Self Immolation

Lately, I've had the joy of working with my old friend Robert Prins.

That is not to say he is old, but that we've known each other for a long time. Oh, who am I kidding, he's old. Just like me. Robert is 44.

Years ago we were temporarily teamed up while laboring at Team One. We were given the opportunity to pitch ideas to Boston Market, a welcome relief from the grind of hawking Lexus automobiles and reading the mind of our client, a Japanese tyrant who was often referred to as Colonel Saito from Bridge Over the River Kwai.

We produced one commercial for Boston Market. And is often the case, the spot never made it to air.

Frustrating, yes. But a blessing in disguise.

Last week, Robert donned some overalls, popped the screened gate and went scrounging around under the crawlspace of his house, where buried deep in the boxes of glory past, he found a DVD of the aforementioned masterpiece.

He managed to upload the 20 year old video and send it via the mysterious ether waves to my home in Culver City, where I am now proud to share it with you.

Everything about the commercial is wrong. Mostly because at the last minute the client sliced the budget by more than 75%. 

Our cross country boondoggle BBQ road trip was reduced to a day and a half of filming in a dusty lot in Santa Clarita.

Of course, it wasn't all the clients doing. The acting was broad and over the top. The music was just plain wrong. And to no one's surprise, the writing sucked.

You may be wondering why I take so many opportunities to air out crappy work I've done in the past? In these overly sensitive times we live in, I've simply run out of targets for my scathing ridicule. 

I'm the only left that I can safely make fun of.

Frankly, I think I'm getting better at it.