For example, after watching the movie 'Footloose' recently, I came to the conclusion that if you take a population of a small town and deprive the teenagers from music and dancing, the girls in that town will become complete psychos. Compared to staring down an oncoming train and straddling open highway between a car and a pickup truck going 55 mph, that makes the "capital 'C'" crazies on VH1 reality shows look like etiquette instructors.
Also, there seems to be a trend forming in the world of prime time television: shows that are titled after the main character whose name is based after some sort of building.
FOX is riding high with "House."
ABC is winning more fans with the increasingly popular "Castle."
So I figured that I need to start developing a show of my own based on this fad before it runs out of steam. Here's the concept:
"Deep in the forest, there are many things that go bump in the night: Dangerous wildlife... Poachers... the Mob dumping bodies... dwarves mining for diamonds... Kids with matches. That's why this fall, this Park Ranger is doling out permits for punishment. Samantha Mathis returns to the wild to reprise her role as the park ranger from 'Broken Arrow', but with a different name, in a show critics call 'confusing.' She stamps out wilderness crime in addition to stamping your National Parks passport. She's Patricia 'CABIN', US Forest Service. Catch an all new 'CABIN', Fridays on FOX."
Be on the lookout for my other show pitches: "CONDO" and "SHED."
All right, on the actual reason I'm writing this. I have to somehow tie this in with advertising. So, here we go...
The holiday season is coming around, and once again high-tech gadgets are going to be the hot item. Also, it's been quite some time since the last version of the iPhone came out (6 months, right?). So all these mobile phone/device companies not named Apple or Blackberry, have been waiting in the reeds developing their state-of-the-art tablet devices ready to finally dive back into the smart phone market. Nokia is coming out with the N900 (nice name, BTW). Motorola is currently showing off its new Droid.
Now, the reason this is interesting is because AT&T and Apple are such good buddies when it comes to contracts, the blue orb is going to be limited to what it can offer when it comes to smart phones that compete with the iPhone. Meanwhile, Verizon is going to be in good position to offer the Droid, Nokias, and especially the menacing Storm II from Blackberry.
And this, children, is why you are seeing attack ads from Verizon in their new campaign: "There's a Map for that." It's the official start of an ad war between Verizon and the company that can't decide whether their official color is orange or blue.
This is significant for me, because it calls up many memories of annoyance from the 90's. I am alluding to the long-distance wars between MCI and AT&T. My teenage years were bombarded with questions coming through my TV and my phone asking if I wanted to switch or if I was happy with my long-distance service. It was brutal!
On top of that, the same two phone companies realized that it was easier for people to use long-distance service by calling collect, starting a new battle in the phone wars starring MCI's 1-800-COLLECT and AT&T's 1-800-CALL-ATT. Thus introducing a new breed of annoying television advertising: outlandish comedians. Carrot Top had a portable pay phone. David Arquette ran around wearing a keypad on his chest. Probably both performers' best work ever. Meanwhile, MCI went overboard by featuring every relevant B celebrity from 1989 to 1995.
Back to the present. I am actually giddy to see if AT&T answers back to Verizon in the form of an attack ad, instead of the threat of legal action. It will be the sweet corporate jousting match I expect in all my holiday seasons.
Oh, funny side note. Verizon is actually part of what MCI used to be. So it seems that the formerly vanquished long-distance company is coming back to retribution.
So, hug your mobile devices, everyone. They're about to become even more obsolete. But let's at least enjoy the carnage that will come out of the new phone wars, before they start to get REALLY annoying.
Oh yes, and make sure to catch the spin off I'm already creating from 'Cabin'. "Cottage" comes out next Spring.
Take care.
AX
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