The further adventures of Media Critic Guy

Three things on the tube caught my attention in the past few days.

1. A commercial – Tony the Tiger is on an airplane, a few seats away we see Mr. Peanut – nonplussed when the stewardess offers him a bag of peanuts. Cut to the hamburger helper hand hitchhiking. Next the Keebler elves waiting at a bus stop. Then the Pillsbury doughboy is riding the rails and having the time of his life. This whole crew, and many more product icons, meet in the parking lot of SuperTarget (a Target with a grocery store attached). The end of the commercial is pure Lileks.

2. Another Target commercial, the one with Roy Orbison’s “You’ve Got It”. It had more different scenes in one 30 second spot that some movies from the 1930s had in two hours. This is what’s become of the music video, which died about ten years ago. The quirky camera angles, the startling juxtaposition of visual with lyrics, visual cues tied to changes in rhythm or tempo – it’s all there. Of course since music videos started as commercials anyway, it really shouldn’t be much of a surprise.


3. In total contrast to the Target commercial was a PBS station’s replay of a program from 1973. It was Bobby Darin’s last TV special. Can the quirky angles and the quick cuts from one camera to another. Ol’ Mackie wanted to show the world that he was as hep as could be, so he chose some material that most wouldn’t associate with him: Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Midnight Special and Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher would be prime examples. Mr. Darin died about nine months after the show, his last recorded performance, aired. While the singing was terrific (as were his impressions), there were parts of the show that words cannot describe and that absolutely must be seen to be believed. For a few minutes I actually wondered if Mr. Darin realized that this show would be seen by generations yet unborn and that realization caused him to die of embarrassment at his dance moves. You’ve just got to see it. Really. (Disclaimer: I am a big Darin fan who is awaiting, with bated breath, the Bobby Darin biography currently in production “Beyond the Sea” starring Kevin Spacey and mean no disrespect to Mr. Darin or his family by the above comments. But those dance moves -- Yikes!)