Microsoft To Announce Jerry Seinfeld Ads Cancelled 587
An anonymous reader writes "Valleywag says the Jerry Seinfeld ads are over — In a phone call, Frank Shaw confirms that Microsoft is not going on with Seinfeld, and echoes his underlings' spin that the move was planned. There is the 'potential to do other things' with Seinfeld, which Shaw says is still 'possible.' He adds: 'People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but this was not unexpected.'"
I enjoyed them! (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly expected (Score:5, Interesting)
I toldja - they shoulda gone with a real comedian. [today.com]
I was looking for them working their way back through the comedic genius of history ... perhaps W.C. Fields next. All the way back to Aristophanes.
Or, in a more famous joke:
"Vista's slow, it's fat, I can't get drivers, my network grinds to a crawl when I play an mp3! What do you call that?"
"... The Aristocrats!"
George Orwell and Grammar! (Score:2, Interesting)
"People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but this was not unexpected."
That sentence makes George Orwell roll over in his grave. All that "not un-" faked vocabulary and smugness, just say "People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but we expected it" and get it over with!
Clearly I'm weird. (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought the first ad was limp, but I actually enjoyed the second one and was looking forward to more. Not that it would have made any difference to my OS-buying proclivities, but I thought they were at least interesting.
They accomplished their goal (Score:3, Interesting)
They got people talking. The last two TWiT podcasts, for example, included long discussions of the ads. The discussion was critical of them--but the ads got Leo Laporte and his guests to spend something like 30 minutes of some of the most valuable podcast time on the...er......uhm..,pod(?) talking about them.
One of the guests, not quite seriously, did a detailed symbolic analysis of the second ad. He said the old lady represented Steve Jobs--she had been living with the family for the same amount of time since Steve came back to Apple.
Am I missing something? (Score:5, Interesting)
I must be missing something. Cancelled?
Cancelled is what happens when a contract is revoked. As far as I know, Microsoft is continuing with Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
Cancelled is what happens if they were planning to make more of the same vein. I see no indication of that, but of the expectant bloggers.
Microsoft had always said [techcrunch.com] that the Bill & Seinfield ads were not a campaign unto itself, but an icebreaker, or rather, "phase one". Indeed, it would not surprise me if Microsoft's announcement was all about the new ads [nytimes.com], and didn't mention Bill & Seinfield at all.
Me thinks Valleywag focused on what they wanted to hear, not what was actually said overall.
Re:George Orwell and Grammar! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I enjoyed them! (Score:2, Interesting)
I thought the ads were very funny. They didn't have a message, which is probably why they were pulled, but yeah, I sat through both twice because I missed some jokes from my own laughter.
Re:Penny Arcade called it (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey! Let's Copy Apple! (Score:4, Interesting)
That's probably the thinking at Microsoft. Apple has these ads with two guys talking to each other, and that's cool. We should do the same. And, who's cooler than that 1990 comedy sensation, Jerry Steinfeld?
The problem is that Apple had two people, one young and cool, the other old and not-so-cool. Microsoft's ads had two old, not-so-cool people in them. I'm sure that all of them college kids really related to two 50+ years olds wandering around and talking about random stuff.
I can hear them now: "Hey, that's just like my grandpa! Right before we put him in the nursing home."
Re:Penny Arcade called it (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never got the Seinfeld thing. [...]
I'd have to say, don't bother. His show was based off his stand-up. Simply put, it's comedy by observation. He see's something odd and then mentions it. For example, He see's sky divers wearing helmets and asks: "What's the point? Is a helmet going to save your life when falling out of the sky? Really?" Then he turns that into an even funnier (by some people's tastes) simple comment. It's sort of a "funny because it's true" scenario.
Most of the TV show was based off this premise then expanded by the writing crew. Perhaps something you might find more interesting is not Jerry Seinfeld's comedy but how incredibly tough the guy has it and how he's become the victim of his own success. There's a great documentary showing this called Comedian [imdb.com]. You see Jerry get up on stage just after the end of his series and people laugh at every stupid thing he says (even when it's not a joke). Then you see him sweat bullets as he totally fails at remembering any of his jokes and the crowd just gets sort of shocked.
The documentary is a little dull (particularly considering when it's about comedians) but there are some pretty true parts in it.
Crap commercials. (Score:3, Interesting)
The commercials were lame, but as far as crap commercials they're far from the worst. I feel like a good 75% of commercials have been developed not for the sake of the client but rather so that the advertising company has yet another portfolio piece.
Re:Penny Arcade called it (Score:2, Interesting)
This must be planned (Score:2, Interesting)
I am completely guessing here, but I gotta think that this cancelation is part of the campaign. This announcement will probably get as much exposure as the ads themselves.
Either that, or this has been a gigantic embarrassing blunder by a company that actually has a lot at stake on this.
Re:Penny Arcade called it (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually a lot of the early writing was also coming from Larry David. Watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and you'll see a lot of plot devices taken straight out of Seinfeld.
Later on much of the writing was influenced by Larry Charles. Must be a "Larry" thing.
Here is the joke (Score:5, Interesting)
And here is your head. *woosh*
His show was based off his stand-up. Simply put, it's comedy by observation. He see's something odd and then mentions it.
There's a show called 'Seinfeld' with a character named 'Jerry Seinfeld'. That show is not about that character.
I'm sure there's some formal term in literary criticism, perhaps in latin, for the use of a narrator to give us a peek into a world when the focus of that world is not the narrator, but some other character the narrator observes.
I don't know the term, but that is what we have here. In this case, Jerry is just a vehicle to transport into the world of George.
The show originated and was written primary (in the beginning) by Larry David. George is Larry's alter ego. The show is about George.
The show had very little to do with Seinfeld's comedy. The bits of stand up at the start and end of the shows was time filler.
[Comedian] is a little dull (particularly considering when it's about comedians) but there are some pretty true parts in it.
That sort of like saying a documentary about weight room workouts isn't as entertaining as a football game. Comedian, like The Aristocrats, is not a comedy. It is about the business of comedy. If you're only interested in what comedians do on stage, both these movies are dull. If you're interested in what happens before (and after) the short period of time comedians are on stage, they are not dull at all.
Re:Penny Arcade called it (Score:3, Interesting)
I watched both commercials online so I could see the full thing and I liked them.
But the second commercial was over four minutes long, and it made me wonder how they would cut it down for a 30 second or even 1 minute ad.
When I did see it on T.V. later I just thought wtf is this?
Re:Penny Arcade called it (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me take a guess, you don't like "Jewish" style humor in general, e.g. comedians like (early) Woody Allen, Gary Shandling, and Larry David? Much of the show was based on picking at social awkwardness and standards of behavior. The Office (especially the BBC original) takes it even further with the violation of codes of conduct taken to painful levels. Common themes were people lying and having to then keep that lie alive, obsessive thoughts and behavior, and being caught in petty selfish acts.
I found the acting, especially from Julia Dryfuss, to be great. Her body language was instinctive. George's neuroses were great and his parents were perfect foils for him. Michael Richards could be hit or miss. Sometimes I felt he was overacting but usually he was very good in a slapstick, cartoonish way. Jerry was, of course, the straight man but he also indulged in a well done theme of pretty selfishness.
The writing was also excellent with multiple plot threads all being tried together in clever, unexpected ways at the last second. The show's frequent use of established standup comedians (Sarah Silverman, Brian Posehn, Larry Miller, etc) as character actors was also an excellent move.
I liked the ads (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, maybe it's because I actually didn't pay much attention to them, but they seemed consistent with Bill Gates' sense of humor. Remember the "Da da da" ad with the he and Ballmer driving around and finding a discarded SUN workstation?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrwnJDQy0ic [youtube.com]
I can't really imagine what a "good" Microsoft ad would possibly look like, so I think the WTF ads we got were kind of neat, considering they came from the former richest man in the world probably as part of some ego-stroke / lifelong dream.
Of all the things we've seen and expected from Bill Gates, I'd have to say this ranks as "cool" . Strange, but cool.
Re:I think they got what they wanted.... press! (Score:1, Interesting)
Hmm.. the "all PR is good PR" principle. The problem I have with that, is that thanks to preloads, Microsoft already has a large marketshare. Everyone's heard of 'em. The senseless emptiness of the commercials can only make people notice the senseless emptiness of the products.
What I mean is, it is directly contrary to Microsoft's interests for users to think about Microsoft. Being an invisible default is the only reason they came to become powerful, and it's probably their only hope of retaining that power.
I think that for them, all PR is bad PR. They should redouble their efforts on maintaining preloads, and any advertised products should be spun off to a subsidiary with a different name.
It's EASY to see why this happened (Score:3, Interesting)
We know one thing for sure Bill Gates himself bought off on the idea. He would have never agreed to be in front of the camera if he didn't like the idea. So with Gates giving the thumbs up to the project everyone at Microsoft was scared shit-less to say it was a bad idea. So only after it was on the air and it was so obvouisly pointless could they remove it.
I know what Gatets was thinking too. I tried being on film once too. It was fun trying to act but then I saw the result. Man was it bad. After that I decided to work only in back of the camera. I do much better there. Likely Gates saw himself on TV and thought "OMG this is bad", just like I did. So they spent $10M on it. To him that's pocket change.
Re:Penny Arcade called it (Score:3, Interesting)
DX10 is just a transparent sham to force people to upgrade to Vista. It's been ported to XP successfully, something Microsoft claimed was impossible.
Re:The ads weren't that great. (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of them seem to be "Mac is cool, you can do stuff like make videos while on a PC you can make spreadsheets." Not only is it untrue, its insulting to anyone with half a brain.