Courtesy of tomorrow's Boston birthday girl:
www.tonygoddess.com (select Play Kartman). Former Delawarean Tony wrote and starred in this high-energy commercial for Salisbury Kartman in Salisbury, Mass.
A Reminiscence
I love locally produced commercials. I mute everything else, but cheap-ass local commercials get my full attention. There was one in Baltimore for
Micah's, the soul food cafeteria, with the guy saying, "I've got a
weight problem. I can't
wait to get to Micah's!" There was also this very confusing one for Dead Freddie's, a bar in Parkville, that involved some sort of military attack in pursuit of 25-cent wings.
My all-time favorite one is from Delaware, I think. There's a used-car salesman pretending to talk to an animated duck. The computer, or video editor or whatever, had so little memory that the duck was about 40 dpi, pixillated as hell, and it moved at about half the speed of an animatronic Christmas elf. At the end of the commercial the duck's supposed to be closing a car door and the salesman leers endlessly at the camera until the duck's wing somehow shuts the door.
And then there's cable access. Rhode Island had the all-time best cable access, totally Wayne's World, with crazy accents, pissed-off ambush interviewees, and weekly shows that ran over and over again when there was time to fill. Anyone could have their own show; the cable company even had free lessons on how to use the equipment. Once we met this guy Little Chief who used to hang out in the Safari Club. He told us he was making a video for cable access behind the Carpet Giant, which was called either "Meet Me at the Afterhours, After Hours," or "Meet Me at the Drunk Spot," he wasn't sure which.
Our current cable company is getting fined a million dollars a day because they aren't providing enough cable access. I feel like I personally deserve some of those damages. Although last week there was some community blues show where the guest kept calling the host "Stinky-Butt" until finally the host retaliated with "Poo Poo Butt."
And happy birthday to *today's* birthday girl,
Ianqui!
