You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …

The Product:
Be A Star hotline

The Promotion:

The Pitch:
You, too, can be a star! … because clearly, our standards are not high.

When looking up videos for last week’s Ad Space on sexy 900 number commercials, I inevitably came across some that didn’t fit the prompt, but were kitschy and amusing in their own way. And this one was such a hoot, I just had to give it its own feature.

It’s not that it has the worst performances I’ve ever seen in a commercial – there are far too many local ads with business owners doubling as actors for that to be true. But there are just so many of them in this ad, one after the other, each of them bad in their own way! And they’re not just bad actors, but bad rappers and bad dancers, too! They’re triple threats!

I know it’s considered bad form to make fun of child actors, but … c’mon!

And the fact that this is a commercial selling itself as part of a massive talent contest: that irony is the icing on the cake. In fact, it’s so ironic, I can’t help but think it may have been intentional. That the makers of the ad were worried that, if the kids on screen seemed too talented, the kids at home might be too intimidated to call and pay two dollars a minute for an audition. So they deliberately cast a bunch of kids who sucked, making the viewers think, “Hey, if this lot can get a commercial gig, I can, too!” Even though, no, they probably can’t.

I’m tempted to think that was the diabolical plan behind it all, but then I remember the old maxim: don’t attribute to malice what can just as easily be explained by incompetence.