10.26.2005

Kiss My Bumper...Just Kiss It!

Anybody who has lived in DC, or at least in the Maryland suburbs of the city, knows that line. (Kistulentz, tell me you're out there). It's the tagline of Senate Insurance's famously low-tech, high-kitsch TV ads. Washington Post has a great article today about local TV ads, which rightly compares them to folk art.

Crazy Eddie. Carvel. The Kiss My Bumper Guy. They're all included.

My favorite is very local -- the ad for a terrible restaurant about a mile from my house. In the ad, a man and woman, both rather unattractive and dressed like extras from an Addams Family Wedding episode, argue over whether his prime rib or her seafood is better. "The priiiiiiiime riiiiiib," he says. To which she cleverly retorts, "the seaaaaaaaaafooooood." This goes on for what seems like hours.

Another favorite is the restaurant whose slogan is "You may never leave!" Really? Never? That's kind of terrifying, actually.

Anyway, check out the Post article -- a small appreciation for a very small and apparently dying art form.

2 comments:

Mike Ingram said...

My favorite local commercials were in Charleston, S.C., because of the distinctive local accents. Particularly this one commercial for the local Oldsmobile dealership, back when they made a car called the Delta 88 -- pronounced by the dealer as something like "etty et."

There was also a good one in Charlotte with this guy dressed as a crazy televangelist -- including a gray pompodour wig and flashy suit -- who would "heal" people with bad credit.

Kistulentz said...

It's all good...the Carvel ad for the Fudgie the Whale Ice Cream cake was pure genious.

But for me the best DC one is a tie between Family Furniture, where two guys in bad Mafia wear say things like "Have we got a deal for you" and the late, great Morton's (not the steakhouse.) Morton's was a department store sprinkling 5 locations throughout the shittier parts of the city...if you drive to FedEx field from downtown (out through southeast, past the Capitol) you'll still see the burned out hulk of one near where you get on 295 North.

Anyway, their ads were just still photos of bad merchandise and a guy who shouted. "Misses and ladies EASTER DRESSES, 4.99. Men's ties, 99 CENTS."

And I'm not exaggerating the prices either. Total production cost was whatever it took to pay a kid to run to the local People's Drug and buy a pack of Polaroid film and some Benson and Hedges for the announcer.