I like a good prank, or dupe, and this one is up there. Website Funny or Die hired singer Jewel, dressed her up with a wig, a fake nose, and “business” clothes and sent her with a group of other business persons to a karaoke bar. Disguised as “Karen,” a mild-manner and ostensibly shy employee of a frozen meat company she blows the bar away with her stunning renditions of Jewel songs.
It’s a great gag, and worth the watch.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month (and I don’t mean to discriminate against rock-dwellers, they have rights too) then you’ve no doubt heard of, if not seen the Old Spice Man: A washboard-ab’d man’s man who’s outrageous lifestyle is the premise behind the new Old Spice marketing campaign.
What makes these commercials so successful, I think, is that they’re hilarious, pretty clever, and just absolutely outrageous.
It’s obvious that Old Spice is going through a complete rebranding but perhaps the less obvious thing is that whoever they’ve got at the wheel is a complete genius. This is marketing for the 21st century. Their rebrand, “Smell like a man, man,” has become a complete Internet sensation. Their YouTube channel is getting a bazillion hits from people wanting to watch their hilarious TV spots and, what’s more, they’re pumping out new content daily online. They’re skipping the networks, skipping the distribution and putting it right online, for free, all by themselves giving people what they want which is, ironically, instant access to their commercials… and we’re eating them up!
They’ve gone even one step further by launching a new series, yesterday, of the Old Spice Man responding to messages from Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. He has even gotten into a back-and-forth with Alyssa Milano culminating in him sending actual flowers to her house. We’ll have to wait and see if the Old Spice Man wishes to continue their relationship—only possible if he next donates $100,000 to the Gulf Oil Spill clean up, according to Milano.
But the kicker is that we will wait and see what happens next… this is an ad campaign that’s actually grabbed our interest and kept us entertained. Rarely, would a person go out of their way to watch ads, but Old Spice has got us doing exactly that. If anyone was wondering how to make money in a modern society where people skip the TV networks, download programs themselves, and watch ad-free television on their computers, I think Old Spice has hit upon the formula, and it’s pretty common sense actually, make ads that are entertaining.
Here are the highlights from the pre-World Cup friendly between The Netherlands and Hungary. It looks like we’re ready for the World Cup! Now keep in mind, Hungary is currently ranked 57th versus the Dutch who sit at 4th…
I rarely like the stuff put out by College Humor but, for a LOST fan, this video is absolutely brilliant:
In case you thought it was over, it’s not, and it only gets better. Earlier in the week I blogged about Kenny “K-Strass” Strasser. A comedian of sorts who has been going around to local American mornings shows claiming to be a Yo-Yo champion. His tricks are outrageous. He’s awkward beyond belief. And he’s hilarious because he’s got everyone fooled.
Strasser, of course, is not a Yo-Yo champion. You can tell right away, just by looking at him. Everything about him says that he’s putting you on. Well, he’s still going at it.
WGN9, one of the news networks that he duped, was pretty steamed by the trick and did an expose on him. They’ve been issuing takedown notices to YouTube, so I can’t actually link to any of their videos but there is a clip of his original appearance on their network still available.
WGN9’s expose—of their own guest!—revealed that Strasser was a fake. Well, duh. But they didn’t stop there, they wanted blood so they invited Strasser back into the studio. This time, Strasser appears in a wheelchair with both of his arms in slings wearing a shiny black eye and a neckbrace. When asked about his accident he explains that “some of our Yo-Yos are the size of chocolate chip cookies” and then falls asleep.
With Strasser in the studio this time is Eric Stringer, an individual who Strasser himself called the “Garth Brooks of Yo-Yo” in a previous appearance—Strasser also claimed that Stringer was dead and, on live TV, paused for a moment of silence. Apparently WGN9 didn’t do their research very well because there’s no mention of Stringer’s apparent resurrection. Stringer, who I think is wearing a wig, plays the mature older father figure, despite appearing to be the same age as Strasser, quite well. While the station suspects the Strasser is a fake they seem to have no clue that they’re being had by Stringer as well; sure he can do some tricks but guys, they’re pulling your leg!
Now the brilliant part here is that not only did Strasser dupe this network, but he doesn’t it again because the anchors are taking this serious. They ask serious questions about Zim Zam, about Stringer, and about Strasser’s past as a Yo-Yo champion. They’re still pushing for actual answers and it just goes to show that they’re still bring strung along. Not only by Strasser but by his buddy Eric Stringer, who is clearly in on the joke as well. And no one at WGN9 is the wiser.
Stringer claims to be the new “spokesperson” for Zim Zam and their Green campaign; a company and a campaign which don’t even exist. He claims he was brought in to “salvage” things and the hosts are just eating it up!
This is comedy gold. The network is obviously playing right into the hands of this clever duo and are about as dumb as a doorknob to the bleeding obvious!
You can watch the interview in its entirety on WGN9’s website which, admittedly, is very lacking in quality but the video isn’t available elsewhere.
Update (10:48pm): I am beginning to love this campy little hometown network. The video clip that played for me immediately following the Kenny clip was talking about a university giving out free iPad “tabloid” computers to all their freshman so that they could “learn even better.” I’m not making this stuff up!
I came across this brilliant individual on the Intertubes this morning and I just had to share.
Kenny “K-Strass” Strasser has been making the rounds on local American morning shows claiming to be a Yo-Yo Master with a non-profit organization called Zim Zam, LLC. The catch is, he is anything but proficient with a Yo-Yo. Strasser is a prankster and comedian of the highest order, it would seem.
A quick YouTube search reveals a plethora of appearances by K-Strass on the sets of unsuspecting morning news programs. Once on camera K-Strass is an awkward looking guy in green shorts, a white t-shirt with suspenders, and a yellow hat. He looks nervous, but I suspect that it’s all part of the act. The tricks K-Strass performs are hilarious. His special, the “Blue Flying Angel” involves him twirling around two handfuls of four Yo-Yos each—in one appearance, losing grip on one of them in the process. His tricks are clearly below amateur and don’t even involve any real Yo-Yoing, but he passes them off as genuine routines.
But his tricks aren’t the real trick. When given air-time K-Strass does anything but Yo-Yo, instead he talks about his failed marriages, his childhood and being spanked by his father, and even takes calls on his cellphone twice during one appearance. In one appearance he requests a “second of silence” after the loss of a supposed close friend, the “Garth Brooks of Yo-Yoing.” And, when he showed up for an appearance on another local morning news show, he told the hosts that he brought his Yo-Yos, but forgot the strings—instead describing the tricks he would’ve performed.
K-Strass is a master comedian and is already drawing comparisons to the late Andy Kaufman.
Here’s a clip of K-Strass from one local morning show:
And it’s not just pulling pranks, K-Strass, in my opinion, has reached the height of hilarity after an appearance on a local NBC station. Perplexed by his performance, the station was prompted to do an investigation segment on their own guest to find out who Kenny Strasser really was—something you think they’d do before having him on the show.
Strasser even remains in character under investigation.
Unfortunately, the station involved has pulled the video off of YouTube but as the NBC report suggests, that this might all be part of some kind of documentary that’s under production. I would love to see all the behind-the-scenes finagling of a guy pretending to be a Yo-Yo champion, and scamming American morning TV. Five stars.
