TVSquad

While walking the streets of Manhattan, heading to the office early this morning, one of those giant open-air tour buses came flying by me as I crossed Sixth Avenue. Normally, since I see them everyday, I ignore them. But this one had a giant ad plastered across the side of it for Ed Begley Jr.'s green livin' reality show, and I couldn't help staring at it because it confused the hell outta me. Not because it's an inherently confusing ad, but because the fonts and text create an inherently confusing message.

Now, I'm no ad man, but am I the only one who sees the problem here?

Rather than read the ad and say the name of the show, Living with Ed, I read the ad and instead interpreted the humongous capitalized ED as Living with ED - as in erectile dysfunction. It doesn't help that the rest of the text doesn't match in size or font. Nor does it help that Ed Begley Jr. isn't exactly the most recognizable celebrity, especially when he's flying by you on a bus at 40 miles an hour. His semi-comical "Man, I really wish my penis worked" expression is just the icing on the cake.

I've got nothing against Ed Begley, Jr. (he's one of the best parts of A Mighty Wind and I loved his minor roles in Six Feet Under and Arrested Development), but considering the fact that Living with Ed got dumped by HGTV and has now migrated to Planet Green (it returns on October 21st), you'd think a little more thought would have gone into the re-branding of the show. Then again, maybe I'm wrong - maybe the show now deals with the benefits of hornsickled wenis root vs. the chemical imbalances created by Viagra or Cialis.