Now, understand, my objection here isn't because I'm particularly a Chris Farley fan. In some ways I find the commercial fitting because it shows about as much inventiveness and humor as most of Farley's movies. Plus it has the advantage of being much much shorter.
No, the objection really comes in the use of dead people to sell things that they never endorsed. It's a trend that began a while back, nor is it Direct TV's first offense, and while initially it did lead to some amusing and creative commercials, once one moved beyond that to actually think about what was going on, that the image of a dead person was being used to sell an item that they may not have even known about in their day, that words were being put in their mouth promoting items and ideas that they might not agree with or believe in. I mean just because they have the word "ranch" in the name do we really know that Roy Rogers would have liked the taste of Cool Ranch Doritos? No. But thanks to a little tricky camera work and creative computer editing, I'm sure that by the time you're reading this someone could have devised a video of Roy and Dale singing an ode to the snack chip. With Trigger providing beatbox.I've even heard that Farley's family approved the ad as if that somehow validates the concept. "Hey, honey, just because we don't have any talent of our own is no reason not to take this money from the satellite company, now is it? I'm sure it's what Uncle Chris would have wanted us to do." "Yes, sweetie - I'm sure that when he said 'I'd rather die than endorse them' he had no idea he could do both."
Which, of course, leads to the question of where will it all end. Who will be the next zombie to be raised by Direct TV's loa to pitch their product? Well, LandlineTV has an idea:
Y'know, I take it all back. Maybe if it brings us creativity and humor like that the Direct TV ad campaign is worth it. Too bad it's just not the actual commercials that are showing it.
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