Friday night videos episode 25
Bringing back the FNV franchise again after a week off, so let’s see what the extra week has given me to work with.
Lots of video on the health care debacle, as you might expect. Pollster Scott Rasmussen talks to the Washington News-Observer on the upcoming midterm elections and about how unpopular Obamacare really is:
It wasn’t too popular among this group either. My blogger friend Bob McCarty (who lives in that area) covered the counter-protest to President Obama’s health care show in St. Charles, Missouri.
If I didn’t put this on when it first came out, I sure missed out. This edition of FNV will be graced by the common sense of Rep. Mike Pence, perhaps my favorite member of Congress.
But the Democrats do reveal the facts about their health care bill.
Speaking of leading Democrats, in a couple weeks we’re going to see the third edition of the TEA Party Express, which begins in Searchlight, Nevada (Harry Reid’s hometown.) Mark Williams of TPX3 wanted to have a conversation with MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan but you can see how the left expresses “Anger in America.”
And if you’re interested in saddling up and heading out west, they have an interesting lineup to start their tour – wonder how many will be there for the other stops?
Let’s finish the political end of FNV with something humorous. We can laugh about this now that this half of the globe is actually warming (with a corresponding cooling on the other side – funny how that works, huh?)
Now the fun part. This comes from one of my favorite regional bands and was recorded live at the Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia (unfortunately, not by me.) Hailing from Smyrna, Delaware, this is 13:1.
If you go to their website, crank out ‘No Goodbyes.’ (Feel free to do so with their other songs if you wish, too.)
With that, we put another FNV in the books. That was fun.
Art imitating life – or vice versa?
When a company devotes millions of dollars to the production and airing of a Super Bowl ad, they are at the mercy of several factors – one of those being an exciting game if you happen to have a spot airing in the fourth quarter.
We all know that the game itself came down to a late interception returned for a touchdown to secure the New Orleans Saints’ victory; fortunately for Audi this occurred after their commercial aired. For all the pregame talk about the pro-life ad sponsored by Focus on the Family and featuring the mother of Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, the “green police” commercial sponsored by Audi may have the most lasting impact.
The ad opens with an innocuous transaction at a grocery store where the cashier cheerfully asks, “Will that be paper or plastic?” When the hapless customer answers “plastic” he’s rudely greeted by an officer from the “green police” who advises the customer, “you picked the wrong day to mess with the ecosystem, plastic boy!” From there, numerous people run afoul of the law for having batteries in the trash, throwing away an orange rind (a “compost infraction”), possession of incandescent light bulbs and plastic water bottles, and having the temperature of their hot tub too high. The only escapee is the one driving the sponsor’s diesel-powered car at the “eco checkpoint.” Even the classic rock band Cheap Trick redid their 1970’s song “Dream Police” into “Green Police” for the spot.
Great humor works because it has an element of truth in it, and this commercial reflects a number of moves already made by government. Indeed, traditional incandescent light bulbs will be going away after next year due to government edict and several regions of the globe ban the use of plastic grocery bags. Nanny staters constantly proclaim society needs to reduce, reuse, and recycle.
So far, though, America hasn’t gotten to the point where we have the government snooping through our garbage for contraband non-recyclable material or uniformed officers breaking into our backyards to check the temperature of the hot tub. But the spot is believable because we now can’t dismiss the possibility given the cap and trade legislation slowly seeping its way through Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency’s willingness to take advantage of a 2007 Supreme Court ruling allowing them to regulate carbon dioxide to promulgate new restrictions on commerce and daily life, all in the name of combating so-called manmade climate change.
It’s this climate fear that Audi plays to with their ad, on both sides. For those who believe they should do more to save the planet, the car is sold as an eco-friendly mode of transportation. On the other hand, those who are skeptical about our impact on the climate but believe the way of the future may well be reflected in the commercial might be persuaded to buy one simply to be left alone.
Obviously Audi is attempting to sell cars with this Super Bowl ad just as other sponsors pushed online services, beer, or snack food. While the vast majority of these ads were written and produced to be humorous in some sly way or another, the Audi spot will have a longer-lasting impact for its product because this humor made the consumer think.
Many found it funny only because it stretched what we believe into something of a tall tale. It’s when the tall tale becomes reality that the spot loses its humor, and in the coming decade we may see the Audi ad as prophetic of how society evolved.
Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.
My latest LFS column to be released cleared on February 12.
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