Sunday, February 04, 2007
How not to waste an opportunity.
Talk about specialty shops!
I know this is going to be a bit of a rant but, now that I’m pretty sure no one really reads this blog, I think I’ll just let ‘er rip.
This all started with a television commercial that really grinds my gears. Every time I see it I feel obligated to point out how stupid it is. And, quite honestly, it’s beginning to wear on the people around me. So one last time in mind numbing detail:
The commercial involves two guys having a comical squabble about the words of a song. One guy is clearly wrong and the other guy basically tells him he’s an idiot. Not a bad start. The problem is that they picked the title of a song to screw up. No one screws up titles. Especially a title that is repeated in the chorus of the song at least fifteen times.
The reason this bugs me is because I know how stuff like this gets decided. And I know the second you start to analyze a joke is when you start to lose the joke. Joke sharpening is a serious business and shouldn’t be attempted by amateurs. If you don’t know what you are doing you could kill the joke. Would you want a thing like that on your hands?
Or in more basic terms:
One guy comes up with, what they think is a clever idea, then everyone along the line shits on it until it has no personality.
To use our example, our clever ad guy gets the bright idea to exploit a mediocre gag that he once saw in a movie. He remembered a song that he used to sing along with when he was nine. In this case the song was “Brand New Me” by The Partridge Family. The line that confused him wasn’t particularly funny to anyone but him. He thought the song said, “How did he know that you were sure to love me today, baby.” But the real words turned out to be, “How did he know that you would show up to love each day, baby.”
Oh, how he must have chuckled when he discovered that he had it wrong.
The guys at the agency tell him that you can’t have two guys go around arguing about Partridge Family lyrics. After all who gives a shit about that demographic?
So they tell him to make it hipper. And to these poor schlubs, hip is still The Clash. So he decides to use one of their songs. He goes to the web and finds out which of their songs is most popular. After all, who knows any of the words to White Riot?
Upon examining the lyrics to the Clash’s most popular song he decides that all the lyrics would be a mystery to most people. So he goes for the hook. In the case of “Rock the Casbah” the hook is the line “Rock the Casbah”.
The next problem is, how are they going to get to the point of arguing over the lyrics? No one plays music out loud unless they are working on their computers or they’re in their car. But they have to have this argument outside (one of the ad guys say) OK so let’s have them listening to the same MP3, somehow. OK so put a little speaker on it. So now these two guys are sharing a small speaker MP3 player going somewhere on foot mistaking the words to the only part of a twenty-something-year-old song that everyone knows the words to.
My point?
What the hell were they selling?
Would the commercial have been more effective if they had stuck with “Brand New Me”?
Where were these two freaks going with their tiny speakered MP3 player?
This is rhetorical stuff, in case you were wondering. There’s no need for an answer. (By the way, congratulations for getting this far in my pointless rant.)
The point of this (pointless) rant is; this is a lazy bit. The idea might have worked, but was molded by people who exploited the lowest common denominator in order to appeal to the largest group of people to make their comedy decision. This isn’t an uncommon practice. If you need an example of lazy bits, just turn on the TV or go to the movies. You won’t have to wait long.
But, success in the funny business is the exact opposite of that type of thinking. And don’t think that going the other way and picking the craziest shit is going to work either. (Unless you’re one of the boys from Monty Python and this is 1971) The test of a good gag is this: did anyone laugh?
Also, people should know that there is a big difference between funny and clever.
You should also know that funny has a shorter shelf life.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m sure this commercial appeals to a lot of people. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this commercial probably appeals to a majority of people. Good work there, boys. You’ve earned the tons of money you make for doing this sort of thing.
But seriously, what the hell were you guys selling?
I know this is going to be a bit of a rant but, now that I’m pretty sure no one really reads this blog, I think I’ll just let ‘er rip.
This all started with a television commercial that really grinds my gears. Every time I see it I feel obligated to point out how stupid it is. And, quite honestly, it’s beginning to wear on the people around me. So one last time in mind numbing detail:
The commercial involves two guys having a comical squabble about the words of a song. One guy is clearly wrong and the other guy basically tells him he’s an idiot. Not a bad start. The problem is that they picked the title of a song to screw up. No one screws up titles. Especially a title that is repeated in the chorus of the song at least fifteen times.
The reason this bugs me is because I know how stuff like this gets decided. And I know the second you start to analyze a joke is when you start to lose the joke. Joke sharpening is a serious business and shouldn’t be attempted by amateurs. If you don’t know what you are doing you could kill the joke. Would you want a thing like that on your hands?
Or in more basic terms:
One guy comes up with, what they think is a clever idea, then everyone along the line shits on it until it has no personality.
To use our example, our clever ad guy gets the bright idea to exploit a mediocre gag that he once saw in a movie. He remembered a song that he used to sing along with when he was nine. In this case the song was “Brand New Me” by The Partridge Family. The line that confused him wasn’t particularly funny to anyone but him. He thought the song said, “How did he know that you were sure to love me today, baby.” But the real words turned out to be, “How did he know that you would show up to love each day, baby.”
Oh, how he must have chuckled when he discovered that he had it wrong.
The guys at the agency tell him that you can’t have two guys go around arguing about Partridge Family lyrics. After all who gives a shit about that demographic?
So they tell him to make it hipper. And to these poor schlubs, hip is still The Clash. So he decides to use one of their songs. He goes to the web and finds out which of their songs is most popular. After all, who knows any of the words to White Riot?
Upon examining the lyrics to the Clash’s most popular song he decides that all the lyrics would be a mystery to most people. So he goes for the hook. In the case of “Rock the Casbah” the hook is the line “Rock the Casbah”.
The next problem is, how are they going to get to the point of arguing over the lyrics? No one plays music out loud unless they are working on their computers or they’re in their car. But they have to have this argument outside (one of the ad guys say) OK so let’s have them listening to the same MP3, somehow. OK so put a little speaker on it. So now these two guys are sharing a small speaker MP3 player going somewhere on foot mistaking the words to the only part of a twenty-something-year-old song that everyone knows the words to.
My point?
What the hell were they selling?
Would the commercial have been more effective if they had stuck with “Brand New Me”?
Where were these two freaks going with their tiny speakered MP3 player?
This is rhetorical stuff, in case you were wondering. There’s no need for an answer. (By the way, congratulations for getting this far in my pointless rant.)
The point of this (pointless) rant is; this is a lazy bit. The idea might have worked, but was molded by people who exploited the lowest common denominator in order to appeal to the largest group of people to make their comedy decision. This isn’t an uncommon practice. If you need an example of lazy bits, just turn on the TV or go to the movies. You won’t have to wait long.
But, success in the funny business is the exact opposite of that type of thinking. And don’t think that going the other way and picking the craziest shit is going to work either. (Unless you’re one of the boys from Monty Python and this is 1971) The test of a good gag is this: did anyone laugh?
Also, people should know that there is a big difference between funny and clever.
You should also know that funny has a shorter shelf life.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m sure this commercial appeals to a lot of people. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this commercial probably appeals to a majority of people. Good work there, boys. You’ve earned the tons of money you make for doing this sort of thing.
But seriously, what the hell were you guys selling?
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]