04 November 2007

Vita Brevis

Dragging myself downstairs for some much needed tea in the early hours of this morning, I wound up watching the top thirty or so of the 100 Greatest TV Ads, as voted for, apparently, by the British public back in 2000. I arrived just in time to see an alarmingly young and startlingly creepy Anthony Head schmoozing over coffee.

It got me thinking of my own long cherished dreams of advertising Erdinger, Werther's Originals, Pepsi, and Sure. Maybe someday.

Anyway, the one advert in the show that stopped me in my tracks was an astounding ad for the Xbox that was shown and swiftly withdrawn back in 2002. I'd never seen it before. You can read about if you like, or, if you reckon you'll not be appalled, you could watch it. It's brilliant. In shockingly bad taste, perhaps, but brilliant.

It reminds me, in a way, of a fantastic cartoon that Gary Larson admits he never even tried to submit for syndication as a 'Far Side' piece.



As he says, in The Prehistory of the Far Side, this is much more effective if you imagine sound effects as well.

Far too few people nowadays know 'The Far Side'. Even the once ubiquitous greeting cards are endangered beasts now. I really think this needs correcting. It was, after all, a work of rare and twisted genius.

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