FOT Forum
The Best Show on WFMU => Show Discussion => Topic started by: JerryBaloney on October 26, 2007, 04:01:27 PM
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Continuing with this week's topic...
First, I think everyone who keeps saying that Cavemen is the first TV show based from a string of commercial, are forgetting the show "Hey, Vern" staring Ernest P. Worherl (as played by Shakespearean trained Jim Varney).
Ads with Ernest annoying his neighbor Vern were used to pitch numerous local & regional businesses for years before it was spun off into movies, and then eventually the CBS Saturday morning show "Hey, Vern".
Now for my idea. Locally here in Portland there is a series of ads for a car dealer which claims that their cars come equipped with a "Trunk Monkey". I'm not sure if these are used by dealers in other areas too. In the ads the monkey does things like bribe a cop who is writing the driver a ticket, and beat a car thief with a tire iron, whose body he then drops off a bridge. (Youtube evidence (http://youtube.com/results?search_query=trunk+monkey&search=Search))
I think the Trunk Monkey would make a great action show. The Trunk Monkey works with the GPS system in the car to find small towns in trouble, who he then helps out by fighting bad guys with his tire iron. Not to mention he has to leave a trail of broken monkey lover's hearts along the way, as he rambles on to each new adventure. However, the twist is that the car's driver (a traveling salesman) has no clue what's going on, or that the monkey is even active. Everything about the car and the salesman's laptop are controlled by the monkey. This also causes him to be the least successful salesman with the company, and thus always get the worst sales route thru the "badlands".
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When I was a kid there was ads for a car dealer named Mel Farr.
He dressed up like superman and they did a bad chroma-key so it looked like he was flying through the air in an effort to lower prices. He called himself "Mel Farr Superstarr".
This would make a pretty good TV show I think.
JK
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Hey, I remember that!
and that other one
"Me and dog want you to go to tel-e-graph roaaaaaaad riiiiight nowwwww
get.a.good.deal."
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I was surprised nobody went with the Sonic ads with the couple sitting in their car at the drive-in talking about different Sonic menu items.
Each new item that they order reveals a new facet to their loveless relationship.
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Oh I can't wait till they make a live action version of those esurance ads. Wait they already did it was called Alias.
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How about the Crazy Eddie's ads from the 80s? I don't know if those played outside of New England/East Coast. Or, for the Midwesterns, there's always the Buddy's Carpet ads, where the pitchman looked and sounded like a crank-addled Don Knotts.
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Those Alltel commercials, with the four dorky guys who aren't as cool as Chad from Alltel and therefore end up getting into shenanigans, those'd make for an terrific TV experience.
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Tom Carvel.
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McGruff
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Dane Cook talking about Baseball!
Here is how you do it:
Dane Cook is a normal regular everyday dude, who is desperate to get home in time to watch the game. But every episode a new obstacle gets in his way! Like family! or a date! And the episode is about him trying to overcome these obstacles in order to get home to watch his favorite sport around!
Every episode ends the same way. Dane turns on the TV, and we segue into A REAL BASEBALL GAME! Yes, this show would be shown before baseball! Then during the game, between commercials they can cut to Dane in his apartment going "oh man, This is great!" (he thinks everything going on is great no matter what, he has no team allegiances) and then perhaps at the end of the game Dane can have a little cap at the end that might resolve some hanging plot issue.
Another idea: Appalachian State University: The Series
[youtube=425,350]pVENWl8uBeg[/youtube]
Basically, the idea is you take that video and make it the opening sequence. Then it'd just be a dramedy about the goings-ons on the campus. But the kicker is, it'd be really really good.
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Tom Carvel.
YES!
[youtube=425,350]3urwTGqxwZ0[/youtube]
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I posted this elsewhere, but I can't find it, so I wonder if I sent it before I turned off the computer. If so, apologies. If not, I want a weekly show called "Apply Directly To the Forehead".
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Tom Carvel.
YES!
I picture this as a surreal, Sid & Marty Kroft world with Cookie Puss and Fudgie the Whale and whatever other weird kidney-shaped characters on those commercials. And Tom would be chainsmoking, of course, with a cigarette that perpetually looked like it was going to ash into a vat of soft-serve.
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I'd like to pitch a show based on the The Olive Garden commercials, but with a different twist than the ideas mentioned on TBS this week.
Instead of a traditional sit-com or drama, I'd film it like Fantasy Island/The Love Boat. Every week, that poor hostess would have a different group of diners (played by a different group of B-List actors) come in, not just to eat, but to have their wildest wishes fulfilled. I can just see the hostess explaining to Tattoo (vern troyer) that the party of one who was just seated (Meredith Baxter Birney) wants "to spend one last evening with her dead husband (Anthony LaPaglia)" and "unlimited bread sticks."
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There's a nasty life insurance ad on lately, and the spokesperson is talking to you while walking down the street. He keeps seeing visions of catastrophe as he talks to you...like first he sees a nice suburban house, and then the next minute it's in flames...or a car and then it's wrapped around a telephone pole.
I think this could be a great show...kinda Dead Zone, kinda X-Files. The conflict would be: Is he simply seeing the future, OR CAUSING IT?
-Jon from Maplewood
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The Empire Carpet commercials already make me want to shoot holes in my TV set (that guy's voice is just waay too pervy to be soothing), but man, a full show... the possibilities. Maybe like a Pimp My Ride thing, where those creepy animated characters show up to do installs at real-life celebrity homes.
[youtube=425,350]cnLVRk-muvs[/youtube]
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For about 2 years when I was a kid, we got WOR as a superstation. The four things I have stuck in my head from that experience:
Mario Cantone's Steampipe Alley
Tom Carvel
The New York Mets
FIVE EIGHT EIGHT, TWO THREE HUNDRED, EMPIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So I know the jingle for a carpet company that doesn't have a location within 500 miles of my house.
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FIVE EIGHT EIGHT, TWO THREE HUNDRED, EMPIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"...TODAY."
(yeech... must. go. wash. self.)
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How did I forget to bring this up months ago?
Before Cavemen, there was <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0307719/">Baby Bob</a>.
This was the most frightening thing ever, for me. It's one thing to hear a baby do a sales-pitch, but in the five minutes I saw of the sitcom, he was having casual dialogue with people, and saying things like "Mom, I'm hungry," in the voice of a grown-up human man.
Unsettling.
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I was thinking you could do a show featuring the voice of the evil Villain Tom Carvel who sends his minions (Cookie Puss, Cookie O'Puss, Fudgie the Whale) to destroy the earth. Evil Ice Cream Cakes!
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Aren't all ice cream cakes evil anyway?
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Those phone ads (for Cingular) featuring the perils of dropped calls could be expanded to hourlong installments of a weekly dramatic series. Each episode would begin with the misunderstanding produced by the droppage and explore the tragic consequences.
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that sort of sounds like 6 feet under.
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I want to see the show based on this commercial:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3oHpup-pk
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Aren't all ice cream cakes evil anyway?
Well, sir. obviously you are not a summer baby.
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I agree with that guy who pronounced Snickers weirdly. I want to know more about that viking and pilgrim dude. Are they working Method extras who spend their mornings in character? Are they carpooling, and they still have to pick up a Swedish milkmaid and a pirate? Or are they Unfrozen Viking Man and Unfrozen Pilgrim Man? Are they time travelers? How did they meet? THESE ARE QUESTIONS THAT NEED ANSWERS.
In other words, I really like that commercial.
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Didn't the couple from the Taster's Choice ads end up as part of an episode of some show, or did it just seem that way?
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No, but the fellow in that commercial did go on to become Buffy Summers' Watcher on TV.
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ENERGIZER BUNNY.
You could restage any event in history, any event in any TV show or movie, and then cut it short with the ENERGIZER BUNNY stomping through.
It'd be hilarous, EVERY SINGLE TIME.
George Washington: We've got to cross the Delaware river tonight, even though it's freezing cold.
Aide-de-Campe: The water's freezing sir.
GW: Neverheless, the future of the Republic depends on it.
AdC: I'm afraid you haven't enough room to sit in your boat, sir.
GW: I'll stand.
(Rowing through the dark. Men throw up from the effort, ala Private Ryan, but still, the boats arrive.)
Gw: The English should only be about 10 miles from here. Let's go men.
(ENERGIZER BUNNY goes thumping past. GW and troops stop in their tracks.)
Samuel Adams: What is that thing, sir?
GW: Who cares. (Kicks it across the path.)
(Proceed with battle of Delaware.)
Maybe the EB is just the corporate thing to suck up to, and characters are free to kick it out of the way at any time, after paying it lip service.
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ENERGIZER BUNNY.
You could restage any event in history, any event in any TV show or movie, and then cut it short with the ENERGIZER BUNNY stomping through.
It'd be hilarous, EVERY SINGLE TIME.
George Washington: We've got to cross the Delaware river tonight, even though it's freezing cold.
Aide-de-Campe: The water's freezing sir.
GW: Neverheless, the future of the Republic depends on it.
AdC: I'm afraid you haven't enough room to sit in your boat, sir.
GW: I'll stand.
(Rowing through the dark. Men throw up from the effort, ala Private Ryan, but still, the boats arrive.)
Gw: The English should only be about 10 miles from here. Let's go men.
(ENERGIZER BUNNY goes thumping past. GW and troops stop in their tracks.)
Samuel Adams: What is that thing, sir?
GW: Who cares. (Kicks it across the path.)
(Proceed with battle of Delaware.)
Maybe the EB is just the corporate thing to suck up to, and characters are free to kick it out of the way at any time, after paying it lip service.
Strangely the guy who pitched Energizers before the bunny, Jacko (http://imdb.com/name/nm0413823/), was made a side kick on a short lived NBC show. http://imdb.com/title/tt0093189/ (http://imdb.com/title/tt0093189/)
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Didn't they make a TV show of the plastic Duracell family
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A show based on the "Viva Viagra" guys...
As they continue jamming and male-bonding every weekend in their farmhouse/clubhouse, they begin to think they might be able to make it as an actual band. They spend more and more time together, becoming increasingly delusional about their talent and future in the music industry. In the throes of mid-life crisis, they leave their families and jobs, blow their (substantial- these guys are middle-aged professionals) collective savings on recording a stillborn album. They're forced to live in the farmhouse while trying to secure any possible paying gig, eventually learning to live off the land. They become something like a cult.
The entire time they may have erections lasting over four hours.
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Will their sweeps week episode concern priapism?
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Or perhaps a very special episode about intractable impotence.
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... the man in the bicycle shop?
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How about the Enzyte commercial with that guy "Bob" who smiles like an insane mannequin. It can follow the arc of his life, pre and post Enzyte. At the beginning he's just your ordinary anal-rententive creep with an abysmally unsatisfying marriage, but then Enzyte gives him a perpetual boner. His sex life at home heats up, and then his enhancment starts making him more confident at the work place. He gets a promotion, and other women take a lot of notice of him. He inevitably caves and sleeps with someone from the office. His wife finds out and things get sticky. She threatens to leave him, but she can't leave that boner, so their life takes a turn to a dark/abusive/polygamous place. Basically it becomes Big Love meets, I don't know, Kinski or something. His boner pushes him into ever-more escalating and exotic sexual encounters and ever-more complex repurcussions.
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This commercial is hilarious. Greg Oden should have his own series.
[youtube=425,350]28y5NTprYRI[/youtube]
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How about the Enzyte commercial with that guy "Bob" who smiles like an insane mannequin. It can follow the arc of his life, pre and post Enzyte. At the beginning he's just your ordinary anal-rententive creep with an abysmally unsatisfying marriage, but then Enzyte gives him a perpetual boner. His sex life at home heats up, and then his enhancment starts making him more confident at the work place. He gets a promotion, and other women take a lot of notice of him. He inevitably caves and sleeps with someone from the office. His wife finds out and things get sticky. She threatens to leave him, but she can't leave that boner, so their life takes a turn to a dark/abusive/polygamous place. Basically it becomes Big Love meets, I don't know, Kinski or something. His boner pushes him into ever-more escalating and exotic sexual encounters and ever-more complex repurcussions.
would it have shrill high pitched whistling playing in the background all the time?
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I think the best thing would be if it alternated between the high pitched whistling and some Badalementi-type theme music a-la Twin Peaks.
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In a series done in the style of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, The Noid tumbles further into a life crime by becoming a serial murderer in addition to a thief.
(http://www.paunchstevenson.com/photos/dominos-noid-250x309.jpg)
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How about 48 minutes of Charles Bronson enjoying Mandom (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPqRpxm5Ak4) each week? It could kinda be like Lost in Translation, except instead of wandering around in an existential funk he would occasionally throw his shirt in the air and shoot people.
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In a series done in the style of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, The Noid tumbles further into a life crime by becoming a serial murderer in addition to a thief.
(http://www.paunchstevenson.com/photos/dominos-noid-250x309.jpg)
i own a huge stuffed noid doll.
it's one of my most prized possessions.
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This commercial is hilarious. Greg Oden should have his own series.
[youtube=425,350]28y5NTprYRI[/youtube]
I think Oden is hilarious every day when I drive by the 4 story Oden jersey the Blazers hung on the side of their building, and remember that prank he played about hurting his knee playing Dance Dance Revolution. So now he gets paid to stay at home and make videos for the web.
He is the Andy Kaufman of the NBA.
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There must be a series here somewhere. Yeah.
[youtube=425,350]bZIzRqDOSZo[/youtube]
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i can so see mr. loggia having an affair with billy's mom. look at her face when he walks in the door, she's so asking for it! then he winks at her on the way out. he didn't just come over to endorse that oj!