Fame! We're gonna sell more Kotex!

March 4, 2013 7:56 AM

Sometime in 1981-1982, ad agency Ogilvy and Mather made a video. Harlem Shake, eat your heart out.
posted by Mchelly (17 comments total)

I keep looking for Cyndi Lauper and Lou Albano starting at 2:22, but no luck.
posted by maudlin at 8:06 AM on March 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Can Madmen stay on the air long enough for this to happen?
posted by nutate at 8:18 AM on March 4, 2013 [13 favorites]

Gotta admit -- I spent the first two minutes thinking "I figured a self-made video from an ad agency would be more cocaine-y."

And then...

But seriously, for some reason, this is lovely to me. I'm sure I would be able to snark all over its modern equivalent, but with the distance of 30 years, I'm just overwhelmed by the charm despite my misgivings. It's Don Draper all over again.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:18 AM on March 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Sadly, this is exactly the sort of humiliating corporate acting gig that graduates of the New York High School of Performing Arts probably would have wound up getting.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 8:23 AM on March 4, 2013 [5 favorites]

I love this because every singer in this little show has more innate talent than Taylor Swift.
posted by PuppyCat at 9:05 AM on March 4, 2013

Can Madmen stay on the air long enough for this to happen?

I'll be hoping Megan is gone by then because it's guaranteed that she'd be hogging the camera and poor p-whipped Don would say nothing.

Sadly, this is exactly the sort of humiliating corporate acting gig that graduates of the New York High School of Performing Arts probably would have wound up getting.

Thanks for mentioning this because I was seriously wondering if the Black woman doing most of the lead singing had been hired by Ogilvy specifically to star in this video. Either that or they pulled her in from some kind of service position; what is that uniform she's wearing?
posted by fuse theorem at 9:14 AM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

My desk-neighbor gave up a few seconds in, but I stuck it out and reaped the rewards. Wow. This is incredible.

Norman's got the shirt/how can it hurt to flirt?!
posted by frijole at 9:42 AM on March 4, 2013

Norman's got the shirt/how can it hurt to flirt?!

Ah, those halcyon days before sexual harassment lawsuits...
posted by madajb at 9:45 AM on March 4, 2013

every singer in this little show has more innate talent than Taylor Swift

Sad, smiley, bearded Joe at 1:09 contests your contention.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:15 AM on March 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

But sexual harassment suit waiting to happen aside, he is adorable.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:26 AM on March 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

I thought the guy at 1:11 was Eddie Rabbit.
posted by stormpooper at 11:29 AM on March 4, 2013

Another fun game, if you're the type of person who might watch this more than once, is to cast Tales of the City with the performers within.

Hint: It's really easy.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:48 PM on March 4, 2013

The more OHMYGODWE'REHAVINGSOMUCHFUNHERE vibe that an agency gives off, the greater the percentage of the creative department on the verge of physical and philosophical collapse. It's hard enough to write zippy copy about Assisted Living or canned fruit when you'd rather be writing plays, especially when your friends still writing plays think you're a hack because you want health insurance. Harder still when the client invariably lets slip some even-worse aspect of his industry and you've worked until midnight two nights on a proposal you don't really care about one way or the other and the art director across the hall keeps making semi-sleazy comments whenever he walks past your desk. And it's then, always then that somebody is like "let's do a brainstorming session with gummy bears and beach balls" or "I'm going to pass out some nerf guns and we should play tag through account service in order and then use that youthful energy we feel to enliven this investment banking content." Generally you go along with with it, because you're saving the "Fuck off" moment for when you have enough savings to go freelance, but you hate yourself the whole goddamn time.
posted by thivaia at 2:17 PM on March 4, 2013 [4 favorites]

"Harlem Shake, eat your heart out" or, as I like to call it "A crushing and direct comparative example of how my own attention span is utterly shot."

At the 1 minute mark I was getting bored and had decided, if they didn't cut back to the adorable bespectacled girl with the actual set of pipes, I'd click away. Thank god they did and I stuck through past 2:30, when shit gets real.
posted by Mizu at 3:43 PM on March 4, 2013

Yeah, this would probably have been a more successful FPP if I had promised that if watchers stuck it out it would get better, but "better" was such a loaded word in this context I decided to just reward the faithful. Sort of the anti-advertising approach.
posted by Mchelly at 3:59 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

Ogilvy should hire some Idea Engineers.
posted by spilon at 7:38 AM on March 5, 2013

I thought the guy at 1:11 was Eddie Rabbit.

You wish.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:09 AM on March 5, 2013