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Homespun Marketing: Local Commercials


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A local dealership has been running these corny commercials for 20-plus years. My college roommate grew up in the area and told me some lore about them; the commercials used to have a dog and/or a man dressed up as Batman in them (which I do remember from when I first moved here).

She said that the dealership was supposedly a cover for drug-running, and there was a "code" for who showed up in the commercial--Batman would mean a new shipment of cocaine had come in, for example, or the dog would mean heroin. This was supposedly to stay off law enforcement's radar, but they were eventually busted. It sounded highly suspicious to me, and I never found out if it was the truth, but the commercials are different now--no characters other than the reverend, the customer and the "deacons"(?).

Anyway, the commercials are loved locally for how wonderfully terrible they are. Feast your eyes:

Edited by bilgistic
  • Love 3

The shame of Indy. This guy has been going for years. When I first moved here in the early 80s, my intro to Don was a radio ad that was so over the top, I was sure it was a spoof ad. Nope, I was informed, it's serious. It was for a government surplus flamethrower, and it went something like "Neighbor's dog leaving messages in your yard? Light up your prey before you blow it away! Watch the kid's eyes light up when you ignite the grill from 20 feet away!" And his tag line "I don't want to make any money, folks; I just love to sell guns! Haw haw haw" is notorious.

 

 

 

Edited by riley702

The shame of Indy. This guy has been going for years. When I first moved here in the early 80s, my intro to Don was a radio ad that was so over the top, I was sure it was a spoof ad. Nope, I was informed, it's serious. It was for a government surplus flamethrower, and it went something like "Neighbor's dog leaving messages in your yard? Light up your prey before you blow it away! Watch the kid's eyes light up when you ignite the grill from 20 feet away!" And his tag line "I don't want to make any money, folks; I just love to sell guns! Haw haw haw" is notorious.

Is the 702 a shout out to your area code?

And I was crackin up: " I didn't want anything; I just wanted to sing on teevee." Yes, indeed. Lol!

The Cullman Liquidation commercial was fantastic, so it makes sense that the genius behind the taxidermy commercial made that one, also.

There was a reality show on for a while about a group that repoed or bought foreclosed/junked mobile homes and flipped them for a tidy profit. Cullman Liquidation reminded me of that.

Don from "Don's Gun's" has quite the oversized set of dentures there. Nothing inspires trust in a merchant like big, fake horse teeth gleaming back at you.

Edited by bilgistic
  • Love 1

Here's another local used-car dealership spot (they're low-hanging fruit around here). They don't run this series of commercials anymore, and this one is fairly tame in terms of bizarreness, but I give you one word: puppets. They look like refugees from the nearest children's church horror hour, I mean, "let's learn about Jesus with puppets" hour. Because puppets make everything less creepy.

It should be known that I hadn't seen those commercials in four years, and I could still remember the puppets' jingle so I could look up the commercial. They will take over your soul.

Edited by bilgistic

Is the 702 a shout out to your area code?

And I was crackin up: " I didn't want anything; I just wanted to sing on teevee." Yes, indeed. Lol!

No, my area code is 317. riley-702 is the name and (erstwhile) address of my workplace - Riley Children's Hospital at 702 Barnhill Drive. They've now moved the entrance around to a newly created street named, imaginatively, Riley Hospital Drive. 

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Jack Antwerpen of the Baltimore, MD area causes me to twitch whenever I see his commercials. We did buy my husband's car from him, though, which means that I am contributing to the madness.

That last one made me want to punch everyone involved in the making of that commercial. I really, really hate that grown-people's-heads-on-babies'-bodies comedy bit. Also, a second car for a dollar? That sounds totally legit.

I thank you, Ruby Woo 72, for posting the Chuck Testa ad! I watched Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings pretty religiously on IFC a couple of years back. Chuck's ad was one episode. (It was not an easy shoot, iirc!)

 

Holiday Hotel for Cats: (from Episode 1!)

 

TRASHICORN!!!!

 

and the one that got them on my radar: The Red House!

Edited by The Crazed Spruce
Fixed YouTube tags
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There's an ad for a local hospital that shows a woman (I don't really know what her position is at the hospital) being baby-nurturing throughout her life, calling babies "little sweetpea".  At the end, she hands a baby to its mother and says, "Isn't she just the sweetest little sweetpea?"  Uh, the baby is wrapped in blue.  Doesn't that mean it's a he?

 

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No two words strike fear in the hearts of those living in Upstate New York more than these.

Billy. Fuccillo.

I can't even use a certain word beginning with "H"

in everyday conversation anymore.

This. What an asshole. The guy is obviously successful and has to be fairly intelligent, you would think, to have so many dealerships. Why, then, does he insist on always sounding so ignorant? Also, I don't know if this is true, but I have heard that he owns dealerships in the Southwestern US where he goes by the name of Billy Fernandez.

At the end, she hands a baby to its mother and says, "Isn't she just the sweetest little sweetpea?"  Uh, the baby is wrapped in blue.  Doesn't that mean it's a he?

Gender non-comforming newborn and the hospital lady is supportive? ;)

 

Or, I mean, was it a newborn? Because if not it might've been a generic hospital blanket they're all blue kind of sitch, wherein you just trust the person talking about the infant knows which baby it is, rather than any kind of intentional, gender-based, color-coded shorthand.

Edited by theatremouse
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