Sunday, July 05, 2009

Timothy Leary's Dead

(No, no, no, no -- he's outside, with the fish)

Maybe you have to watch a lot of cable to have this Visa commercial come up over and over and over and over and over. But I've had enough of it.

Thing is, I've got nothing against the Moody Blues, and I like aquariums and I like little girls, too. But when I think of fluorescent fish, fire-breathing seahorses and kaleidoscopic krill, set to "The Search for the Lost Chord," my associations don't involve being a good daddy.

(Candy, little girl?)

11 comments:

  1. The song is a peculiar choice. The endless rerunning of commercials is a whole 'nother thing. I think commercials are so expensive to make now, with these high cinematic production values, that the products' purveyors feel they have to run them a hundred million times to make the investment pay off.

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  2. Anonymous6:19 AM

    The song is Tuesday Afternoon from the album Days of Future Past, not The Search of the Lost Chord.

    I thought it was a great commerical.

    Caught your eye...didn't it?

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  3. Quite right on the album -- But the druggy association remains. I liked the commercial the first time I saw it, but found it more disturbing with each repetition. Even without the acid flashback aspect, the idea that entertaining a small child requires special effects is unfortunate. "Zoo Daddy" is a term for weekend fathers -- typically non-custodial -- who can't figure out how to just be with their kids and have to turn everything into a major production.

    In any case, eye-catching is not the same as effective -- there is the iconic example of the famous Alka-Seltzer commercials that added phrases like "Try it, you'll like it!" and "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!" to our lexicon but failed to increase Alka-Seltzer sales.

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  4. The ad has made me want to get back to the Monterey Aquarium at the next available opportunity. However, I had to glance back at the video title to remind myself what the ad was actually for.

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  5. Morgan Freeman ain't complainig about the "hundred million times" Trust me.

    Cha-Ching!!

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  6. Ah, Adam,if only Owsley Stanley had understood the importance of royalties and residuals, what a wealthy man he might have become!

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  7. The colors man, THE COLORS!!

    And my breath is so minty fresh!!

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  8. Hey, Adam, you never know when somebody's parents might be reading this.

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  9. You mean Stanley's folks? They couldn't still be alive could they?

    Nah.

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  10. Casey Jones popped on my itunes just as I clicked the orange button.

    What'r the odds?

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  11. Anonymous12:26 AM

    anytime I see a commercial that often ,I think maybe I'm watching too much tv... i should go do something...I guess I could even go to an aquarium..

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