El Gaffney

We’re All Weird Al: Bachelorette Edition

I love me some Weird Al. Always have. Waiting for that side 1 to side 2 transition on my “Even Worse” cassette tape. Classic. He’s inspired me to do some lyric customization of my own – mostly for welcomes, beefs or farewells back at Wieden.

As you might imagine, I was excited to see my friend Sarah doing the same for her Bachelorette finale party last week. Unfortunately I missed the ideal window to post because I was moving. However, I figure it’s relevant enough today given the Bachelor Pad premiere tonight. Without further ado, here’s “Runaway (from Ashley)”:

(Set to Kanye West’s “Runaway”)

And I rarely find, yeah, I rarely find this much wrong
But JP’s been puttin’ up wit’ her laugh just way too long
With her it’s so easy to find what Ben wouldn’t like the most
So I think it’s time for William to have a roast

Let’s have a toast for the midriff,
Let’s have a toast for that forehead,
Let’s have a toast for the short skirts,
Every one of them that she wears
Let’s have a toast to the perfaaaaact
That never stops hurting my brain
Chris Harrison, I got a plan
Run away fast as you can

She find warnings in her emails
Money sent a picture of that d*ck.
I don’t know what it is with females
But Ashley’s not too good with that sh*t.
See, she could have a West or a Mickey
And still be addicted to them Bentleys
And I just blame everything on her
At least you know there’s nothing she’s good at

See, I rarely find and I rarely find
Yeah, I rarely find this much wrong
But we’ve been puttin’ up with her face just way too long
This season’s so easy to find what I don’t like the most
So I think it’s time for William to have a roast

Let’s have a toast for the black mask,
Let’s have a toast for Ry’s hand hearts,
Let’s have a toast for the Ames fans,
Every one of them that I know
Let’s have a toast to Constantine
Who wouldn’t even take that room key
ABC, I got a plan
Run away fast as you can

R-r-ru-ru-ru-run away
Run away from Ashley

Always been such a TV romantic,
I just love the faux sense of intimacy.
And I know this girl’s done damage,
’cause the screech in her voice is killing me,
I guess we’ve got another advantage
’cause we could blame Brad for everything.
And I don’t know how I’m a manage,
If one day Ashley’s back on the screen…
Oh, I haven’t cared in so long
We been puttin’ up with the insecurity just way too long
With her it’s so easy to find what I don’t like the most
So I think it’s time for William to have a roast

Let’s have a toast for that long hair,
Let’s have a toast for frontal rub-downs,
Let’s have a toast for Asian love spots,
Every one of them that I know
Let’s have a toast to the Bach Pad
That I really can’t wait for
Chris Harrison, I got a plan
Run away fast as you can

Tags: bachelorette, celebs, realitytv, weird al

Carl Sagan: MadMan

(via Bud Caddell)

When I was growing up, I used to get so excited watch Cosmos with my father (amongst other things like Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes). Now I watch Jersey Shore and Project Runway. Whaaaaa happened? That’s going to take a bit more soul-searching than I’m prepared to do now. As a planner, I’ve certainly wielded a few of Sherlock’s great quotes to make a point, or explain what I do. Can I get a “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” That’s not a question. So when I stumbled upon Cosmos’ “The Persistence of Memory” on the Science Channel my planner ears perked up… and my fingers got-a-typin’. Here are some Sagan sound-bytes for your mind (we still do alliteration like it’s nobody but our business)…and for external use at the risk of sounding like a jerk-off.

The units of biological evolution are genes. The units of cultural evolution are called ideas. Ideas have transported all over the planet. They reproduce through communications. They are selected by analysis and debate.

One thing will be clear about us: No one sends such a message on such a journey without a positive passion for the future.

I love this last one. I wish it was more true of our industry.

Tags: carlsagan, quotes, sherlockholmes

I’m Geeking Out About “I’m Telling”

It’s time to teleport you to the Iso-Zone.

This could easily be a tweet, but I’ve elevated this discovery to blog status. Though, with over twice as many followers as subscribers, I’m not sure most would say I’m elevating it. Perhaps more accurately, I’m making the find less disposable and my excitement more apparent.

Anyway, I had a dream last night that I was on a game show. All I remembered of it was that I was running up a “mountain” of presents. Thank Go…Google, there’s, well, Google. Because after a few ambitious and unsuccessful searches like “game show, mountain of presents” (video games and Mountain Dew have it on lock) and “kids’ game shows mountain” (you know The Aggro Crag on GUTS is holding it down), I broadened out to “popular 80s game shows. And that’s where I hit the jackpot: BuzzSugar.

The show – I’m Telling. The mountain of toys – The Pick-A-Prize Arcade. The most famous people to play (as children) – Paul Walker (on a regular bro-sis show), Shannon Doherty (on a special celebrity show) and the Astin brothers (yes, brothers – see Rudy below).

I don’t really have a point to this story; I just got really nostalgic. And I kind of want to revive it. The Newlywed Game with siblings. There’s definitely still a market for it. Hit me up if agree.

Update: I told my family about this game show dream last night at Passover and before giving away any details (nothing about the mountain of toys or anything), my sister guessed that it was “I’m Telling.” Crazy. We totally should have been on this show.

Tags: childhood, games, gameshows, shows

Leaving Viral Back In 2009

Here’s a post I meant to write at the beginning of the year, but I never got around to it. Thanks to the “#snowpacalypse” in NYC (or few inches on the ground), I had a bit of time to aggregate links last week. Now that it’s Friday I have a bit more time. So let’s get down to business.

I, like many planners, having been keeping track of and keeping my clients up-to-date on the content online that’s spreading across many people for a while now. It started years ago as a way to shift the conversation away from “We want the next Tea Partay” to “what’s right for us and our audience and what would they want to pass along” by providing examples with various levels of taste, humor, shock, etc. Plus, because the majority of “viral successes” come from individuals, it was helpful to start looking more closely at what companies were doing.

Read full article here

Fast forward to present. Thankfully we don’t get too many briefs with “viral” as a deliverable anymore. But for those who do, there’s been some great thinking about the problems with the term/request done by Faris, Bud, Paul and Ivan. However, I still do collect examples of (mostly) brands’ attempts to produce (mostly) video content to be passed around…and rack up that coveted 1 million YouTube views.

Since I had all these links in my delicious or email, I figured I’d put them all in one place and share them with you – just in case it’s useful in any way. Without further ado, the 2009 “viral” year in review:

Q1 kicked off with Mini has some fun with the “Is it fake?” theme of many viral videos. Geico feeds off the equity of the Numa Numa Guy to create a hit video (though other videos leveraging memes that they put on their YouTube channel “itsthegecko” had significantly less views). Nike had Taylor Momsen (from Gossip Girl) do some parkour to avoid the paparazzi. Ray Ban “Never Hide Films” (behind the catching sunglasses video which has over 4 million views) came back in early January with another video, which did not get quite the same response. Cadbury, on the other hand, came back strong (after the drum-playing gorilla) with “Eyebrow Dance” and got a lot of views.

Then, there were the commercials, which were heavily spread online like McDonald’s Fillet o’ Fish commercial, which has a techno song remix as well. Though, Pharrell trying to get the Mickey D’s in Paris airport gained more traction. Then, there were ones that just didn’t stir up the controversy they had hoped to, such as Domino’s CEO going hard at Subway.

After his death at the end of June, it was no surprise that Michael Jackson was all over the Internet. Millions of views for everything from this old Pepsi commercial to this Twitter mashup to the tribute by Philippines detention center inmates, who are more famous for their original Thriller performance.

Back to brands, Samsung put out this LED sheep thing which got tons of views. Then followed up with more crazy stuff at a trade show. I know it’s a TV campaign, but the geeks went gaga for this Intel work. And sticking with tech, peeps have been all about Xbox’s Project Natal and its first official look. T-Mobile is back (in the UK) with a follow-up to their train station dance, getting a crowd together to sing “Hey Jude”.

There’s what Nike did for Free And what FC Barcelona’s coach put together with Catalonian TV before playing Manchester United in the Champions’ League Final, which was inspired by this.

Remember the EA Sports response to Tiger Woods superfan and YouTube user? They tried to build off it (but less successfully) with this before the Open. And I think Gilette’s still sour that Philips had such a hit with their body groomer (“Shave Everywhere”) work a few year’s back and came out with this “manscaping” tip video. But that’s probably better than the Comfort Wipe infomercial out there and Burger King “Square Butts” (Sponge Bob + Sir Mix-a-lot) commercial, both of which have been racking up views online.

Of course you’ve seen “I’m on a Boat” by Lonely Island, but even better is this a Capella version. Plus, on the subject of singing (or lip-syncing in this case), here’s a kid who produces and broadcasts his talent from the Apple Store.

There’s the Kanye interrupting Obama mash-up and likely the most viral video as of the year (parodied on NBC’s The Office): “JK Wedding Dance“.

Nike, EA and RayBan returned with Skateboarding and Ice Cube, FIFA 2010 and a SxSW video respectively.

Discovery Channel launches a bunch of mini-clips for Shark Week. Disneyland brings us a magical (come on, don’t be a hater) proposal. Evian helps you feel young…with roller-skating babies. And MSI gives us “Guy catches laptop with his butt.”

United Airlines gets firsthand experience in the power of the customer and a PR nightmare when they broke a dude’s guitar. The Muppets sing Bohemian Rhapsody. There’s a Christmas Light Hero and a Gap commercial tribute.

Over the holidays, we had the option to stay warm by the fire or with your Weezer Snuggie. But, as NYC Health advises, stay away from the soda (WARNING: KINDA GROSS). And if we ventured out, we could have brought some money for the Salvation Army and ImprovEverywhere. While brands were not pumping out as much online video content as in past quarters, there was this nice set of videos for Google Chrome.

And there you have it. Say goodbye to 2009 (again)..and (now) to “viral.”

Tags: brands, videos, viral

Really, Seth

Every so often, I like to tout the accomplishments of people with whom I share a name – first or last. It becomes a sort of bitter celebration and serves as a motivational tool for me to get my act together. Well, not necessarily my act as in part of a play or even comedy sketch because that’s where Seth Myers comes in with this silly new SNL segment:

Other Seth (Gray), I fully expect a comment here.

Tags: seth, seth myers, snl