The Affari Edge Blog

So, it’s been a while since I’ve written my last 2009 Armenia Chronicle. A lot of time has past since the last entry, but not too much has changed…yet. Our contractor arrived last week and began setting up for construction repairs on the two main rooms. If you aren’t familiar, these rooms are the first two you see when you enter the front door.

It’s Monday morning and I’ve prepared for another week of loud clanking, air filled with saw dust and the occasional saw screech. I’ve been working with headphones on for the past two days to block out some of the noise. All of this construction really has the office in shambles. Boards have been pulled from the walls and there’s even a brand new hole in the ceiling. It’s cool seeing the entire process up close - it’s helped me realize this project is much larger than I originally believed.

We’ll have photos shortly!

“I would rather watch WWF than Criss Angel…they’re both fake but at least wrestlers bleed.”

“Criss Angel stole an hour of my life.”

“Chris Angel sucks.”

These were three of the new status updates I noticed when I checked up on some of my facebook friends this morning. If you aren’t familiar with status updates, they’re open ended sentences that users update to let others know what they’re doing/thinking. I awoke to a list of anti-Criss (sometimes “Chris”) Angel propaganda on the web this morning. Away messages, IMs and even more status updates raged about their disappointment with last night’s much-hyped stunt.

If somehow you missed it, Criss Angel ’starred’ in a live, hour-long special on A&E last night performing his newest stunt: escaping from a locked building in less than four minutes. Cameras were placed throughout the hotel to give viewers an inside look. The cameras showed Angel race through the building, but when the timer hit zero he was still inside. The building imploded and there was no trace of Angel. Miraculously, Angel walked from the rubble and great the crowd - not scratched, not bruised, not broken.

Right. It took the crowd I was with about three seconds to debunk the ‘illusion’. The popular belief is that Angel never actually ran through the building. That he escaped while viewers watched prerecorded B-roll footage of him running around a building. I found it insulting that Angel and all involved in the ‘trick’ (which felt more like a cop-out) actually believed Americans were stupid enough to believe he actually survived the explosion. In fact, yesterday’s TBT had an article that predicted this very outcome! Kudos.

In my opinion, the biggest story here is no the magic stunt, but the publicity stunt. This story was everywhere yesterday (especially here in Tampa since the stunt was performed across the bay in Clearwater). People gathered to watch the stunt, even though everybody knew the chances of Criss Angel being killed on live television were right next to impossible. I speculate that ratings were up - especially for A&E - and it’s safe to say that Criss Angel’s awareness level among the public has been elevated. The ultimate question, though, is: Is this publicity good publicity?

Sure, there are many who believe the old saying “any publicity is good publicity”, but, is that really true?. Is the negative reaction to this stunt supposed to help Angel sell more tickets in Vegas? Sure, because of yesterday I know that Angel has a 10 year, multi-million dollar deal to perform in Vegas, but at the same time I know there is no way I’ll pay to see him. I am more aware of Criss Angel (In fact, I know that his name is spelled “Criss” rather than “Chris”) now than ever before, but I am also more aware that I find him less credible as a magician.

This morning I heard a radio personality claim he wouldn’t be surprised if this stunt would discredit Criss Angel as a magician and ruin his career. Many message board posts that I read this morning were filled with disgruntled messages calling Angel “a cheat”, “a fake” and even ” coward”. A poll on tbo.com asked “How Did Criss Angel Do It?” with 75% of respondents selecting “He was never in the building. The guy in the building was a movie, like on ‘Scooby Doo’”.

Time will tell. The stunt definitely got people watching, talking, and yes, blogging. Despite a rather negative reaction, awareness and Criss Angel talk/banter is high. I just see the stunt as a missed opportunity. The reaction to the the stunt could have been the exact opposite had it been more believable and mystifying. They promised viewers gold and gave them a fancy ‘coin behind the ear’ trick. A quality act would have won many more fans and much more positive feedback. I’m curious to see what happens to his career from this point forward. For his sake, I hope his fans don’t pull a magic trick of their own and disappear. [ohhh burn]

Old people are cute. Let’s face it, unless they’re wasting away in a urine-smelling nursing home somewhere, old people are just plain charming. Even old people falling off a globe into the anus of America– Cleveland, Ohio.

Ahhh… there’s nothing like old-fashioned, do-it-yourself, aired between midnight and 5 a.m. commercials. You just don’t see too many of them nowadays, and that may be a good thing. But in 1979, this was the standard local commercial, even for a large market such as Cleveland.

May I introduce to you C. Miller, and old man who’s on top of the world. Well, it looks like he’s actually on top of a globe purchased at Zayre’s, but he probably also thinks he’s made of cheese so let’s just humor the man. Why is he on top of the world? Because in 1979 he was number one in the greater Cleveland area. Now this statement causes some problems. What is he number one in? Sales of Chevrolets? Sales of cars in general? Sales of ANYTHING in general? Also, this may be the only time the words “greater” and “Cleveland” have been used in the same sentence. While this sentence may cause us problems, it really causes C. Miller problems as he slips off his snug perch on Quebec. I hope he doesn’t break his hip!

What started as a charming commercial now falls into the category of incredibly goofy. C. Miller clumsily falls (or is he trying to fly?) past the vast Cleveland skyline. All one building of the Cleveland skyline that is. Suffice to say if “dreary” is your favorite color, Cleveland is the place to be. At least C. Miller has the calmness while he’s falling to clarify his earlier statement of what he was number one in. If my claim to fame was selling the most Chevrolets in Cleveland, I’d probably jump off a tall building too. Or maybe buy a nicer suit.

After a mighty “thud” portrayed only slightly better than William Shatner throwing himself around the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise during a Klingon attack in the original Star Trek, C. Miller proudly sings we can see the USA in a C. Miller Chevrolet. With a stiff point to his chest, and a Muppet-like blown kiss, we’re suddenly brought down by the reality that C. Miller probably just crapped his Depends following that harrowing fall from the globe. And before you chastise me for picking on an old man, check out this commercial from 1976 and agree with me that C. Miller lost his sanity way way way before he fell off a cheap globe.

As kooky as this commercial was, C. Miller did sell a lot of cars. He begs the question of which was more entertaining; watching the Cuyahoga River burn or watching this old man fall through Cleveland only to end up on his feet? One thing’s for sure, seeing this old man fall all by his lonesome sparked somebody to create those legendary Life-Alert commercials.

Toys of the 1950s and 1960s were so much simpler then toys of today, and that’s good because those old toys really cultivated the creativity of a young mind during play time. Even with these memories of great toys of the past, this toy is a bit on the cheap and silly side.

The first 15 seconds of the spot is your typical 1960s toy commercial– a clunky battery-powered toy rolls into the screen amidst a mist of dry ice. Like most toys of the time, the key to beating the nasty monster was to shoot it. Is there any wonder why America has so many NRA members? But I digress…

The commercial takes a turn for the odd here when we find out you don’t just shoot at King Zor, you shoot for his tail. Now scientifically this makes no sense. Sure, an attack on the tail will hurt King Zor but it will hardly kill him. Shouldn’t you take him out at the head? What about the neck? Or how about deflating those tires he cruises in on? Shooting him in that giant round target on his tail just makes it look like a bad carnival game. Batteries may not be included, but I have a hunch the cuddly teddy bear you win for hitting the target with three pitches doesn’t come included either. Then things get even wackier…

When you hit the tail target, King Zur launches a marble from his secret marble magazine in his back! Who says God doesn’t make all creatures with a purpose? Now shooting the tail target makes even less sense since you won’t hurt him much and you’ll probably lose an eye from that marble he’s chucking at you. Now King Zur apparently is more than a clunky mechanical dinosaur, he’s a fighting machine! How brilliant! Or is he?

King Zur is smart enough to shoot marbles at his opponents, but avoiding that giant mountain? King Zur has to stick out his tongue, think about it for a few seconds, then reverse course? So much for intelligent design. I mean, WHAT THE HELL ARE HIS EYES FOR? The announcer is right, there’s never been a fighting dinosaur like King Zor. That is unless someone at Jurassic Park mixed up the dinosaur and Mr. Magoo DNA in a blender.

Not surprisingly, the kitschy King Zor lives on in goofy t-shirts and toy collector clubs. A fairly good-conditioned one, with the original box, sells for $1,500 on E-Bay! This only shows the fondness we have for vintage toys… and the need to pay way too much money for a marble-shooting dim-witted dinosaur. Even if there hasn’t been a dinosaur like him before or after 1962!

I know a lot has changed since 1984. And as this commercial will show you, a WHOLE LOT has changed in how diet soft drinks taste and how people get hooked up.

Hmmm… maybe I was doing it all wrong back in my dating life before I got married. Back then I would talk to women on the phone or online, meet them for dinner or drinks somewhere, and if things went well over the next few weeks we would become “an item”. I would use my charm, my knowledge, my sense of humor, my good looks, and a bunch of money on dinner, drinks, movies, etc., all for a piece of tail… err… a relationship. Who knew I could have just bought a 50-cent can of Diet Pepsi and made my life so much easier?

Who really picks up somebody because of a tasty can of diet soda? I’ve heard all sorts of interesting stories as to how people have met one another, but a can of soda? And it’s not like these two lovebirds just bumped into each other and spilled their soda on each other. This chick is getting all hot and bothered over this lunkhead drinking a Diet Pepsi. If that was how it was in real life, a 20-ounce bottle would have her calling out from work the next day. A 6-pack would induce a coma. A 12-pack would make Peter North wonder how you do it.

Just the idea of a woman fawning over a man because he drinks Diet Pepsi is crazy enough, but do you remember how crappy diet soda tasted back in 1984? Diet colas are fairly decent tasting now, and that’s the only soda I’ll ever drink if I HAVE to have a soda. All those carbs and corn syrup globs just aren’t preferable to my taste any more. But back in the 80’s I’d rather have drunk a 6-pack of sugary sweet regular Pepsi over that diet crap any day. Mostly because of NutraSweet, the artificial sugar of its day, tasted like pencil shavings. Unlike NutraSweet though, pencil shavings have yet to be linked to cancer so go ahead and carve up a number-two Ticonderoga over my soft drink, garcon!

So kids, you don’t need to stick a can of Diet Pepsi down your pants to impress the girls. You just have to walk around with one in your hand. They’ll jump on you so quickly, you’ll have to make sure you’ve brought the proper protection.

You know the price of food is climbing today. But did you know food is a major investment? And how do you protect any major investment? With plastic wrap and aluminum foil!

Now the woman who is purchasing all of these items seems to be a sensible woman. So why does she seem so shocked at how much it costs to buy some groceries? And why does she think plastic wrap or foil will save her food “investment” forever? Has she ever heard of Tupperware? Or maybe she should stop buying EVERYTHING wrapped in plastic!

Which brings us to her food selection. What is the deal with all of these fruits and vegetables? Granted, in 1983 there weren’t nearly as many processed frozen foods like there are today, but I think this woman eats nothing but salad and fruit cups. Perhaps that’s why she’s a little loopy when she sees the price adding up and she runs off to the tin foil pile. A lack of protein has made her a little weak in the brain! Put back the tomatoes and have a steak, woman!

Then comes the whole “investment” angle of this. Our voiceover guy is trying to get us to save money buy saving our food. Yet he says Reynolds products cost only a penny more per foot than “bargain” wraps. Well smart guy, that adds up! That box of aluminum foil is 25 feet long, and the plastic wrap is 100 feet long. That’s $1.25 or roughly a gallon of gas back then (which was very expensive as the world was coming down from an energy crisis). So where’s the wise investment? Why not buy non-perishables instead of stocking up on the entire produce department like this woman is?

When it comes down to it, foil and polastic wrap are simply that– foil and wrap. It’s not an investment saver, it just keeps that leftover hamburger meat safe to eat for a couple more days. Unless you’re going to wrap your house in plastic wrap or tin foil, you’re not protecting an investment. Then again if you wrap your house with plastic wrap or tin foil, you probably don’t get out much in the first place. Your house is probably still stacked with canned foods from your Y2K bunker.

Normally I have some witty lead-in to every Classic(ally Bad) blog, but I think this one speaks for itself.

I chose this commercial because it’s Father’s Day weekend. While the “average” Father’s Day gifts include ties, dress shirts, socks, and underwear, as boring as those gifts are at least they are useful. As for this magnetic wrist band… I don’t know.

The general idea is when dad has to fix something, he can assume the role of Superman. Always there with his tools, he just can’t use them properly without these magnetic wrist bands. So the next time he gets called, dad has his special wrist bands on so he can put them to good use! He hangs a hammer on his wrist! YAY! Nevermind the toilet is still broken and spilling water all over the place, at least dad can wow us with a hammer hanging off his wrist! Is this how Kreskin got started?

And what good does having a hammer on your wrist do anyways? It’s kind of hard to hammer something in when the hammer is just hanging off your wrist. And not every tool you use is metallic or magnetic, so how many injuries and foul-ups have been caused by some numbskull trying to hang something that wasn’t metallic off his wrist? Now this “super dad” is looking more and more like Monty Python’s “Bicycle Repair Man” sketch.

But you can get one 2-for-1 this weekend only! Now you can hang a hammer and a screwdriver on BOTH wrists! Or maybe you can get wacky and cram four wrenches on both wrists! The possibilities are endless! Try doing that with your gift necktie!

On the heels of one of the worst testimonial commercials, featuring a couple of nobodies selling color TVs, we’ll take a look at a legitimate star selling a (then) not-so-legitimate product.

The year was 1993, and “Sir” Charles Barkley was at the peak of his career and his commercial sellability. And at first, this commercial is actually very clever. In 1993, basketball shoes were all the rage and during the previous three or four years Americans were bombarded with commercials from Nike, Reebok, L.A. Gear, Adidas, and many other brands. So the, “here’s another shoe commercial…” line is pretty ingenious. The ensuing, “Oh this is new…” line is also good. Then we see the product– a Hyundai.

Nowadays Hyundais are actually decent, affordable cars. But up until five or six years ago, Hyundai was producing one undependable turd after another… and they had been doing so for almost 20 years. We’re instantly reminded about this as the voice-over (identified on You Tube as Jeff Goldblum) spouts off all the good things about the car. Written in small letters at the bottom of the screen; “ABS, CD, leather optional on GLS models”. So you not only had to ask for these bells and whistles, you had to ask for them on the GLS model!

Then comes the funniest line; “More room than a Lexus.” Really now… when you’re shopping for a car, when does the final decision come down to a Hyundai or a Lexus? When does somebody shopping for a Lexus, or a Lexus-style car, put the nearby Hyundai dealer on the list of places to shop? And since when does somebody in the market for a Hyundai think, “I should check out that Lexus dealer, where the much better cars sell for five times as this piece of crap!”

Then we reach out to our for the star power, Barkley’s cute thuggery we all came to respect and molded the current NBA after. The funny thing is Barkley would need a shoe horn to squeeze into an actual ‘93 Hyundai Sonata. Barkley was 6-foot-6 and 252 pounds! According to Edmunds, the Sonata had a front leg room of 42.4 inches while also having head room of 38.5 inches. Add that up, that’s 80.9 inches or just under 6 feet, 9 inches of space. I hope Sir Charles doesn’t drive over any speed bumps or pot holes.

While it seems laughable at the idea of Barkley driving around town in a Hyundai Sonata, based on reports of his recent gambling debts he may be doing just that today. So I suppose this may be one of the best testimonials for a product, as pathetic as that product may be.

And no Charles, I don’t have a problem with that!

Testimonials are very helpful in selling items, especially if it’s a celebrity testimonial. Having a bonafide star say, “Buy this product.” often nets results for the advertiser. But what if you have a not-so-bonafide star selling an item? In fact, what if you have really boring everyday people selling an item? Then you get this train wreck!

My first thought when I saw this was, “Dick Reese has a challenge here!” Mr. Reese is the ultimate example of why everyday people shouldn’t sell something on TV. This commercial is a close second. If you’re still interested in purchasing that RCA TV after listening to the somnabulant TV repair man, then you’re a stronger person than I am. I don’t care if the guy has been fixing TV sets for 23 years, and I don’t care how sharp he thinks the picture is, how did the advertising agency pick this guy to represent how good the TV was? When the announcer notes, “That was one TV expert…” you have to wonder what happened to the others? How did the droning curmudgeon with the tiny tie and the big hair become the RCA spokesman?

We can only guess that answer because very few people are willing to step up and say they’re proud owners of an RCA. In fact, our “experts” have been reduced to a cheesey graphic. Engineers, producers, cameramen, have been boiled down into a hard-to-read color bar with “RCA” popping up next to their trade. Our announcer invites us to, “think about it”. I did, and I’m not buying this whole expert hooey! But wait! We have another expert! What well-known TV or movie star is this?

Why, it’s Lou Horwitz! You know, Lou Horwitz! You don’t know who Lou Horwitz is? He’s not just any Lou Horwitz, he’s TV Cameraman Lou Horwitz! And the colors on that RCA just reach out and grab his eye! Much like his polyester jump suit makes me want to grab my eyes and pull them out!

If it isn’t RCA, it isn’t XL-100. And if it isn’t Ken Michelbach or Lou Horwitz, it isn’t a classic(ally bad) TV commercial!

It’s Christmas in June! No, it’s not a Crazy Eddie sales stunt… it’s a trip across the pond to jolly old England in 1958. It’s never too early to get that Christmas shopping started, and thankfully we have a second-hand Santa giving us those yuletide ideas in the summertime!

Well I can’t agree more with the high-pitched singers and our young Santa with the taped-on beard. If I want to give happiness, I don’t give money, or a new house, or a Christmas bonus to my employees. No, I give vacuum cleaners, polishers, and spinarinses… whatever the hell those are.

At the very least this shows us how post-war Britain was rebuilding with the standard comforts of home. But it also shows us the very different home scene in 1958, where the housewife was supposed to be happy with her shiny new Hoover steam iron. Is it any wonder why the British Invasion of music started, followed closely behind by the “Swinging London” way of life in the 1960’s? Happiness was a freaking appliance!

And our poor man’s Santa reminds us that Hoover happiness last for years. Imagine that… you not only get the happiness of getting a stinking floor buffer as a Christmas gift, you get the happiness of lugging that thing around the house for years! Everytime you buff those scuff marks off the linoleum, be happy! And why shouldn’t you be happy? After all, the jolly old man taking notes at the appliance yard sale with the giant pencil you had in the 3rd grade says so. Enough said!

When happiness comes from a Hoover, life has simply gone from “suck” to “blow”.