‘The sausage king of Chicago?’ ‘We ate pancreas!’ ‘Buy a Honda’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNnZCOMI_gQ&sns=fb
*sigh*
Look, it’s doing the job: this thing is getting noticed and talked about like a motherfucker, but…
*sigh*
It’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
For those of you too old or young to understand, this is a pastiche/updating of one of the greatest films of all time. OK, it wasn’t The Godfather but it’s a piece of stone cold magic that never, ever, ever, puts a foot wrong. It’s full of great lines, wonderful characters and the kind of balls-out attitude that ignites your 12-year-old heart like a roman candle.
I first saw FBDO in a cinema on Hollywood Boulevard that has since become either a MacDonald’s or a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. It was one of the formative experiences of my life. The sassy breaking of the fourth wall, the advice on how to skip school, the way that Ferris had every base covered with insouciant aplomb, and all to the sounds of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Chick-Chickah.
I could go on with incredibly boring stories of traipsing round the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street to find Oh Yeah by Yello, then discovering it only on a cassette that cost £7.49 in 1987 (you iTunes generation have NO idea how good you’ve got it). Or the bet I made with a friend that the line was ‘Pucker up buttercup’ not ‘Pucker up dipshit’, winning me a Macdonald’s coffee milkshake (God, I miss those). But I’ll have to stop there.
This ad doesn’t make me hate it, or Honda. I just feel a bit sad. I thought that movie’s perfection was sealed in John Hughes’s coffin. Now it’s been dug up by a millionaire who wants a few more million.
‘Snooty.’
‘Snooty?’
‘Snotty.’
‘Snotty?’
John Hughes worked in advertising in Chicago.
Until he jacked it all in when he was 30 to make films.
So it does have a certain amount of serendipity to it.
Or maybe not…
Alec Guinness also worked in advertising. If he decides to come back from the dead and bum Kind Hearts and Coronets for Mitsubishi I will not give him a pass.
I’m getting sick of people piggy backing the success of films, or celebrity in ads. My partner and I always consider it cheating, unless there’s a very, very good reason for doing so.
In this case, I don’t see any relevance to the product? Other than (this is a guess) the target audience like the film? Pretty flimsy if that’s it?
You never know, this spot may start a Ferris Bueller revival, opening up his cheeky antics to a new generation. For me, the whole “Danke Schoen”/parade bit is boring but it’s a top movie; one of the first I bought on DVD from that new-fangled Amazon…
by the looks of things, Matthew Broderick has been brought back from the dead too – is that embalming fluid they’ve filled his face with? Botox overload!
Have you ever done a post on the most interesting careers people had after advertising Ben?
Found out recently Dr. Seuss used to be an agency illustrator/art director.
Maybe you could do a top ten with links to their work?
No? Ok, fair enough. I should probably just do it myself.
Remix!
Bet you this is the future.
I think when George Lucas gives the OK to use Yoda in a ad for, sorry, can’t remember, the floodgates are pretty much wide open.
I felt exactly the same way you did – a little bit sad – or maybe you didn’t feel sad and I just got that impression – but hey ho, maybe this ad will open up one of the greatest movies of all time to a new generation.
Just as my three year old daughter wouldn’t have seen Yoda for quite a while if she hadn’t seen that 72 sheet, or whatever size it was.
Wow. I’m being grown up about it today. Yesterday I was despondent. Nice when someone else cares to.
I’m going to add some beer and bourbon to my pint of tears… and raise a glass to you. And John Hughes. And the kids.
Cheers.
I’m more troubled by the idea of using a man convicted of causing the deaths of TWO people by dangerous driving to sell a car. Especially as the theme of the ad is a joy ride. Unbelievably misguided, no??
Ahem.
Of course, that should have been ‘cares, too’.
Cough!
(shakes head and goes back to drink)
I quite like it.
Oddly, for a commercial, those commercial car pack shots ruin it.
Do it or don’t do it. But when you make a decision to do this, you don’t do it by halves. Surely?
Everyone always coos over any Star Wars tie-in (VW ads). This is no different, just less subtle in execution.
Double bloody standards.
A 1961 Ferrari 250GT California. Less than a hundred were made. My father spent three years restoring this car. It is his love, it is his passion.
It’s not a fucking CRV. A fucking CRV!
I’m away to cry.
Ask yourself this: If you stuck a Honda CRV in reverse and accidentally backed it out the coolest California garage/living room ever into the canyon below would you feel anything? Anything at all?
A Honda CRV is clearly not a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT Spider. And the comparison/parallel is so obnoxiously dumb that it makes the rest of the ad the worst kind of pointless, misguided borrowed interest.
‘What did I do? WHAT DID I DO?’
‘You killed the movie.’
Shame.
This is all rather dull. I would much rather read something by Garry Bushell; now there’s a man with opinions.
@Ed.
VW are forgiven because the craft was sublime.
This however, is not.
@Frankfarter
Ooh, ‘my partner and I’. Look at you. Do you discuss it while decrying the sashimi from the new Japanese restaurant? Perfumed ponce!
Tro-lo-lo-lol.
broderick’s got that whole paul gascoigne/shaun ryder thing of turning into an old woman going on. brrrr.
I love this bit of commentary from john hughes about the museum scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p89gBjHB2Gs
he would make something that seemed dumb but really, really wasn’t. sharp, bright, charming, accessible film-making. one of a kind.
I am not anywhere close to being bothered enough to have an opinion about that advert.
‘Snooty.’
@Brake, thanks for posting that.
@Ed The VW ad starred a kid who liked Star Wars. It didn’t feature Darth Vader driving a Beetle. Big difference.
ANYONE SEEN THE NEW VW BEETLE SUPERBOWL AD!
SORRY FOR THE CAPS, ITS JUST THAT I’M SO EXCITED!
please Ben you just have to review it…
(sarcasm)
I did a Bueller and bunked off to Blackpool.
Who has the Honda account in the U.S?
I bet WK London get really fucked off with shit like this.
In the days before the internet this wouldn’t matter, but WK spend ages building a really nice brand and establishing a voice, just to have it undermined by this bilge from the bellends across the pond.
I don’t deny the ad’s shit, but the initial objection is that FBDO is somehow beyond pastiche in advertising. It’s not.
…(at least no more than anything else).
Rather Bueller did a me seeing as I did it before him. He just upped it a bit. I didn’t have a friend who’s dad had a Ferrari, for instance.
@vessel Don’t be a bellend all your life.
I’m actually from a working class background and talk like a cockney. If you met me you’d realise I’m about as far away from being a poncy, posh sod with plums in my mouth as you can get. Excuse me for being grammatically correct.