Panda Cab British Royals Ad

A new commercial for Panda Cab is getting some heat (and some cheers as well) for doing a send-up of the Royal family. It basically makes them look silly, and mostly makes fun of them all around. From what I’ve read, plenty of people are expressing outrage or at least wagging their fingers for poor taste here, but I really think the commercial is just skewering the Royals for fun, and because they are so well-known. (Although I wouldn’t make that ad for a cab service in London; but then again, it’s not my cab company.) And after the Opium Wars and colonization, who can blame the Chinese for wanting to jab at the Brits for a snide chuckle once in a while? (I think some of it is perhaps a bit below the belt, but I really do think it’s meant as a parody.)

But if the Brits want to get some ad hominem revenge for this spot, they could make a retort ad for Panda Cab that shows some Chinese Communist Party officials trying to flag a cab in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and they get run over by a tank or shot by their own troops instead. (Zing!) And then the ad could say: “If only there had been Panda Cabs there in 1989: Then those party officials could have safely oppressed their people at a distance!” (<Now that’s real poor taste!)

Here’s the sovereign-skewering spot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYwDESi8PGM

BTW: I think many people very much like the British Royals, especially Queen Elizabeth II and Kate Middleton. Full disclosure: I like them too (although not in a TMZesque way). I think they're wonderful ambassadors for England and the Commonwealth, and despite the charges of extravagance, Queen Elizabeth has spent most of her time flying all over the world for meetings and such, which can’t be so easy at her age, especially with all the time zones & jet lag and so forth. (But at least it gets her away from that English food! Maybe that’s why she really does it!)

Also, I’m not sure if this ad is intended for the Brit audience, or just for China. I'm not clear on this. If they’re trying to lure the English, then I would have to say it’s probably not going to work very well. They just had a huge jubilee for Queen Elizabeth, and everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. So I'd think that insulting the Royals might not be the best idea for an ad just now. But it might work well for the Chinese audience: who knows? And you have to figure that every bit of entertainment and/or advertising that comes out of China has got to be soaked through with anti-counter-revolutionary propaganda. Almost all of their movies seem to be soaked through with how corrupt the Chinese government was before the Communist revolution, and how greedy and immoral all foreign governments are (although, to be fair, China has very valid historical reasons for not trusting foreign governments).

Victory Motorcycles R. Lee Ermey Ad

Oh, so now drill sergeants are going to bully us into getting motorcycles, and call us all sissies if we don’t? Well, I never! I thought bullying was supposed to be wrong! (This scenario has me worried that Vincent D’Onofrio might do a drive-by on Ermey!)

Naturally I’m kidding here, as riding motorcycles is of course the one activity left to us all where bullying is in fact actively encouraged! So the next time you see a tough biker dude, be sure you call him a sissy or something. After all, the Supreme Court just upheld Obamacare, so you’ve all got great healthcare now, right? So when he kicks your ass eight ways to Sunday, you’ve got no worries: you’re covered!

But all jokes aside, a motorcycle company called “Victory”, using a military man in their ads? This suggests something else to me entirely, and I think it might be even better for general consumption. (This ad is great for veterans, but it seems to cater specifically to them, and not so much to the general public.) What they could do for a future ad is have Robert Duvall reprise his famous character from the great movie Apocalypse Now (or else R. Lee Ermey could portray him: Ermey would be great as this character as well), and he could be shown to be putting gas in his motorcycle (wearing a helmet that’s shaped like the hat he wears in the movie), and he could say to a fellow biker next to him: “I love that gasoline smell: It smells like Victory!” And then they could have the announcer say: “Victory Motorcycles: Riding one feels like Victory!” And they could end the spot with a bunch of bikers, led by Duvall, riding off to the triumphant strains of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”. (Wouldn’t that be a fun ad?)

Here’s the strong-arm spot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK0HFzbSrYg

BTW: If you’re not familiar with Robert Duvall from Apocalypse Now, this is the scene I’m referring to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBksHaTQCbU

Hitchcock’s English McGuffins

The packaging of Thomas’s English Muffins, with their “nooks and crannies” feature shout-out on the label, always made me think of a joke product called: “Hitchcock’s Knife-Split English McGuffins”* that would be filled with “crooks and grannies” (or “crooks and nannies”: Hitchcock’s early English movies always seemed to have so many criminals and old ladies and suspicious, sketchy servants). I don’t know why I always think of it, except that it rhymes (maybe that’s it).

* BTW: A McGuffin, MacGuffan, etc., is a thing that serves as a plot device, especially in Alfred Hitchcock movies. It's basically the thing that everybody wants, and so it makes the story move forward. In Notorious, the uranium samples, or whatever radioactive stuff it was supposed to be, is the McGuffin. And in Psycho, it's the stolen money (and I guess also the Janet Leigh character).

Meow Mix Tender Centers Meow Song Ad

“Meow Mix: Cats ask for it by name.” Such is the tagline for Meow Mix. But isn’t it more honest to say that Meow Mix is named Meow Mix so that they can spin this dubious claim? (They tricked me into believing them for so long! For years, whenever I fed a cat any other brand of cat food, I thought the cats were demanding I give them Meow Mix instead, and I felt my actions went unappreciated. It was never my decision what to feed cats as a child, and their constant dissatisfaction for their food might have crushed my self-confidence for life, if not for those Morris commercials for Nine Lives cat food, which made it clear that cats are finicky about their food all the time anyway. So surely the grass was simply greener, and they would have asked for Friskies had they gotten Meow Mix. And that just goes to show you, it’s rude to always complain about what food people serve you. Cats ought to know this by now. Maybe this is why Americans prefer dogs to cats generally: because dogs always appreciate it when you feed them.)  Because, by their own logic, don’t cats also ask for Pur water filters by name? Or maybe both Pur and Meow Mix are made by the same company? That would make sense, what with them both trying to claim that cats only ever say “Meow” and “Pur” because they want their products. And water is what cats drink, so then they actively corner the market for cats’ food and drink with cat language names, so we’ll think of them, right? (And also so that it will appear as though cats are constantly requesting these products. It’s deviously brilliant!)

But it’s nice to see Meow Mix bring back that Meow song from my childhood. That tune (although very slightly altered) was known to all kids from my generation, and it’s nice to hear it pressed into service again for a new iteration of Meow Mix.

Will this company perhaps make an “Arf Mix” for dogs? Oh, but then dogs could joke that “Arf makes me barf!” So how about “Bark Mix”? Oh, but that sounds like a bunch of crumbled up tree bark, doesn’t it? And dogs never fall for eating that stuff, no matter how many times I try it. So, okay, how about “Bow Wow Mix”? They could say dogs all bow down to eat Bow Wow Mix, and after tasting it, they say: “Wow!” That one might work.

Here’s the crooning cats’ consumables commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00M7CojclWM

Fiat or Fiapt?

I saw a new Fiat 500 in a nice light moss green today, and it reminded me of something I keep hearing about Fiat. Every time anyone points out a Fiat, or mentions the car company Fiat, someone invariable says: "Fiat stands for 'Fix It Again, Tony'." I guess this must be their slogan or something, because everybody seems to know it so well. (<I'm kidding.) But you know, this saying might not reflect so badly on Fiat, so much as it could indicate something else entirely.

The statement: "Fix it again, Tony", is kind of rude, isn't it? I mean, they don't even say "please", so it ends up sounding like the person is simply ordering Tony to fix their car, doesn't it? (They probably don't even thank Tony when they pick up the car either, I'll bet!) Well, perhaps Tony doesn't enjoy being bossed around like that, so maybe he does an intentionally crappy job in "fixing" the car, so it breaks down a lot. And so maybe it's not shoddy construction, nor unreliability, so much as it's the fact that these cars tend to get driven around by people who are rude to their mechanics. Could that be it, and might that explain this expression in another way?

So, just to be on the safe side, whenever your Fiat breaks down, or requires service, try being extra polite to your auto mechanic, and be sure to say "please" and "thank you". You might find that the cars are pretty well-made and reliable after all. And just to encourage people to be polite to their auto mechanics (and hopefully get better service done on their cars, thus eliminating this stigma), perhaps Fiat would be smart to change their name to Fiapt, which could stand for: "Fix it again, please, Tony."

Or else, maybe you should just consider taking your car to a mechanic who is not named Tony. Perhaps if your mechanic has a different name, you won't have to ask for it to be fixed so much. (No offense, Tony! I'm sure you're doing your best!)

Shady Deals in Mexico

On NPR this morning, they were discussing the upcoming presidential election in Mexico, and they said one of the candidates is polling very well, despite his alleged participation in some "shady deals". But I really feel I must point out that you've got to do the shady deals in Mexico, because the sunny deals are way too hot there during the day. Besides, I always find it's much nicer to do deals in the shade anyway, drinking iced tea, sitting in a nice rocking chair, etc., and I don't see what's so wrong about that. If you're going to do your deals outside, especially in Mexico, it's nice to find some shade in which to conduct your business. After all, getting too much sun is what leads to skin cancer and stuff, so is NPR suggesting they'd rather see this presidential candidate get skin cancer or something?

Cubist Fruit Baskets

When I was in New York last month, I went to see some of the Impressionist and Cubist paintings at the Met and MoMA. I especially like the Impressionists and Cezanne, who sort of bridged the gap between Impressionism and Cubism, but some of the Cubist stuff looks pretty silly to me (although I do like it). And when you look at the works of these Cubist artists (and many Impressionists leading up to Cubism), there is an inordinate number of still-life paintings, unusually containing fruit. I also noticed that my parents get fruit baskets from Harry & David, I guess sent to them as a gift from someone. And this collision of these ridiculous-looking still-life fruit paintings and the idea of mail-order fruit baskets made me think of something silly.

Wouldn’t it be fun to have a company that would send Cubist fruit baskets, where the fruit would look exactly like the silly-looking fruit from the Picasso, Braque, Cezanne, etc., still-life paintings? They could call it: “Pablo & Georges’s Cubist Fruit Baskets: As Seen in Art Museums”, and the fruits would be all distorted-looking and silly. (With all the recent strides in genetic engineering, they must be able to do this sort of thing by now, right?) It’s the perfect gift for the art lover in your life!

(It’s truly amazing how many still-life paintings of fruit these guys painted. If they were painting what they were eating, then while their images may have been quite irregular, they themselves must have been very “regular” indeed!)

Here’s what your basket of fruit might look like when it arrived (Doesn’t it look delicious?):

http://www.kreegermuseum.org/images/collection_large/Picasso_SL-8.jpg

http://www.masterworksfineart.fr/inventory/picasso/original/picasso2339.jpg

http://www.artandperception.com/v01/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/braquefruitdsh.jpg

http://www.timetrips.co.uk/SL-Picasso-Still-Life-Baske.jpg

http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/still_life/gris/still_life_with_pears_and_grapes_on_a_table.jpg