Retro Yakking

A few months ago you could find me moaning on this very blog about the increasingly poor programming to advertisements ratio on British commercial television.

Whilst I am not the world’s biggest fan of ad breaks (and I don’t know anyone who actually is), like them or not they’re here to stay. They’re as much a part as television as Coronation Street or Only Fools and Horses, and often the talking point in workplace canteens and around pub tables the length and breadth of the country.

Sit on the bus and sure as eggs is eggs, before long someone will be blathering on to their mates about how much they hate the Churchill adverts, or why beer ads aren’t anywhere near as good as they used to be.

Today, Retro Yakking runs a critical rule over some of the more prominent commercials currently running on British television… good and bad.

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Fiat Grande Punto - trampoline

“What the heck was that noise?”

A lot of ideas are actually ‘borrowed’ from less commercial sources. In fact, the Fiat Grande Punto ad is wholly based on a short music video by Roel Walters for the Dutch band zZz, something of a mini-classic on the art circuit in 2007. The original was a one-take, live action piece including gymnasts, what looks like a couple of dudes on the toilet and lots of smoke. Lots and lots.

There’s no doubting, though, that the advert itself adds a whole new dimension with the bouncing car. That can’t have been done in one take, let me tell you…

For the record, the name of the video piece is “zZz is Playing: Grip“.
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Calgon - Half a Helmet

And now we go from one of the best ads around at the moment to perhaps the very worst. The Calgon advert is just terrible.

It’s not ’so bad, it’s good’ in the same way as the Cillit Bang adverts… just cynical, cheesy and so terribly unappealing. The advert makes no attempt to disguise how contrived and cheap it is: just why the heck is a kid riding his scooter indoors?

And whoever thought of that ‘half a helmet’ line should be shot.
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Peperami - BBQ

I always loved the Peperami adverts: complete balls-to-the-wall cartoon-style violence against sausages - not that I’m into sausage sadomasochism or anything, though I do like to bite the heads off jelly babies. The latest ad doing the rounds is no exception, with even more over the top voice over acting from Bottom star Adrian Edmonson.

I don’t recommend spearing your Peperami with an upturned nail - that would most likely make it disintegrate and be a waste of good sausage. But who am I to tell you where to stick your Peperami?
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The best (and worst) of the rest

I wanted to feature that advert — I think it’s for Enterprise car rental — where the bloke sits back in the car and says “this… is great”, just for that. It’s not a completely terrible advert, but that line just makes the whole thing a load more cheesy and is only a hair’s width away from saying “wow, this is completely brilliant, comfortable and the chauffeurs are really friendly! On top of that you get free tea and biscuits, not to mention £10 in book tokens.”

I am also surprised to see the Compare the Meerkat advert still doing the rounds after all this time. Perhaps it’s the enduring popularity of that lovable rogue Mr. Alexsandr Meerkat - I wonder why he has an eastern European accent? I’m not complaining, though - it’s a well-made parody (of itself, no less). Just think… there’s a bloke somewhere raking in the dosh for creating that pun, and kudos to him for stumbling upon one of the most talked about ads of 2009 so far.

Here in the UK we do not have the Burger King character. Instead we have to make do with short, fat Mexican wrestlers and tall, dumb Texans - way to offend millions of people in one fell swoop! Still, at least it’s better than the Rock Band “half my head is cut off!” ads.

Well, I could go on for hours about this, but we shall leave that for another day because I now need to go and break my legs just so I can get some crutches and imitate the VISA advert. All together now: “bip du bup day chipmunk ma bump bibble… tryin’ to find somewhere to belong!“
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Recommended further reading

• TV’s Worst Adverts - A selection of the worst adverts on UK TV. Go now.

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