Michael J. Fox Returns to Television

Three years ago Michael J. Fox gave a teary eyed goodbye to viewers leaving the series "Spin City" to combat Parkinson's Disease. Now, he's back to guest star as a surgeon suffering Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder for laughs on "Scrubs." Fox will appear in two episodes.

by Steve Hall    Jan- 6-04    




Spoof Ad Calls Bush A Dickhead

As an offshoot to MoveOn.org's "Bush in 30 Seconds" promotion in which people submit anti-Bush commercials, LiberalOasis's humor writer Mark Spittle has created his own version called Bush in 41.2 seconds. Thanks to BushOut.TV.

by Steve Hall    Jan- 6-04    




Bush-Hitler Ads Outrages Republicans

As part of MoveOn.org's contest to create an ad about Bush, two of the entries has caused the Republican party and Jewish groups to complain.

The first commercial shows pictures of Hitler making a speech, with written subtitles like "I believe I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator".

The final sentence under the genocidal leader is "God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them", before Bush's picture replaces it above the words "and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did".

The second commercial wraps up images of Nazi forces with Hitler giving the Nazi salute while a crowd bellows "Sig Heil" - and then Bush's picture replaces Hitler's.

As much as MoveOn.org wants these ads to be negative of Bush, MoveOn President Wes Boyd agreed that ads went too far saying, "We agree that the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret that they slipped through our screening process. In the future, if we publish or broadcast raw material, we will create a more effective filtering system."

There's no surprise this happened. Anytime the creative process is opened up without an actual client to keep the creator in check, the result will always slant to the extreme.

by Steve Hall    Jan- 6-04    




Eatmail Announces Best Viral Advertising Clips of 2003

Eatmail, a UK viral community has announced the top ten viral clips of the year. The winner this year is the spoof Mastercard blowjob spot featured here earlier. Here are all the winners:

  • Priceless (MasterCard)
  • Terry Tate (Reebok)
  • Lord of the Piercing (MTV Film Awards)
  • Bollocks (VW)
  • Earth (Greenpeace)
  • Kylie Wet T-Shirt (unknown)
  • Pigeon (Ford)
  • No Nonsense (John Smiths)
  • Sex Olympics (Trojan)
  • Star Wars Kid (His brother)

The winning Mastercard clip is a spoof of the classic MasterCard Priceless campaign that took the end of a romantic date that little bit further. Over 1.6m people worldwide rated the clip as the best viral clip.

The spoof was conceived, directed and filmed by Scott Quigley, a final year film student studying on the east coast of America. When asked about the clip; what motivated him to make it; and being nominated as Eatmail's favorite clip of 2003, he replied. "This is all very flattering and a great compliment. I did the short in film school when I had to think of things that were economical and, wanting to get into commercials, it was the natural thing to do. Someone sent me an old email joke; I edited down the basic punch lines to a script and then filmed it in one night. I never imagined the incredible response it would get."

You can view all the spots/clips here.

by Steve Hall    Jan- 6-04    




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