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ROFL! @ Joe's Pub

While I generally refrain from plugging my personal comedy schedule here, I am representing Stay Free! in a "best of the web" competition at Joe's Pub in NYC on July 27 at 11:30PM.

ROFL! is a bracket-style competition, where representatives of different blogs pit their favorite video clips or other web ephemera against one another. The winner gets $150 in singles. Which I guess can be used to finance a trip to see the live version of the actual best (by profitability) of the web.

Among the other presenters will be Jason Kottke and representatives from Buzzfeed, Rhizome, Negatendo, 53 O's and Weimar New York.

ROFL! is presented by The Onion and Paper Thin Walls. Tickets are $15 and you can get them here, by calling 212-967-7555 or at the door (425 Lafayette St.)

Land Rover: A Legend in its Marketing

According to Brandweek, Land Rover's new marketing strategy is to show the car as a "hero" by rushing cars to the sites of natural disasters:

When a natural disaster strikes, [Director Scott Duncan] and his crew go on location to capture footage. For example, when floods hit Levasy, Mo., last month, Duncan's crew swooped in like a SWAT team to film the LR3 in action. Turpin said the first spot, breaking next week, would show the LR3 using its hydraulic lift and sealed undercarriage to navigate flooded streets strewn with disabled cars. ...

To ensure that the brand isn't seen as exploiting disaster, Land Rover will offer the use of its vehicles to emergency personnel or, alternatively, make donations to relief organizations.

So Land Rover doesn't want to be seen as exploiting natural disasters and have concluded that throwing money around won't seem explotaitive at all.

Alas, this is the essence of corporate charity: the giving isn't to help, it is for the purpose of saying that you gave, like when Philip Morris well spent over $1,000,000 to brag that it donated $125,000 worth of macaroni and cheese. Remember, its the thought that counts - and that thought is "this will pay off in the end, right?"

(Via Consumerist)

Mary's Dirty Little Monkey

I first thought that this was a great advertisement for soap that involves a monkey as a metaphor for ladyparts. It turns out that it is one of a series of cards about Mary and her monkey from a time when people had a sense of humor about sex.

You can see all of the excellent illustrations at the above link or read the whole poem below the fold.

(Via Silent Porn Star, which has a lot of great vintage risque (often NSFW) stuff. If you search for "wrestle" you'll see a great cartoon.)

1. Mary has a little Monkey, just as cute as it can be,

It was covered with the softest hair that ever you did see.

2. To keep it nice and clean was Mary's greatest hope,

So she washed her little Monkey with the best kind of soap.

3. The boys all like Mary, and like her Monkey too,

And when they play so nice with it, what can Mary do?

4. Once Mary's Monkey got real cold That filled her with alarm

So she bought some woolen pants For to keep her Monkey warm.

5. Mary went in swimming and she took her little pet.

A wave hit in the "Good Old Summer Time"

and she got her monkey wet.

6. Mary now is married and it keeps her on the jump,

And between the man and Mary, her Monkey has to hump.

The Last Straw

I've now seen this in a few places, and I'm wondering if it's a trend: You're standing at the counter of an informal restaurant. There's a container of paper-wrapped straws on the counter. Next to that, there's now a paper cup or some other small depository. And I believe we're supposed to place our used straw wrappers in this holder.

Now, my first thought was, how lazy have we become as a society that we need a special tiny little trashcan for our straw wrappers? Is carrying the wrapper the 3 or 4 feet to the normal garbage can such a huge burden? Is there some eco-issue I wasn't aware of, in which seagulls are choking to death on improperly-disposed-of straw wrappers?

But my second thought was, hmmm, oftentimes when I'm emptying out my pockets at the end of the day, I will discover a straw wrapper. Even if I'm positive that I threw it away, nope, it's still at the bottom my pocket. So, I don't know, maybe this is society evolving just a little bit.

Condom-free TV?

In the latest morality play from the Puritans that run network television, CBS and Fox are refusing to air certain ads for Trojan condoms. Because they won't show advertising for condoms? No, because they won't show ads for condoms that promote fucking. In the words of a Fox memo, “Contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy.” So sayeth the network that gave us five seasons of The Simple Life.

CBS deemed the ads "inappropriate... even with only-late-night restrictions," even though the idea of picking up women to have sex seems to be Barney's raison d'etre. Not to mention that either the subtext of Two and a Half Men is that Charlie Sheen is desperately trying to have a baby or CBS needs to reexamine its priorities also.

(Via AdFreak)

How Americans Get to Work

From the Census Bureau:

See also: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others

(Via Streetsblog)

PSAs for potheads

We've written a lot about anti-drug ads that make you WANT to take drugs, so I figure I ought to share the good news as well. A couple of new animated spots aimed at discouraging marijuana smoking are damn good. The production is decidedly low-key and badly drawn in a charming, Brad-Neely sort of way.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid533275934http://www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=78144477

 

In my favorite of the two, a girl gets bored with her stoner boyfriend and flies off with an alien who doesn't care for pot. In the other, a puppy is saddened by the inability of his pot-smoking human to quit and get a life. Reminds me of Todd Barry's idea for a perfect world: one where pot is legal, but potheads are not.

Hard to believe that these spots came from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which has produced more than its share of hackneyed, misguided PSAs.

Like all anti-drug spots, these have inspired a fair share of parodies, one of which is funny enough that you'd almost think it's not by a pothead.

(Via Slate)

Carrie on Consumerist

While not working on Stay Free!, Carrie does home improvement. A lot of this means going outside and the outside is not always friendly to her. To minimize the inevitable mosquito assault, she did some research and product testing on mosquito avoidance techniques and products. Her findings are over at Consumerist.

Best commercial for a Presidential candidate ever

Seriously, this is awesome. It's a spot for Mike Gravel, the former U.S. Senator of Alaska, who I'd never heard of until five minutes ago. He gets my vote. This man is an artist.

(Via Adfreak)

Czech Dream

A while back, I posted about the documentary Czech Dream, about a couple of artists who create a marketing campaign for a nonexistant bigbox store in Prague. Anyway, I just noticed that it's playing in New York this week (through Friday) at the IFC. Those of you who aren't in New York can probably find it on your favorite P2P network. (It's on mine....)