From Funny or Die.

The Idea of Progress has been sick the last few days and apologizes for the lack of posts. Please enjoy this video from Slate in the meantime.

That has to be one of the strangest ads I’ve ever seen. Weird, ugly puppets, singing badly. With bad green screen effects. Who in their right mind would make this ad, and then try and sell sandwiches with it?

After seeing this commercial a few years ago, I talked about it constantly with people.

Sample conversation:

tIoP: Have you seen that Quizno’s commercial? The one with the puppets?

Victim: Uh huh. I’ve got to be going now.

After three or four spots, they replaced these weird puppets with a not-nearly-as-funny talking perverted baby. I missed those weird puppets.

One day, when I was working at a fine dining restaurant in Chicago that shall not be named (okay, it was Bin 36), I got into conversation with a couple of guys sitting at the bar. Turns out that they were the chief advertising guys for Quizno’s. Immediately I asked them about the puppets, and told them that they were my favorite commercials of all time.

“Oh, geez, those things.”

Clearly there was a story here. Turns out that the ‘Spongemonkeys’ was some British internet video that made them laugh around the Quizno’s office. They contacted the people who created the videos and asked them to make a commercial.

It didn’t go over well.

First, the only things people remembered from the commercial was the puppets themselves. People also remembered the pepper bar. But not the sandwiches.

Second, people didn’t think it was funny.

Third, the franchise owners HATED the commercials. One guy called them up and asked why they were advertising his sandwiches with dead rats.

The ads were pulled.

And television has never been the same again.

Postscript: Absolutely because of the commercials, I did try Quizno’s for the first time. It was gross, and I’ve never gone back. Turns out the voice of the perverted baby was the guy who played Lust on “Herman’s Head.”

I have no idea where the Spongemonkeys went off to. But I miss them.

I was reminded of this fine commercial by Bubs over at the Sprawling Ramshackle Compound.

I’m proud to say that my friend and colleague Kate plays the frightened woman in this spot. She told me that the guy who played the clown came to the shoot directly after playing Othello at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. I didn’t learn any fun facts about Erik Martin.

EDIT: He was playing Othello, but not at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre…my mistake

Most of my life I’ve been a night owl. When my family got cable TV, this didn’t help, because now instead of reading books or watching UHF television, I’d watch Comedy Central until all hours of the night. They played reruns of Saturday Night Live then, and I was watching it one night when the following sketch came on:

(There’s some sort of extra stuff at the end of this clip, so after 1:55 you can just shut it off)

I had never heard of Andy Kaufman before. This was a few years before Man On the Moon came out, and I had no idea what to expect.

I laughed so hard at this that I woke my mother up, who knocked on my door to find out what all of the racket was all about. She was not amused.

One day I hope I can create something as dadaist and hilarious as this.

What is the funniest thing you’ve ever seen? Don’t cop out with a joke, post a link instead, and do someone a favor.

From the Daily Show.

I found this to be unreasonably entertaining.