Click for the :30 Goodly spot #1 @1 MB, Quicktime

Today’s special is local and regional commercials of a religious nature. From a low to mid budget, there’s something about these productions that are eternally stinky. Let’s begin with a big ol’ cheap one.

With the link to the video below the still frame, this first promo for some kind out healing event features many many many titles. A lot of titles. In this still frame you can see the title urging people to bring the dying. I hope no one takes this literally. That would really ruin the healer’s credibility if he had people dying all over his stage because they were pulled off of their dialysis machines.

My biggest issue here is how the guy pronounces his last name, with heavy emphasis on the last syllable. “Whitting-TON” he says. That is completely uncalled for.

Click for the :30 Goodly spot #2 @1 MB, Quicktime

I admit I have done zero homework on this next spot, save a quick Google search to find their web site. If they are to be trusted, they claim to broadcast their program all over the damn world. I mean darn world. Sorry.

“I love you honey!” “No I love you!” “Well I love you more!” “Well I respect you.” “Well I don’t respect you but I love you more.” “I respect you for not respecting me.” Oh man I need a drink.

I would like some more information about where this woman got her doctorate before I do too much celebrating for her. I bet it was from the School of Really Real Studies at the International Learnography Institute.

Click for the :30 Goodly spot #3 @1 MB, Quicktime

This last spot reminds us why having a script ahead of time makes your promo filming go a whole lot smoother. At some point the man speaking just says “there’s just..a whole lot in the Bible. A big handful.”

We can play along with the woman next to him since she is not permitted to speak. “Welp you’ve screwed this up yet again dummy. When everyone is watching it will be obvious you didn’t write it out ahead of time. I knew you would fail.”

Religious programs and their production values remain oddities in the broadcast world. They are black holes of taste where the laws of nature are completely rewritten, where up is down, where good is bad, where a title maker from 1988 rivals the special effects of LucasFilm. You want to look away but you cannot; it draws you into its madness with inescapable gravity.

Then you end up pulling your eyes out like that guy in Event Horizon and the archeologist from Jurassic Park starts hunting you down for plot reasons that are ambiguous at best.

But perhaps I’ve said too much.

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Click for the :30 Old Navy spot #1 @1 MB, Quicktime

I don’t know what to make of the Old Navy spots. I sure hope the people in charge are seeing hard data that is telling them that the commercials work. Otherwise they are running the risk of summoning ancient dark forces without increasing their market share. And there is no point in that.

The first spot, with the link under the video, is an older commercial spoofing the Brady Bunch. But instead, they are the “Rugby Bunch”. I’m sure many many research afternoons on the couch downing bloody mary’s were spent to come up with this fantastic premise.

When I think about it, which is every night for two hours before I fall asleep, I don’t think I could make an Old Navy commercial if I tried my entire little heart out. I don’t even know where I would begin. I guess first I would think of the stupidest thing I could think of. Then I’d see if a five-year-old could one-up me. I guess we’d keep going until someone’s nuts got kicked. Then I’d deprive my brain of oxygen for four minutes.

Let’s move on to a more recent spot.

Click for the :30 Old Navy spot #2 @1 MB, Quicktime

As you can see in this second video clip, the Bee Gees have finally sold out. Wait they didn’t sing Fame. Um. That was someone else. Man who was that.

Anyway, I suppose I should give props to Old Navy for staying dedicated to their advertising, despite massive public protests and the birth defects the commercials cause. Their advertising remains as distinctive as Gap commercials; they could easily leave off their company name and it would be mostly apparent who the commercials were for.

But what I don’t respect are the imprisoned masses of brain-damaged children hooked up to electrodes that Old Navy maintains to get their commercial ideas from. There has got to be a more humane way.

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