TV Squad

• Montel Williams hawks worthless Obama coins
  

  Filed under: OpEd, Commercials, Celebrities, Reality-Free

  I always had mixed feelings about Montel Williams and his now-defunct talk show. Sure, the show had its sleazy moments, but overall, he seemed to proceed in a more dignified way than most of his daytime talk brethren. I also admired him for his very public battle with MS and his advocacy to raise awareness of the disease. It seemed like Montel was set to transition to a post-show career that was at the very least not going to be embarrassing.
  
  Then I saw him on an ad promoting one of those awful coins that commemorate Barack...
  



• NBC to use the Super Bowl to plug NBC
  

  Filed under: Sports, Industry, Programming, Commercials, Reality-Free

  I don't like football, but I do watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. This year there might be a little bit more for other non-football fans to watch.
  
  NBC is airing the game this season, on February 1, and they plan to use some of the ad time to "reintroduce" people to several of their shows. God knows they need it. They're going to show clips from several series, remind longtime fans of each show what's important to keep in mind about the show, and also take some time to try to...
  



• We need the Kraft TV specials again - VIDEO
  

  Filed under: Food/Home/DIY, Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

  One of my favorite TV memories are the shows sponsored by Kraft. If you're old enough to remember these from the 80s, you know they were holiday specials, movies, and award shows that Kraft sponsored. Not only did they run ads during the show, the ads were a little longer than the usual commercial and featured recipes that you could make using Kraft products. Kraft also ran special sections in TV Guide that same week that featured the same recipes, so there was cool synergy there, long before anyone knew what synergy was.
  
  Of course, someone...
  



• Brought To You By ... - VIDEOS
  

  Filed under: OpEd, Video, Commercials, Festivus, Reality-Free

  Before we get to this month's videos, two observations about Christmas commercials that are currently running.
  
  The new Lexus ad where the guy remembers being a kid and getting a new Atari for Christmas and how that used to be his best gift ever until his wife said to hell with the economy I'm going to buy my husband a ridiculously audacious gift: is that Roger from Swingtown?
  
  Second, the candle commercial where the woman buys a candle that smells like gingerbread men and then tries to trick her friends into thinking that it's...
  



• CBS wants you to have yourself a merry little prostate exam
  

  Filed under: OpEd, Commercials, Reality-Free

  What do you get the man who has everything?
  
  CBS is running their "CBS Cares" PSAs, and the new ones are quite...something. You've probably seen them. One of them features a bunch of women talking about what to get their husbands for Hanukkah. I think a lot of guys would like a Nintendo WII, but a woman suggests a prostate exam! And no, it's not some sort of sexual foreplay, they're actually talking about making an appointment with the doctor for the guys to have a prostate exam ("honey, wait, you're not talking about role-playing?"). There's a PSA for prostate-exams-as-Christmas-gifts too,...
  



• Brought To You By... - VIDEOS
  

  Filed under: Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

  Let's talk turkey. Actually, let's talk Thanksgiving Day commercials, which may or may not involve actual turkeys.
  
  I know, you probably can't remember a Thanksgiving commercial to save your life. There have been a ton of them over the years, but 99.9% of them have to do with department store sales ("Before Thanksgiving Sale!" and "After Thanksgiving Sale!" with a "Thanksgiving Sale!" thrown in for good measure) and they all seem to blend into each other after a while. But there are have been a few over the years that are worth looking at again, and after the jump we'll take a...
  



• The first McDonald's commercial - VIDEO
  

  Filed under: Video, Commercials, Celebrities, Reality-Free

  Long before he was wishing 100 year-old people a Happy Birthday on Today, Willard Scott was a clown. A pathetic, oddly dressed clown.
  
  After the jump is the very first commercial that McDonald's ran featuring Ronald McDonald. Sure, it's easy to dismiss the low-budget look of this ad because of the time it was created, the bad special effects, and the knowledge that later the character would be refined and would look a lot different (and better). But then you look closely and you see that the guy has a freakin' paper cup on his nose. It's like the...
  



• Brought To You By ... - VIDEOS
  

  Filed under: OpEd, Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

  Let's talk (again) about commercials we hate.
  
  Or maybe I should say commercials I hate, though I think you'll agree with me on some of these. They run the gamut from silly to ineffective, from dumb to just plain jaw-dropping. Let's start with jaw-dropping.
  
  1. DirecTV's Poltergeist ad. This is...creepy and tasteless. Do the makers of this ad really not know that young Poltergeist star Heather O'Rourke died at a really young age? Even if they didn't (I'm kidding, of course they did), the star of the ad, Craig T. Nelson, is aware of...
  



• I love ABC's crazy web promo for Life On Mars
  

  Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Programming, OpEd, Commercials, Reality-Free

  
  Have you checked out ABC.com at all today? If you do, get ready to be caught off guard. To generate some buzz, the Alphabet network's home page opens up with an advertisement for their new drama Life On Mars and it looks an awful lot like some funky virus just invaded my computer.

  Continue reading I love ABC's crazy web promo for Life On Mars

   

  Permalink | Other Comedy Shows, Industry, Commercials, Reality-Free

  Last night, I was in New York's East Village attending a panel discussion that was being given at the Cooper Union. As I was walking around killing time before the seminar, I came across the sign on the right, taped to a light pole alongside various bumper stickers and other posted offers. It made me do a double-take, because it yells "HAVE YOU DATED THIS WOMAN?" in all caps. The picture is of a pretty woman who looks like someone just about anyone in New York could have dated at one time or another.
  
  Was she...