TVSquad

I think I saw the perfect commercial today. I mean it. It was quite simply the perfect marriage of product, production, message and entertainment. It was better than anything I saw during the Oscars or the Super Bowl, and that's saying something. So, have I whetted your appetite?

The commercial was for Nike and it celebrated Tiger Woods return to active competition (he's been off for over a year rehabbing from knee surgery, in case you're not a casual golf/sports fan).

I suppose my penchant for thrift store t-shirts with odd logos puts me out of the Izod target market. Maybe that's why I got all the way through this commercial having no idea what it was advertising. I actually thought it was going to be a Nike ad, what with the golfer, and the Tiger-esque red.

It was a pretty slick ad with some gorgeous photography, but suffers from only working for people already familiar with the brand. Some kind of a tag line at the end. "Izod, sportswear for men" or some such, would have gone a long way. You can't expect everyone watching to go google your company to find out what it is you do.

Desperate Housewives star Teri Hatcher has agreed to provide the voice for two characters in the first feature film to come out of Nike chairman Phil Knight's animation studio, located here in Portland, OR. The movie is called Coraline, and it's an adaptation of a children's novel by Neil Gaiman. Hatcher will voice the roles of two mothers in the show. Dakota Fanning has already agreed to play the starring role of Coraline. Knight says the movie will be distributed through Focus Features and is expected to be released in 2008.

Back in late 1999, there was a classic commercial produced by Nike that showed a guy going out for a run on New Year's Day morning, 2000. As he traverses through his neighborhood, ATMs are shooting out money, there's a power outage, and people are rioting in the streets. However, the message from Nike was despite all this mayhem, remember to "Just Do It." Funny, funny stuff. (If you want to see it, check it out at YouTube.)

Anyway, Earl Hickey wasn't immune from Y2K madness, and last night's episode was a flashback to the time when Earl and his gang decided to start a "new world" on January 1, 2000 since they think the world as they knew it came to an end at midnight. This was all predicated by Earl wanting to cross number 24 off his list--stole a red take-a-number-machine at Camden County's version of Wal-Mart, Bargain Bag.

Earl readily admits in his narration that usually he and his friends were too drunk during previous New Year's celebrations that fireworks went off at midnight and a parade took place the following morning, so they think they are the only ones left and want to start a new society at the store. Being the misfits that they are, things go awry quickly when everyone becomes territorial over areas such as the beauty and pharmaceuticals and TV departments.