Think with your dipstick

[davidn]

For people outside America (and especially those in Scotland), I would like to draw attention to this Castrol advert. America is usually a lot more sensitive about making fun of other cultures than the British, but the Scottish seem to be acceptable targets because the only funny colour we are is ginger.

You have to wonder how this came into being - perhaps somewhere in Castrol Towers, there was a slow meeting where the advertising committee were brainstorming how best to draw attention to the improved wear protection on their new engine oil, and a nervous executive woke up, peeled his face off his notepad and described a nightmare he'd had about a manic Scotsman belting people with a dipstick. And instead of "What? Get out", after some thought, the response from across the table was "Yes, let's do that."

I watched it multiple times in a sort of mixture of confusion and horror before it suddenly became strangely hilarious - these days I can only cynically think that they were going straight for Internet meme territory, but if this had been on twenty years ago we'd all remember it. It's like a modern-day Wine Gums advert.

Comments

[kibet.livejournal.com]

That ad was pretty good, I could see it getting banned in the UK though as it would get copied far too many times. Much like the way of the Tango advert with the slapping, although you can awlways tell a kid from the eighties as they are always deaf in one ear from the "Oranges" one.

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

Hoots, mon, thar's joose (sic) loose aboot thas hoose...

Does anyone actually say "hoots, mon", ever? I've never been to Scotland, and thus my first-hand knowledge of the Scots dialect is somewhat lacking, but I've yet to hear the exclamation used... well, pretty much anywhere outside that advert, to be honest. :P

Now that the Tango ads have been mentioned, though, I have to say, I really quite liked them; not least because the last in the line of the "Ralph and Tony voice-overs" series was what I consider to be the cleverest advert yet made, in that it never mentioned Tango at all, but instead finished with the phrase "You Know When You've Had Sprouts", which I found hilarious at the time. :P

D.F.

[davidn]

I can tell you that I've never in my life heard anyone really say "Hoots mon"! Unless you're one of The Broons, of course.

I'd... never seen that Tango advert before (I found it in a collection video here) and... I don't think I've ever seen an advert that doesn't mention what it's for at all but rely on just the style to get people to recognize it. That's incredible.

[aristophains.livejournal.com]

He seems to owe quite a debt to Groundskeeper Willie of The Simpsons. And of course to James Doohan. Maybe it was this year's rebirth of Scotty that set cogs turning at Casa Castrol.