Baseball needs to wrap it up...

Life is all about timing. Start a business at the right before your product is in demand, walk into a store and be the one millionth customer, don't walk into a building just before it collapses and you will consider yourself a pretty lucky fellow. Some other forms of timing are a little bit more predictable. Such as the NFL engulfing any American sports fan when it begins the first week of September. Somehow, Major League Baseball didn't get the memo. Here is a picture for you:

The picture above isn't from a regular season game of some team that is out of contention. It is from the most profitable sports franchise in the world, the New York Yankees. When was this picture taken? Oh, only in game three of probably the most important playoff series other than the World Series, the American League Championship. 

Unfortunately for the Yankees, this game was scheduled on a Sunday. Normally that wouldn't be a bad thing, but when the NFL is on it is a totally different story. Major League Baseball can simply no longer compete with the NFL for ratings. It's time to reexamine that 162 game regular season and have the baseball playoffs played in August when no other sports leagues are being played except for baseball. 

If this picture, and the pitiful TV ratings aren't enough to convince you baseball is to long, here is another story.  My girlfriend asked me the other day when the World Series was. She asked the question the day after the San Francisco Giants had swept the Detroit Tigers....

Top 5: Bud Light Real Men of Genius commercials

I'm sure you guys are sick of hearing how I studied creative advertising in college. Well, I studied creative advertising in college. So, whenever a commercial sticks with me, like some commercials may stick with you, I tend to remember them and analyze them a little bit more than your average coach sitter.

While browsing YouTube the other day I came across a campaign that I remembered when I was growing up by Bud Light called, "Real Men of Genius." Hilarious at the time, and still funny now, these stuck with me through the years and now with the power of the internet I was able to make a top five of my favorites from the ones that have been uploaded to YouTube.

Keep in mind there are likely much more commercials that exist from this campaign compared to what has been uploaded to YouTube. However, since I don't have all the time I would like to mindlessly scour the internet looking for audio clips I decided to only bring you the ones I could find on YouTube, edit them up, and with a small introduction post them on my own YouTube channel. Enjoy.

My issue with Golden Tate...

If you call yourself a football fan, you without a doubt saw the controversial play at the end of the Green Bay Packers/Seattle Seahawks this game this past weekend. In this game, quite possibly one of the worst officiating calls in the history of professional sports happened. In case you, in fact, do live under a rock, here is the play:

From this video it looks pretty clear that Jennings from the Packer clearly has two hands on the ball and comes down with the possession. Once on the ground, Golden Tate then finds a way to get his hands on the ball. Issue is once both players are down the play is over and ends with Jennings having the possession. The play should have been whistled dead and a touch back given to Green Bay ending the game. 

Even with the clown call, I didn't have any resentment towards the Seahawks. Their job is to go out and win football games. Golden Tate did all he could to win the game for his team. Fortunately for him and Seattle, the completely incompetent officials ruled a touchdown on the field. Once that happened, the call became virtually unrecoverable. Possession could not be argued. So, the play was either a touchdown or incomplete. Obviously, it was not incomplete so what was it? 

Either way, that is not what bothered me. What bothered me was the smugness I guess you could say of Pete Carroll, Russel Wilson and Golden Tate in their post game interviews. Look back at the above video at take note at the 1:41 mark of the video. You can clearly see Golden Tate push down a Packers defensive back. Another missed call by the official that would have given the Packers the win. Even that I don't have an issue with. Then he said this: 

Twenty five seconds into the interview, he is asked if he pushed off from the defender. Well, can't really like someone with absolutely no integrity.  Would anyone really have blamed him for admitting it? Or even saying something like, "I may have pushed off a bit." or "Everyone is pushing when going for a jump ball like that." Nope, he didn't say anything like that. He denied it in front of the cameras pretty much signalling that he pretty much believes that all NFL fans are stupid and/or blind.  There was no way the NFL would overturn the result of that game, so why lie to us all like we can't see it for ourselves? 

I was always taught that there is nothing wrong with admitting you were wrong or made a mistake. I guess he missed that life lesson. Oh well, not like I won't be watching week four of the NFL. GO DOLPHINS... *sigh.*

The Death of Creativity in Hollywood

Earlier this month, (a whole 2 blogs ago) I wrote about how I was upset at the lack of creativity coming out of Hollywood recently. How almost every motion picture is either the remake of an 80's movie, or an adaption of a comic book, TV show, graphic novel or whatever a random Hollywood executive woke up and saw across from his coffee table that morning.

I knew it was getting bad (Judge Dredd 3D) but I had no idea how bad until my girlfriend showed me this graphic yesterday:

Pretty easy to see what's going on here over the past 20 years. Either no one can come up with anything that moves executives enough, or they figure it's just easier to take a plot that is already developed and tweek it for movie going audiences. Not that the average movie goer will really care. I mean the whole point is to be entertained in the first place. And if some watered down, over saturated super hero tale can do that in two hours for 11 dollars or more a pop, why not? 

I'm not saying that it's this terrible thing that there aren't original ideas for films in the majority, but how many times can I watch the same movie with the same characters? Some of these movies are on their FOURTH installment. That's almost 10 hours of the same exact thing! EIGHT Harry Potter movies. EIGHT.... OCHO..... ok, I'm done. 

The most effective advertising...

... creates an emotional response. Whether it is laughter, sadness, or just general happiness these are the advertisements you remember. Here is a good one I saw just now from Volkswagon:

You have to be a real sour individual to not enjoy people having a laugh over who knows what. This kind of stuff sticks with you. Which leads you to remembering the company and what they are selling. Same reason the "Real Men of Genius" Bud Light campaign was so successful back when I was growing up. Those advertisements were hilarious, which is why I still remember them today. For some of you young guns who might have missed this advertising brilliance, here you go:

Finding Nemo and Disney Thievery

The original Finding Nemo one sheet
used for promotion in 2003.

On May 30th, 2003, Disney released 'Finding Nemo.' The film was budgeted at $94 million and ended up grossing $872,955,978 worldwide according to Wikipedia. That's not including merchandising (the amount of lunch boxes and plush toys I saw back then was mind numbing) rights for television showings, and the fact that it is the best-selling DVD of all time with over 40 million copies sold as of 2006. 

After all that, they re-released this classic yesterday, September 14th, 2012. No change in story, plot, characters, nothing; just in 3D. I have been relatively upset with Hollywood's lack of originality lately. Everything seems to be a remake of some random 80's movie or television show, but I have to give Disney the 100k douche bag salute for this one. Re-releasing a movie that isn't even a decade old yet just seems like I'm being hoodwinked. Kids that saw this movie when they were six aren't even old enough to legally drive and still five or so years off legally drinking. Then to add absolutely nothing to the film, absolutely zero changes, except for it being presented in 3D, makes it an obvious money grab during a period when no new blockbusters are hitting theaters. 

The re-release one sheet with
3D promotions.

They didn't even change the original one sheet (movie poster for 
those not familiar with the industry term) from 2003. Only adding the 
top header, the 3D logo under the original title and removing the 
blue whale from the background as seen on the right. 

Also, why is 3D cool now? I remember watching stuff at 
Universal Studios when I was nine that was in 3D. 
Why is it all of a sudden revolutionary? And who the hell likes having glasses on when they watch a movie? Did Avatar really change the movie industry that much?

As wrong as it may be or as obvious as it is that this is just a money 
making ploy, it is also brilliant. Why? Because it will work. 
They will collect hundreds of millions of dollars once again. Probably sell another 40 million blue rays and 3D copies for the soon to be dead 3D television craze. Kids will dress up as the small little clown fish for Halloween and eat fish shaped chocolate bars while they skip through suburban neighborhoods in middle America. Parents will happily fork over their hard earned cash for multiple movie tickets as well for a very simple reason:

There is no easier way to shut your kids up for two hours than 
taking them to watch Finding Nemo in 3D.