So the partners read me the Freddie Rumsen speech... I'm going for the Dirt Cheap Chicken!
As a freelance Ad Girl, I love Mad Men for it's dramatization of the advertising business of the 60s as well as the soapy lives of the employees. Since I pay equal time to the business side of show, I find it interesting that outside of securing Chevy, Don Draper hasn't landed an account all season; the emphasis is about DD's personal downward spiral, but it looks like his professional life hit the toilet too.
Couple that with the hilarious depiction of a Wallside Windows ad by a coworker who barked, "Winders? We don' need no winders!"
Where will Don land when he hits rock bottom? My brain is spinning him towards small-time, locally produced commercials.
There is an artless art to the local ad, in the fact it's so bad, it's good. Yet there is a little something special about them.
Mascots: Mel Farr's Superstar. The Dirt Cheap Chicken. The Mattress Giant (oooh, ahhh!)
Shameless -- or charismatic -- Business Owners: Becky's Wholesale Carpets, with her tiara and flying carpet. Sundance Chevrolet's "Howdy Pardner!" Rose City Motors homespun guarantee that they will send you home in a "vee-hick-le."
Catchy jingles: everyone knows you "save big money at Menard's!" I haven't seen an ad for Mel Farr since the 70s, but you depend on "Mel Farr Superstar for a far better deal!" Empire Flooring's 800 number song.
Low end production values: lots of these ads are single camera productions on VHS (you can just tell!) with bad shadows, visible boom mikes, 80s video productions like flashing bursts and dizzying swipes. Used car lots are notorious for the shouting announcer too.
Far-fetched storylines: local father-son-grandson heating/cooling ad features the three generations (with a surprise 4th generation appearance twist) playing baseball with and against each other. The before mentioned Wallside Windows parodies of The Godfather as well as Newly Rich.
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