"This was in fact a bank robbery situation, and I know first hand as I was involved in the making of this commercial. It is meant to be humorous, and I believe it achieved that. Now you can either laugh at this commercial and make your day much better, or you can choose to take yourself way too seriously and add years of stress on to your life for worrying about things like this.
7:13 PM, May 29, 2009"
I'll leave it up to regular readers to decide whether I take myself too seriously or not. What I'm interested in is whether people think the intention to make something humorous and the author's subjective belief that it, indeed, is funny, is sufficient to label any critics sour pusses who add years of stress to their lives (another interesting question: which is better to add years of stress to your life or live a shorter life? I think the Anonymous commenter meant that I will shorten my life because of the stress, not add to it, but precision in communication is not Mr. Anonymous's strong point, as you will see if you watch the commercial.) I guess Mr. Anonymous's point is that everything is fair game, as long as the author intends it to be funny. So, what commercials is Mr. Anonymous working on next? Starving children in Africa finding a cell phone in the sand and using it to call for a Jimmy Johns delivery? Airplane hijackers diverting their crash into the World Trade Center at the last minute because they want to finish their Jimmy Johns sandwiches before going to Paradise?
I'm sorry, I don't believe my only choice is to laugh at the commercial and make my day better or lengthen (actually shorten) my life by taking myself too seriously. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to continue not taking myself too seriously and laughing at myself. I'm also going to continue to be outraged at stupid commercials that are not funny, no matter what the inarticulate authors of it intended. And, I'm still not going to eat Jimmy Johns sandwiches. Ever. Again.
6 comments:
I'm absolutely with you; I hate the commercial of the smoldering upside down car accident also; I think both commercials are offensive. Taking situations that people actually die in to advertise your company is beyond me. They're stupid and offensive.
I was reviewing these commercials before commenting, and there are lots of other people that are offended also. Someone claiming to be the director of the commercial commented on this blog:
http://tmclaugh.blogspot.com/2008/09/funny-jimmy-john-commercial.html
It makes me wonder if someone's on the hot seat, googling their own commercial and running around ranting that IT IS TOO funny.
Just because he says it's so doesn't make it true.
The commercials are awful.
To desperate advertisers seeking to get our attention:
Remember that the INTENTION is one thing but the PERCEPTION will make or break the deal. Most sensible (and not always so serious) consumers perceive this kind of advertising to be in such bad taste (pun!)that they will seek safer and more positive venues for their food sources.
Funny, not funny? What kind of test audience did they find?
I'm with you definitely!!
the commercial was in poor taste, to say the least.
I'm struck by the fact that you can't force someone to see something as funny and you can't change someone's mind once they find something offensive. It either is or it isn't to an individual person. We all know instantly and no amount of explaining will change it.
I think their commercials are obnoxious and stupid, and aren't funny at all. There's one where something is falling from the sky and it makes such a loud noise, we have to turn the TV down. Once "it" hits the ground, I think it eats a sandwich, or whatever. That's not very funny to me.
We don't have Jimmy Johns here, but if we did, I wouldn't eat their sandwiches either!
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