Follow the bouncing ball, it’s time for another Uncle Jerry’s Points of Interest.
When it comes to watching sports, I’m really at a lull. Of course we have the Pirates, who are actually showing a bit of life with the return of Marte, but you just can’t allow yourself to feel any sort of hope, because history says they will find a way to crush your soul. So the wife and I have been cleaning out the DVR, and since she has a huge crush on’at Milo Ventricalmatriculation guy, we’ve been watching This is Us. I’m all about it, by the way. I mean, you get a little drama, comedy, and best of all: Pittsburgh mentions.
Now, when you’re watching something on the DVR, the commercials zoom by like you’re looking dahn from a turnpike overpass. With that, you don’t get to see or hear anything the ads are trying to sell ya. In a way, it’s cool because I don’t need another My Pillow. The old lady has about 300 just on the couch! Then again, it’s not all that cool because half of the fun of watching the commercials is singing the jingles or razzing the common characters.
If I start singing, I bet you can finish the jingle. Let’s try a couple:
“Day Automotive… ” -- Haha! My wife HATES that lady in the commercials. She’s always, like, petting a koala bear or stroking her pearls and talking about how their financing will have you salivating like a yinzer over pastrami. She doesn’t bother me. She’s a Pittsburgh 8. I just wait for the jingle… “...Gonna make your day!
I mean, if you can’t finish this jingle: “Century three.. Chev-ro-let…..” you might as well just pack up your Hunt’s ketchup and go home. As a kid, I was pretty confident that this commercial was about Chuck E. Cheese or something! “Lebanon Church Road Pittsburgh… Minutes from the Mall!” -- The mall that is probably full of squatters right now. Have you seen the pics floating around the internet of the inside of the Century Three Mall? It looks like Bayside High before the bell rings.
“Call Mr. Waterheater…” Oh, I’m NOT calling Mr. Waterheater, ‘cause that jingle ends with Mr. Waterheater sounding like he is underwater. I’m trying to get OUT from underneath a basement full of water! Not grab a snorkel and explore the coral crawlspace!
Can we talk about how much money a single finger point can make? Edgar Snyder and his “No fee unless we get money for you” bought him a 4 million dollar Miami condo.That’s a lot of ambulance chasing!
Aside from somebody trying to sell you something, how about the commercials for the guy that had his weather reports sent straight from God himself? I’m talking about the man that would climb Mt. Washington like Mt. Sinai to get the weather commandments from Moses! I’m talking about the guy that literally told us it was going to be “partly claaahdy with a chance of shahers” every single day of his life and we thought he was a genius! I’m talking about…
“Joe said it would!” with Joe. Freakin’. Denardo.
And when you know how the weather is going to go, you don’t worry about getting caught in a snowbank on your way to “Eat N’ Park’s the place… for… smiles.” If you did get caught in that snowbank, maybe you should have gotten a Ford from “Shults Ford in Wexford or Harmarville.”
The big question is… Where did all of the good commercials go?! I’ll tell you where they went. They went straight into your -- Hey! Hey! Are you paying attention? No… you’re not! You’ve already moved on to the next app or the next post. It’s impossible for you to sit and read anything longer than an Instagram picture. It’s hard for you to just watch or hear something without snaptweeting about it.
Now, before I go and tell you to kindly get off of my lawn, just know that it’s because of that collective shrinking attention span that the quality of commercials has, likewise, shrunk proportionately.
Companies used to have money to really dive into a full campaign full of TV, radio and print ads. They would normally have about four big campaigns per year. Now, that money has to be split up between the three I mentioned and social, google, websites, apps, gorilla marketing and airplane banners. The simple truth is, the advertising world moves so fast, and information moves so fast and technology moves so fast that just trying to grab your attention for five seconds is considered a win.
So when you’re feeling nostalgic for the old days of TV and radio jingles and laugh about the #1 Synder guy screaming into a Bob Barker microphone reading off bible verses, just know, the money can only go so far.
But hey, if you want to put your money on something… I’ll bet you 50 bucks tomorrow is going to be partly claaahdy with a chance of shaaahers.
