be turned into an Olympics ad by showing the Energizer winning the gold medal, and then the hero worship.)

(I keep making proposed {read: spec} ads for Energizer Batteries because in my experience they last way, way longer than any other brand. And this is after years and years of experience using them and other brands. Not that I wouldn’t make an ad for another brand of batteries, it’s just that I have found through independent testing that Energizers last the longest and work the best.)

(BTW: This concept would make a great ad for a power company. I will be really annoyed it this gets "borrowed" too for such a purpose. {All you have to do is contact me if you want to use one of my concepts, guys…})

Mercedes Michael Hastings (Joke?*) Ad

In this (Joke?*) ad for Mercedes, we see crash tests of Mercedes cars, and then the announcer says: “Mercedes: The safest car in the world!” Then we see the story about Michael Hastings’s Mercedes crashing on Highland in Hollywood, and the announcer says: “Unless you criticize the United States government. Then we cannot be held accountable for what happens to you. We’re just a car company, after all… We can’t protect you against those types of situations…”

(BTW: I probably shouldn’t say this, but it’s pretty obvious to me Michael Hastings was murdered. And I’m pretty disillusioned to say that had this happened during the Bush Administration, there would have been a lot more coverage and investigative journalism on the subject, possibly leading to the truth. He was a hero of the Left, but when he died during the Obama Administration: crickets. I live in LA near Highland: People don’t just die in ball-of-fire crashes on Highland. It just doesn’t happen. So I was shocked when the news people just accepted it, like they never accepted anything when Bush was President. I guess deaths only matter when Republicans are to blame? {See: Lybia, Syria, Post-War Iraq, Yazidis, Crimea, Ukraine, etc.})

And before I get branded as another “Repubtard”, I am not a Republican, nor am I a conservative. I’m just an American, an Indepenent, because both sides disgust me.

Here’s a story about Michael Hastings’s death:

http://nymag.com/news/features/michael-hastings-2013-11/

* His death is no joke to me; just the news response to it is. Maybe they're afraid they might be next? (Pussies? Partisans? Punks?)

Olympus “Recording Olympic Dreams Since 1932” Ad

This spot features clips from previous Olympics and some montage pieces all set to a great song about Olympic athletes’ motivations.

I think this ad is very effective, but I especially like this song. It’s very well done.

But I would have liked to see more women in it, actually: Alex Morgan, Missy Franklin, Misty May-Treanor & Kerri Walsh-Jennings, Allyson Felix.

(Yeah, I can see omitting Beach Volleyball: not a timed sport. But there's a golfer in there: a man.)

I know they made this before the games, so no Katie Ledecky. But hopefully she’ll be in it next time.

Here’s the sporty song spot:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/ADsG/omega-recording-olympic-dreams-since-1932

iPhone “Shot on iPhone” Mr. Snuffalupagus Joke Ad

In this joke ad for the movies you can make on your iPhone, Mr. Snuffalupagus tells us he decided to become a director. He calls his films: “Snuffy Films”. Then we see a bunch of Muppets being chopped up by an axe held by an off-camera trunk, and then Big Bird walks in frame and says: “Hi, Snuffy! Whatcha doing? Aaaaaaaaa! Snuffy, what have you done?” And then Mr. Snufflupagus’s trunk drops the axe and he says: “It’s a good thing no one but you can see me, or else I might get in big trouble for this. You can say you made all my Snuffy films, bird. It’s easy on an iPhone. See?” Mr. Snuffalupagus hands his iPhone to Big Bird. Then the Muppet Police show up and drag Big Bird away, and Mr. Snuffleupagus laughs and says: “So easy on an iPhone to make your own movies.”

(I think this would make a good Robot Chicken sketch.)

(The music behind this joke ad could be "Chainsaw" by the Ramones.)

Here’s an example of those “Shot on iPhone” Ads:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/AGvH/apple-iphone-shot-on-iphone-by-polo-s-song-by-jesse-rose-and-troz

Ramones Lucky Charms Ad?

Based upon “We’re a Happy Family” by the Ramones:

We’re a happy family,

We’re a happy family,

We’re a happy family,

Me, Mom & Daddy.

Eating cereal,

Everything’s surreal,

I’ve got lots of Lucky Charms,

I think I’m seeing leprechauns,

It’s got vitamins,

It’s delicious as sin,

It’s loved by all my kin,

Daddy digs in!

(And we see a rowdy family eating Lucky Charms, with Daddy digging in at the end.)

Here’s the song: “We’re a Happy Family” by the Ramones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQlM59sDJVo