Luis Prada
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Not every professional athlete gets Michael Jordan's advertising campaigns. The lucky few who have the chance to film a commercial rarely get to see it air beyond city limits. These are local commercials, and if you're a pro-athlete moderately well-known within your city, the low-budget, low-creativity world of commercials for local businesses is your financial salvation -- and the only taste of the superstar lifestyle you may ever get.
There's just one small catch: There's a very good chance your commercial will suck. Like these ...
It was 1991. The Chicago Bulls won their first of three consecutive NBA championships. Michael Jordan was starring in Wheaties commercials, Spike Lee was directing his Nike ads, and Gatorade commercials demanded that we all "Be Like Mike."
Meanwhile, the Bulls' second scoring option, Scottie Pippen, was slam-dunking subs for a Chicago-area sandwich joint called Mr. Submarine.
Ball, ball, TURKEY ON WHITE.
In the middle of practice, Scottie Pippin is suddenly and mysteriously confronted with a 6-foot sub sandwich standing before him, like the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey made of bread and deli meats. It must mean something. His trusty companions, two Chicago Bulls cheerleaders, Kim and Cheryl, rush to his side to help solve the mystery of The Suddenly Appearing Sandwich. Scottie offers his thoughts:
According to Major League outfielder Hunter Pence, these are the things you can do with loaves of bread purchased from Liscio's Bakery:
1) They can convincingly double as prosthetic legs:
2) You can practice jerking off a two-dicked bread monster as you run down the streets of Philadelphia:
3) You can do whatever this is:
4) You can make the tips kiss again and again and again and again and again ...
Hunter Pence does not know how to use bread.
Hockey faces are brutal, jagged, and lumpy like a boxer's face a couple of days after a fight -- but forever. They're stern, blue-collar people from cold lands and thus look unnatural in their ill-fitting fancy suits. They lack anything resembling charisma and charm. They're men who would rather harvest a field of wheat in Edmonton than speak into a microphone.
So, naturally, a Pittsburgh-area BMW dealership had the wonderful idea to film a commercial with four members of the Pittsburgh Penguins who were presumably being held at gunpoint.
That's former Penguin Max Talbot as he demonstrates how to repel all potential mates within 10 miles. Before this, Talbot mocks a fellow teammate for getting special treatment at the dealership, because they give special treatment only to "superstars, like me." Talbot says this oblivious to the fact that calling a hockey player a "star" is exactly as ridiculous as meaning it in the literal sense. Then, the shocking twist ...
SURPRISE WE WERE HERE THE WHOLE TIME!
Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar (two names I could have made up for all you know) are awkwardly standing in front of cars and have probably been standing there all day, waiting for someone to acknowledge them. Tired of waiting for a "Hello, are you hockey man?" that never comes, they decide to speak. Actually, only Gonchar speaks, and he's entirely unintelligible. Malkin's only responsibility is to catch a set of keys and stare at them with the dim smile of a man born without thoughts.
Good job, Evgeni.
Massive, sprawling used-car dealerships are popular in America, and your city can't officially be called a city until you have at least 15,000 acres of good land occupied by a fleet of used Kia Sorentos. Eastern Motors is Maryland's version of the used-car mega-mart. Most of their commercials prominently feature pro-athletes from the Baltimore and D.C. area. All of them are a grievous mistake that should have gotten someone fired but instead they were promoted and were told to make more.
There's the commercial where Jason Campbell, former quarterback for the Washington Racial Slurs, seeks psychological counseling to help sort through the myriad choices available at Eastern Motors. It begins with perfectly expected terrible acting, and halfway through suddenly erupts into an orgy of adorable racism. I don't want to spoil it for you -- it starts about 12 seconds in:
Let's never speak of that again and move on to the next commercial, where three members of the Baltimore Ravens poorly lip-sync the atrocious Eastern Motors theme song in an ad with lower production value than a terrorist training video:
Or you can head over to Eastern Motors' YouTube page and watch all forty-goddamn-five of their terrible commercials starring local athletes. But before I move on, I need to show you the pinnacle of the Eastern Motors advertising shitshow. Alexander Ovechkin, captain of the NHL's Washington Capitals and a recently hatched human clone that is just learning how to speak, is without question the worst spokesman in the history of professional sports:
Not many companies make it as overtly obvious as Eastern Motors has in this Ovechkin ad that they've forced a guy to sing their jingle against his will or else he won't receive even a drop of his scabies cream -- this might be the worst commercial ever produced:
This man needs ointment.
This commercial for Gebco auto insurance starring Baltimore Ravens legend Jonathan Ogden makes no sense. Here's why:
The state of Maryland is one of only four states in America that abide by a system of automotive law called contributory negligence. If there's an auto accident of any kind, it does not matter if one party is more at fault than another. If both parties contributed to the cause of the accident, even in a small way, both are at fault, and neither party can sue the other for damages. Both have to make a first-party claim through their own insurance.
The evidence provided by the Gebco commercial proves that Mr. Ogden was standing in the middle of the road and facing oncoming traffic at the time of collision.
The driver made no attempt to swerve out of Mr. Ogden's way, hitting him head-on, as evidenced by the large indentation caused by Mr. Ogden's legs on the front bumper/hood of the driver's car. Mr. Ogden's reply of, "Huh?" when the driver accuses him of negligence suggests Mr. Ogden may not have even been aware he was walking in the middle of the road at the time.
From this I can surmise that both parties made no attempt to avoid the display of Mr. Ogden's unnerving immortality. Both Mr. Ogden and the driver share fault under Maryland's system of contributory negligence, therefore invalidating the driver's claim of the accident being the sole fault of Mr. Ogden.
Mr. Ogden, while you must still file a police report and suffer whatever consequences may come -- perhaps a fine or light jail time -- you will not be responsible for the driver's damages. You may celebrate in whatever manner you see fit.
This entry was brought to you by Gebco auto insurance. Gebco: We swear we're a real company!
"Brogressive" and "Ballstate" were too dumb.
Look, Mario Lemieux is one of the greatest hockey players of all time. If he wants to pick up a child and sandwich him between two Mario Lemieux faces, it's gonna happen. The man beat cancer and kept playing. Respect his wishes. Yeah, there's going to be some uncomfortable sexual tension between Lemieux and the boy. That's a given. But no harm will come to the boy. NONE. Right, Mario?
Mario ...?
Never mind the fact that the kid appears to be about 15, so picking him up just looks fucking weird. But staring into his eyes like that makes it so much worse. And the way the kid looks back and forth between the real Mario and the cardboard Mario is almost heartbreaking ... like he's pleading for the cardboard cutout to step in and stop the bad man from the inevitable living nightmare that's about to ensue. It's hard to watch, because it comes off as less like a commercial and more like a cautionary tale. "Eat all of your vegetables and go to bed on time, or the Lemieux will get you."
Luis is filming a commercial for his local mom'n'pop heroin dealer. In the meantime, you can find him on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.
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