TBS commercial-omedy abominations

[waxpop]

Every Tuesday night at 10 pm when I'm watching reruns of The Office on TBS instead of having sex with my husband, I'm bombarded at every break by these "stand-up comedy" infomercials where the comedians shill for various companies (cars.com, I think? and Coors?) via their routines, in front of audiences positively HOOTING with laughter. All the comedy bits the comedians perform have to do with the products. And then at the end TBS has the balls to do their "VERY FUNNY" thing like that was a little hilarious gift to us, the viewers.

They are awful and I'm surprised that any decent comedian would participate in such an embarrassment. (Though I don't know enough about Lisa Landry - the only name I can remember - to know if she's a decent comedian.) It might be one thing if the jokes about the products were actually funny, but they are the opposite of that and the phony crowd laughter has to be cut in because seriously: "Whenever I buy a car I always feel like I'm getting ripped off 'cause I'm a woman" makes me want to die, not laugh.

I guess my question is WHY WHY WHY WTF WHY???!?

Although I guess I know the answer. Is it really that hard to make a name for yourself these days? Could this kind of thing actually help a comedian? Is it a big payday?

I am full of many questions!

[KeithTalent]

Yeah it's so grating and awful it's really unbelievable. It's like a Tim & Eric bit or something. What can we do that's guaranteed to make the viewer feel uncomfortable every single time?

[Gene George]

You could have sex with your husband during the commercials. If your husband is anything like me, I only need two minutes. Bam! That's two minutes you don't have to watch those commercialbortions. Win/ win!

[Hated Milk Machine]

You could have sex with your husband during the commercials. If your husband is anything like me, I only need two minutes. Bam! That's two minutes you don't have to watch those commercialbortions. Win/ win!

i dont get this joke could you please explain further

[Gene George]

i dont get this joke could you please explain further

I orgasm quickly in two minutes or less. Since this is about the length of a standard commercial break, this would allow Waxpop to avoid at least one such awful commercial break, assuming her husband is as inadequate efficient a lover as I am.

Always glad to help,

Gene

[Satchmo Mask]

[youtube]31gIuOPF1uM[/youtube]

Daddy's got a dream.

[CaptainBreakfast]

I blame only myself for watching that.

[In Taintbows]

Oh my. And I thought the incessant previews for that Frank Caliendo show were unbearable...

[drieux]

I'm just sitting down at my desk at a job I intensely loathe and while I'd like to say "how dare they," I wish the TBS fairy would swoop in and offer me a nice fat check to write some inane jokes about some furniture warehouse, more-efficient-lightbulb or some totally kickass absorbant toilet paper and then perform them for a commercial break, and that the money and exposure would hopefully allow me to spend more time doing standup than having to do this job that I only do to earn money to pay bills/rent/drug dealers.

If anybody from TBS is reading this, I can write some totally AWESOME jokes about vacuum cleaners. Call me!

[pg13]

I hadn't seen that one, Satchmo Mask.

That's Jeff Dye. Jeff's a good friend of mine. Good young comic.

...and, I seem to remember that he actually had a bit he was working on that was, in fact, about the Coors Light can turning blue when it was cold...and the vented lid--but what that clip showed went somewhere entirely different than where the joke I remember went...

It's disconcerting. Like seeing Patton on a KFC ad saying "KFC Famous Bowls: It's like a joyous celebration in a happiness bowl!!!"

pg--Stella Doro Breakfast Treats...you CAN have them anytime! Unlike McGriddles.--seattle

[angryrobot]

Blame the likes of Patton Oswalt and Jim Gaffigan. If the most talented comedians in your industry are selling out who are you to say no to the cash? I believe Patton and Gaffigan are savvy enough to understand the slippery slope that is product endorsement and have erected massive Chinese walls in their mind to keep their integrity intact - but comedians like Patton and Gaffigan are never the people I worry about when I see them hawking products. It's the young comedians like the kid above who don't have the experience or talent to separate the act of selling product from their actual act. They just see some quick money and exposure and think nothing of altering their act (something Patton and Gaffigan fully understand is out of the question) justifying the exposure is worth a little hit to their integrity. It's not and I wish the old guard in comedy would understand that every time they accept the money they are making it that much easier for some young comedian to sellout instead of possibly making a difference.

[drieux]

As I recall, Patton took the Sprite cash and funded the first Comedians of Comedy outing. And there are plenty of comics who make it through a good chunk of their early careers writing for sitcoms - which I think most of would agree tend to suck - and then go on to create great work.

It's really easy to judge these people for taking comedy-related work when nobody is offering you anything. It's not like any of them are hereby contractually required to end every set they do with how fantabulous and wonderifical TBS or their advertisers are.

[Shane]

These commercials are stupid. That's right, I said it.

[Hated Milk Machine]

I love the shot of the backlit Coors Light bottle, with Jeff Dye out-of-focus in the background.

[GymShoes]

"This is a win-win for both the advertiser and the network," said
Linda Yaccarino, exec vp Turner Entertainment ad sales and marketing.
"It's a 30-second piece of original content designed around a brand
that can message its brand attributes, or whatever the client wants to
say, but then we make it funny. That's what makes this such a strong
vehicle and why the network supports it to a great degree and why the
advertisers are so interested in it."

This is one of the dumbest advertising ideas ever. I think these ads are pretty worthless, but I can't fault any young comic for doing one. They'll be forgotten about soon enough.

Here's the link to the article I quoted.

[Hated Milk Machine]

I'm not against the idea, I'm against the execution. I think the improvised Sonic commercials can be funny - but probably because they're not forced to talk about double cheeseburgers and milkshakes the whole time.

[angryrobot]

As I recall, Patton took the Sprite cash and funded the first Comedians of Comedy outing. And there are plenty of comics who make it through a good chunk of their early careers writing for sitcoms - which I think most of would agree tend to suck - and then go on to create great work.

It's really easy to judge these people for taking comedy-related work when nobody is offering you anything. It's not like any of them are hereby contractually required to end every set they do with how fantabulous and wonderifical TBS or their advertisers are.

You can't compare writing for sitcoms to openly shilling product. Every artist has to make compromises to further their career. But some not only compromise their own careers but as we can now see - they compromise the careers of others because they refused to draw a firm line on what is acceptable. I guarantee you that there is not a musician, actor or (now) comedian out there that would be forced to feel any external shame for shilling for a corporation today and that to me is absolutely wrong. I was much happier when the likes of Woody Allen (who probably also put the money to good use) were so ashamed of selling out they had to go half a world away to take the paycheck.

[scamboogah]

So if we all stop paying any attention to these ads, will Jeff Dye keel over like a 50 foot Kent Brockman?

(When I saw the backlit Coors Light, I shook my head and thought "Beer, you're better than this...")

[Gene George]

Meh. There is no such thing as selling out. There IS however shitty hacky comedy. Also poor commercial ads. You make the decision whether you are compromising your personal ethics. "Artistic integrity" is a relatively recent invention. Money to eat has to come from somewhere, and it used to come from patronage not corporations. If you can't stand working for the man, fine.

There are opportunities to be creative and while the corporate gigs are banal and homogenized they keep body and soul together. If Sprite even indirectly paid for Comedians of Comedy yay for Sprite.

I was going to make some blistering statement about fellating the corpses of Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks here but I don't have the integrity to make it stick. I will however flesh this out for AXE personal body spray and do two minutes on it for TBS if they want to come across with the dinero.

[drieux]

Fine, everybody has convinced me. I demand that all our favorites immediately refuse to work with any corporate body or we all boycott.

Fast-forward to: Comedy Central turning into The Mencia Network and Dane Cook being elected Bro-President For Life.