I was doing a little chimney-sweeping today, cleaning up my browser bookmarks, and I came across an Slate essay from a few months ago, written by Rob Walker, about the horrible AT&T commercials starring Carrot Top. He writes:
perhaps Carrot Top is presiding over some sort of massive meta-ironist performance piece...the AT&T ads are the most irrefutable brief yet in this project to illuminate the maddening power of raw chance in the modern game of getting ahead because their star is not just singularly unfunny, but authentically grating.
After I reread Walker's piece, I was of course sensitive to this, and was lucky enough to see both Alf hawking 1-800-Collect and John Stamos doing a commercial about seeing himself do a commercial for 10-10-987. I'd like to be able to ask what the deal is here, but the fact is that I'm becoming more and more a fan of Walker's work, and I don't have much to add to what he says. There's a bizarre commercial inversion going on with these companies--I guess the idea is to find the stupidest, most insipid sellebrities available, so that, even if we despise the companies and can't stand the commercials, we won't forget the product? They used to try and put together the best packages or the best rates--now it's a contest to see who can put out the worst marketing?
John Stamos talking about watching himself wins the award for me, by the way.
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