On a day that celebrates that many splendored thing called love, it feels lustfully inappropriate to treat you to this anti-valentine. Outdoor clothing retailer Moosejaw Mountaineering has whipped up a permission slip that (if your significant other complies) gives you license to “snuggle, French, or fully do it” with someone else. The downside is it might trigger a wave of stormy breakups across the nation, but the upside is clever brand awareness. Nice job, Moosejaw. And Happy V Day to all you swingers out there.
This is the Great Gazoo. A minor character from The Flintstones, capable of magic.
"What am I gonna do with all these gaudy rings?"
This is Eli Manning, quarterback of the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the Great Gazoo, and is also occasionally capable of magic, although not enough magic to get Mortar to do a Super Bowl Ad Recap on time. The man was busy last week, as were we. Sorry. Let’s get right to it.
“Reinvention” as an idea is more beaten-to-death than the New England Patriots’ hopes and dreams. (Yeah, we said it.) But in this spot, we can almost hear the creatives saying, “You want “reinvented?” Oh, we’ll give you reinvented…” and off we go into a magical land where curtains are pizza and Toyota Camrys are actually interesting. Well done.
Chevrolet – “Camaro/Happy Grad”
User-generated stuff usually makes us insecure and bitter. Like the New England Patriots. (Pow!) But this Chevy spot is an exception. The (amateur) actor’s beautifully over-the-top reaction equates owning a Camaro with ridiculous amounts of joy, which is never a bad idea when you’re selling a completely impractical muscle car these days.
Side note: We had more than one viewer ask us if it bothered us that the kid was getting a mini-fridge for graduation. Wouldn’t you give that to the kid when he was entering school? Just sayin’.
There is almost nothing good about this spot. Kinda like the Patriots’ defense. (BA-ZING!) It employs the same level of creativity as The Singing Dogs’ version of “Jingle Bells,” which is universally recognized as the Most Hated holiday song. But if you can watch this without smiling, we’ll pay you $542 bucks.*
We love gratuitous nudity as much as the next shifty-eyed person in a raincoat, but the on-purpose tastelessness of Go Daddy’s schtick was bad the first time, and has somehow managed to get worse.
Recycling. Good for the planet. Bad for ideas. And it’s even worse when it starts to affect the credibility of the Mortar Monkey Theorem, i.e. “Monkey=Funny.” So this recycled idea that was only moderately funny the first two times, is really getting stale at this point, which annoys us. What we’re saying is – “Don’t use chimps in sucktastic ads, you hacks. You’re ruining it for the rest of us.”
And One We Really Loved That You Probably Didn’t See Because…Canada.
Our goody-two shoes brother Canada, all jealous because they get a stupid Grey Cup instead of an awesome Super Bowl, went and did this wonderful Budweiser spot that you had to live in Canada to see. We are not crying because there is no crying in hockey, but…look. Just give us aboot a minute, eh?
(Whatever, Canada. You’re perfect. But we’re still behind America bald eagle percent.)
Honorable mention to Chrysler, who you’ve probably heard enough about by now.
E*Trade and Coke, even the Great Gazoo can’t save you dum-dums from lame overuse of characters. (And if there’s anyone who should know from lame characters, it’s him.) See you next year. Probably about a week late.
Why can we not stand talking babies, yet not resist talking animals? Whatever. It’s Friday. Have fun in whatever sandbox you like to play in this weekend.
MORTARBLOG:"It's so dumb it thinks soy milk is Spanish for "I am milk.""
But seriously, folks, the grid is really dumb. You would not believe how much power goes to waste every day, and how much grossness gets spewed into the atmosphere every day to make all that power that's going to waste. Fortunately there's a simple, free way to start doing something about it. Which is where Mortar client Genability comes in. We could explain what they're up to using boring old words, but we'd rather share our new animated short, "Giving People Power Over Their Power." It's narrated by our pal Ed Begley, Jr., and it has mole people and birds that drop money and even a pony!
Please take two minutes and fifty-seven seconds of your day to check it out.
Pretty cool, right? Did you laugh? Did you cry? Did you want to punch the PG&E guy? (Don't.) OK, then tell all your friends about WhatsMyPower.com, and let's all help make the grid a little smarter.
Lord knows this world could use a little less dumbassery.
