Once you spend a substantial amount of time (wasted) on public TV, you will get to know a lot of commercials, some of which I found very entertaining. In order to reinforce the viewers' memory without boring them, a series of commercials delivering the same message through various situations or characters within a predetermined form becomes popular: CapitalOne, Geico, MasterCard, Volkswagen, among others, are using it quite successfully.
For example, a MasterCard commercial will inevitably enumerate three merchandises each followed by its price and the fourth thing, usually not a merchandise at all, and its price: priceless. Then it concludes with the catchphrase: "There are some things money can't buy; for everything else, there's MasterCard." (An interesting episode actually mocks itself by saying "blah blah blah: blah dollars" three times.)
Unlike MasterCard, which has been running its commercial series for a long time, Geico started quite recently. Their formula is simpler too: when the tension is built up, all eyes on one person, she/he will surrealistically claim: "But I have good news: I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico." (It is poignant, sometimes irritating.)
However, the episode I personally found to be the funniest did not follow the formula above. Instead, it went like this: a man appearing in a Geico commercial made a statement followed by a hysterical laughter that Geico.com is so easy that even a caveman can use it. Then in the second scene, he was sitting in a fancy, what else, French restaurant apologizing to two elegant, properly dressed cavemen representatives for his condescending speech about cavemen, citing unawareness of their presence. ("Seriously we apologize; we had no idea you guys were still around.") One of the representatives was sniffing while the other was more verbal about the excuse. ("Yeah. Next time try a little bit more RESEARCH.") Now a waiter's voice was heard, asking for orders. ("Gentlemen, are you ready to order?") The former representative replied tastefully. ("I'd like to have the French duck with mango sauce.") But the latter wouldn't miss any chance to express his resentment - in a graceful way. (Putting down the menu indifferently he said, "I don't have much of appetite.")
Each time I saw this episode, I couldn't help myself laughing out loud because of its ludicrous use of stereotypes (the accidental degrading remark on a specific group of people, the apology dinner in a French restaurant, the representatives as sarcastic conversationists, etc.) as well as laughable visual contrast. (Properly as the cavemen representatives dressed, they had NO shaving or hairstyling at all!)
At last I wanted to point out that this episode was actually a revision of a previous one, which was never aired again after a short run. In that episode, the protest from the cavemen was furiously delivered by a caveman light worker on the filming set of the wrong-doing commercial. Even though it immediately followed by a scene where several cavemen appropriately dining, reading and playing, what else, piano in a stylish lounge, the basic idea was completely damaged by the immature response of the light worker. The revised version got it all right. A classic!
For example, a MasterCard commercial will inevitably enumerate three merchandises each followed by its price and the fourth thing, usually not a merchandise at all, and its price: priceless. Then it concludes with the catchphrase: "There are some things money can't buy; for everything else, there's MasterCard." (An interesting episode actually mocks itself by saying "blah blah blah: blah dollars" three times.)
Unlike MasterCard, which has been running its commercial series for a long time, Geico started quite recently. Their formula is simpler too: when the tension is built up, all eyes on one person, she/he will surrealistically claim: "But I have good news: I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico." (It is poignant, sometimes irritating.)
However, the episode I personally found to be the funniest did not follow the formula above. Instead, it went like this: a man appearing in a Geico commercial made a statement followed by a hysterical laughter that Geico.com is so easy that even a caveman can use it. Then in the second scene, he was sitting in a fancy, what else, French restaurant apologizing to two elegant, properly dressed cavemen representatives for his condescending speech about cavemen, citing unawareness of their presence. ("Seriously we apologize; we had no idea you guys were still around.") One of the representatives was sniffing while the other was more verbal about the excuse. ("Yeah. Next time try a little bit more RESEARCH.") Now a waiter's voice was heard, asking for orders. ("Gentlemen, are you ready to order?") The former representative replied tastefully. ("I'd like to have the French duck with mango sauce.") But the latter wouldn't miss any chance to express his resentment - in a graceful way. (Putting down the menu indifferently he said, "I don't have much of appetite.")
Each time I saw this episode, I couldn't help myself laughing out loud because of its ludicrous use of stereotypes (the accidental degrading remark on a specific group of people, the apology dinner in a French restaurant, the representatives as sarcastic conversationists, etc.) as well as laughable visual contrast. (Properly as the cavemen representatives dressed, they had NO shaving or hairstyling at all!)
At last I wanted to point out that this episode was actually a revision of a previous one, which was never aired again after a short run. In that episode, the protest from the cavemen was furiously delivered by a caveman light worker on the filming set of the wrong-doing commercial. Even though it immediately followed by a scene where several cavemen appropriately dining, reading and playing, what else, piano in a stylish lounge, the basic idea was completely damaged by the immature response of the light worker. The revised version got it all right. A classic!
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