The China Syndrome is on TCM right now, and in one scene these evil company goons drive this guy Hector off a cliff in his car when he’s trying to deliver some incriminating film to a meeting about the safety of a nuclear power plant. Well, Hector’s driving some Vega or Maverick or something: some American car from the period. And I was thinking it would make a fun ad if he were driving a Volvo, seeing as how safe they’re advertised to be.
So in this joke/proposed ad based upon The China Syndrome, these goons in the van would try to run Hector off the road, and off a cliff, etc., attempting to stop him from delivering the incriminating film about the nuclear power plant being unsafe, but no matter what they try, he’s fine, because he’s driving a Volvo. So the van full of goons goes off the cliff itself and explodes because it cannot wreck the Volvo, and then all these other vehicles start chasing Hector to try to wreck him so he can’t deliver the incriminating film. But no matter what they try: cars, vans, trucks, bulldozers, they can’t stop Hector, because Volvos are so safe. So it ends up being some huge cartoonish smash-up derby of mayhem all around Hector while he drives, and all the vehicles trying to wreck him end up destroyed, and he and his Volvo make it to the public meeting and they show the film. Meanwhile, the bad guy who sent all the goons to wreck Hector is on the phone with his henchman, and he’s yelling at him about how badly they failed, and how could one car escape all that carnage, and the henchman says: “But chief, you didn’t tell us he was driving a Volvo. You know how safe those cars are!” And so the bad guys are exposed, etc., and all the Jane Fondas of the world are ecstatic, and the announcer says: “We can’t promise you nuclear energy is safe. But we can promise you a Volvo is safe.”
