Category Archives: television

Ikea ads

ikea5

When I first moved to Washington, DC in 1988, IKEA ads touting their high product-testing standards were on TV a lot. My roommate and I loved one with a scientist jumping up and down on a bed chanting, “You’re gonna get hurt! You’re gonna get hurt! You’re gonna get hurt!”

That’s how I remembered it, anyway. We especially loved that ad after we’d been drinking all night at Ireland’s Four Provinces (aka The 4Ps) so, um, do with that what you will.

Over the years, I’ve quizzed marketing experts about this ad campaign. I’ve made phone calls. I’ve searched for this ad on youtube. All to no avail. Samer almost had me convinced that I’d imagined it. Almost.

Recently, I began to wonder if I was perhaps remembering the ads themselves properly, but had the company wrong. I commenced googling, and the first hit led me to a detailed dissection of the whole campaign!

It was real! And it was an IKEA campaign! And it was, indeed, almost exactly as I remembered it!

Thank you so much, Adland! There’s no video, but the picture pretty much says it all, and they break down the ad.

TITLE CARD: IKEA LOGO VO ANNCR: Ikea, Swedish for common sense.

In the closing scene, the male tester is jumping up and down on a bed. …Like a kid.
FEMALE TESTER: You’re gonna get hurt.
SFX: BELL
FEMALE TESTER: You’re gonna get hurt.
SFX: BELL
FEMALE TESTER: You’re gonna get hurt.
SFX: BELL

The post is a discussion of a number of ad campaigns and I’m not familiar with, but the IKEA part vindicates my memory. Lots of Gen X creatives read this site, though, so some of you will probably find it interesting if you remember this ad, or some later ads for other companies that were apparently suspiciously similar.

I loved this note at the bottom of the post, a 2005 update to the 1998 post:

A visitor lets us know that IKEA tv spot in the Badland section was definitely done at Goldberg Marchdesano in D.C. Joe Moscati was the Art Director…he was at the One Show to accept award on behalf of Goldberg, and has the pencil with his name on it to prove it. Wow, this makes the ‘original’ ad an olden goldie, 1988 is a long time ago for a commercial.

I’m glad the website broke down all of the ads in the campaign – they were all funny.

I uploaded their image and put it at the top of this post because this post has been in my draft file for a while and I’ve had trouble loading the adland page a few times and I’m afraid they might disappear. I’m going to drop them a line to make sure it’s okay I’m using it. And to thank them for documenting this ad campaign!

Wamapoke County Public Radio

Parks and Recreation has done two fantastic sendups of public/community radio. I realize that making fun of public radio is like shooting fish in a barrel – it’s for that very reason that most spoofs just aren’t funny. I think most of these efforts fail because they hitch all of their jokes to the easy targets, such as the (over)enunciation standards of NPR or Pacifica. Or, they try to go for “easy laughs” by trying to skewer the Left, but end up replicating the oppressive sexist structures of corporate radio that NPR exists to stand against in the first place.

At the very least, they aren’t as absurdly, unintentionally funny as community radio can be all on it’s own earnest self. And that’s the key to what makes Parks and Recreations take on it so funny – they get it that the people who do this kind of radio are so deeply invested in a very romantic idea of the power of community radio, with a little ill-considered corporate marketing in the mix just to keep things bizarre and off-kilter, and they know how to take those elements and make them hyper-realistic without being cruel.

Leslie Knope’s appearance on Wamapoke County Public Radio on last week’s episode, “Pawnee Commons,” was pitch-perfect.


embedded link: “Pawnee Commons” into

Mockingbird Lane


[embedded video: Addams Family]

Look, I’m an Addams Family girl. Always have been, always will be. This means that I have, since my earliest memories, resented the Munsters. Despised them, even.

I thought the Addams clan was charming and funny and their house was fabulous.

The Munsters? Lowbrow and tedious, with very uneven direction and too much mixed-monster mythology. Even a kid could see that.

I was going to embed the The Munsters theme but I’m only allowed to link to it. So here you go.

Additionally, since we only had a black and white TV when I was a wee child, I failed to understand that these shows were in reruns and the Munsters were not, even as I watched, actively conspiring to destroy my beloved Addams Family.

When I got older and co-curated an exhibit on horror movies and television, I learned that the networks really had waged this battle. And the Munsters lost. It was only in syndication that the Munsters seemed to have primacy, and only then because their reruns were obviously cheaper than the Addams Family. As a kid, I didn’t understand that “back to back” episodes really meant, “We got this crap super-cheap.”

Despite all this pop-cultural monster baggage, I tivo’d the pilot episode of Mockingbird Lane so that we could watch it and give it a fair shot. It’s from Bryans Singer and Fuller, so at the very least I figured it would be more visually interesting than the original.

The show was MUCH MUCH MUCH better than the original and, most importantly, I want every single item that Lily (Portia de Rossi) wore. Even the spider dress. Okay, maybe just the dress, you can keep the spiders (although that kind of instant tailoring would be very handy…)

Cows Eating Candy Corn + The Corn Palace

Maximizing the number of commercials you have to slog through, these related pieces are broken up into two parts on the Colbert Report instead of one segueing into the other. You’ll live.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Junk Food Feed
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

[embedded video: Junk Food Feed]

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Special Report – A Shucking Disaster – Nightmare at the Mitchell Corn Palace
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

[Embedded video: The Corn Palace]

Grimm

I recently made the acquaintance of the TV show Grimm (now in it’s 2nd season). Last year, it was on against Fringe and Supernatural. Having only a dual-tuner Tivo and already loving Fringe & Supernatural, I decided I’d watch Grimm online because I was intrigued by the premise. That didn’t really work out. I caught the first few episodes, then I fell behind. My low tolerance for Hulu’s ad-model further conspired against me & Grimm hooking up, but I finally netflixed the discs at the end of the summer and now we’re all caught up on the new season.

Both witches and werewolfish creatures figure into this modern-day fairytale show, so it’s perfect for this month’s theme.

When I woke up this morning, I decided to dump this month’s theme and go with “I want my mummy” but after my 1st cup of coffee I decided to save that one. Mid-way through my second cup I wavered after noticing Overlord II recorded Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy for me. Later I again decided to save mummies for another time and forge ahead as planned.

Back to Grimm.

David Greenwalt is one of the creators of Grimm. As he was an executive producer for Buffy and Angel, I doubt it’s coincidence that the revamped title sequence for season 2 seems to be a blatant parody of the hokey Buffy opener. I think it’s a hilarious homage.

In a nutshell, Grimm is about a detective in Portland, Oregon who discovers it’s his destiny to stand against the forces of darkness. Actually, it’s not clear yet what he’s supposed to do or why or what his powers are yet, which is (so far) part of the show’s charm. Detective Nick Burkhardt is living a somewhat charmed life with his adorable veterinarian girlfriend. He has a racially diverse wisecracking partner and his Captain, who is of course secretly part of some sort of sinister cabal, supports his unorthodox methods. Then, one day, out of the blue, he starts seeing people for the otherworldly creatures they actually are. Said creatures all have hilarious made-up Germanic species names.

I really like the show, although it’s sometimes so viscerally gross it makes even me squeamish. (The guy force-feeding the bird lady with a tube? Yikes).

It’s set in Portland, Oregon, so it makes a great companion show to Portlandia. If a Portlandia skit starts to show it’s SNL roots by lagging, or worse, lapping it’s own punchline, you can distract yourself by contemplating what kind of mysterious Old World fairy tale beast the characters actually are.

Well, I can, anyway. I think some of you are suffering from a failure of imagination.

Just try it.

This Portlandia skit in the coffee shop stopped being funny 6 minutes ago. Wait, what’s that? They can’t stop obsessing over their failed lives because they’re all secretly Hexen Beasts? That’s hilarious!

Yes, fine, you’re right. Not hilarious.

Back to Grimm….

Armed with an inherited trailer full ancestral Grimm journals, Nick battles the forces of evil or whatever it is Grimms do while angsting about destiny and his dead parents. His sidekick is a reformed Blutbad (a Big Bag Wolf) who helps him in his secret mission to battle the forces of evil or whatever it is that Grimms do.

Okay. Look. I was going to write a silly review making reference to ancestral journals (Charmed, Buffy, Supernatural) and mentor-moms who aren’t really dead but are actually super-powerful underworld figures (Alias, Chuck) and conspiracies (X-Files et al) reformed monsters with hearts of gold (Angel, Vampire Diaries) perfectly multi-racial police departments (every cop show since the 80s) and Portlandia and, well, you get the idea. But the fact is, I like the show and I think it’s silly and it’s fun and it doesn’t take it’s self too seriously. And I’m lazy. That’s good enough for me.

Plus, witches and werewolves.