Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Going to the Grand Canyon... in a Wheelchair!

Muh wife and I were watching television the other day when an advertisement came on the screen. It was one of those low budget infomercial type commercials that run for about 75 seconds and late at night.

The product was a wheelchair.

It was your ordinary wheelchair... it was some sort of hovering wheelchair that has all these absolutely amazing features! The commercial really jazzed up these chairs that can cut some incredibly tight corners and moves at speeds that aren't slow!

It had some pretty funny editting too. The product is a wheelchair, yet they are trying to sell it as a hip and jazzy tool. Lots of exclamation point type speaking and rhetorical comments.

For example, it exclaims that it can cut some really tight corners... then it shows a shot of a guy ... slowly... and I mean... slowly cutting a corner...

It is just absurd.

That is... until the end... the commercial went horribly wrong.

It made a point about being able to go anywhere and you never have to feel abandoned or immobile again. The question then is... How did they show this to us?

They started with a close up shot of the backs of two wheelchairs... then they pull back and start to circle... you can tell that the wheelchair and the two occupants are now in an outdoor setting....

As the camera continues to pull back, and circle the two old people, it is obvious that the camera is now on some sort of helicopter as the people get smaller and smaller and the background becomes more evident. It is the Grand Canyon.

The imagery started off so nice until it continues to pull back even farther when you realize that there are just two people in wheelchairs...sitting at the edge... all by themselves for MILES.

That was so sad....

Yet... all we could do was laugh our asses off.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have also seen this infomercial and laughed hysterically. Did you see the part where the chair is pulling an 18-wheeler?
-Shari