Monday, February 8, 2010

A Super Bowl commercial worth noting

I don’t go all twerky over Super Bowl commercials. That’s not me.

I mean... yeah, Betty White is a game old broad. And it was cool to see one of my old “Kingpin” cast members, Shay Roundtree, in that house-made-of-beer-cans commercial.

I giggled at some other shit too. But I’m not going to devote a whole post to Super Bowl commercials.

This post is about Christopher Guest, filmmaker and comic actor, and his new source of income. Did you happen to catch the commercial for the U.S. census? (Follow this link if you missed it.)

It was directed by Mr. Guest. And it features familiar faces from his “mockumentary” films such as “Waiting for Guffman” and “A Mighty Wind.” (Ed Begley, Jr., Bob Balaban, Don Lake...)

I’m not wild about that census commercial. Just sort of puzzled by it. Nevertheless, I am digging the fact that Chris Guest is in the ad game big time.

Perhaps you’ve seen his spots for DirecTV. Those are comical.

His biggest campaign so far has been for Healthy Choice frozen foods. Surely you’ve seen those Julia Louis-Dreyfus commercials.

I can’t stand ’em. Thirty seconds is not the ideal length for Christopher Guest’s brand of whimsy.

Actually, there’s a Healthy Choice commercial on YouTube that I’ve not seen on TV. And I like it. Because it’s got Jane Lynch, who is No. 4 with a bullet on my list of favorite dykes. Check it out:

11 comments:

junebug said...

My favorite was the Doritos commercial where ol' boy got smacked in the face by that little punk kid. The funniest thing was that he was checking out her ass...and she had NO ASS AT ALL! They should'a got a chick from a hood strip club, if they wanted a ghetto booty.

that dude said...

UBM - who are your top three dykes?

I agree on the lack of ass in the Doritos commercial.

If they were scared of ass, they should have made the legs sexier.

Undercover Black Man said...

^ UBM - who are your top three dykes?

In ascending order:

3. Suzanne Westenhoefer

2. Wanda Sykes

1. Ellen Degeneres

bklyn6 said...

Funny. But I noticed the "lack of ass" too. Didn't think the Doritos commercial was funny, though. :-/

S.O.L. said...

I like the Healthy Choice ad. Made me laugh.

bklyn6 said...

Because it’s got Jane Lynch, who is No. 4 with a bullet on my list of favorite dykes.

No? I thought she just played one on tv.

Bay Radical said...

All your favorite dykes are comedians!

Undercover Black Man said...

^ What can I tell ya? I don't follow the WNBA.

;^)

Bay Radical said...

Rimshot!

Thembi Ford said...

First of all, Ive made it a point to see every single Christopher Guest movie, including the very very terrible but still enjoyable Almost Heroes, which was Chris Farley's last movie.
Waiting for Guffman is my favorite movie ever and I know every word by heart. Its a sick obsession but theres a quote in that movie for every single situation.
I suspected that he was behind the census commercials since the ensemble was so intact, but had no idea that Guest had done these other commercials as well.
I think the reason the 30 second format doesnt have the same zing as his usual work is that theres no character development supporting the improv, because who is saying it is usually what makes it so funny.

Undercover Black Man said...

^ Hey, Thembi!

I'd say my favorite Christopher Guest movie was "A Mighty Wind"... because of the songs. But I've enjoyed all the improvy ones.

With this Census campaign, he's actually stretching out with the Web component... trying to provide some of the character depth of his movies. Here is the YouTube channel devoted to it.