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March 28, 2024, 08:53:15 PM

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American actors in British TV ads

Started by George White, December 29, 2020, 10:15:24 PM

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paruses

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on December 30, 2020, 01:32:19 PM
On the other hand David Schwimmer is playing a tosser in terrible adverts for a shit bank. I imagine he's cheap, and possibly more popular here than back home.

Oh yes it's for a shit bank, isn't it? Has made me want to find out about an account with <forgotten the name of the bank>.

studpuppet

Seemingly Snoop Dogg has done a deal whereby he pitches up for the first ad, and then gets paid for his image rights while they use a puppet dog and a Snoop impersonator for any other ad they care to make. Tidy.

And the best iteration of the 'Star from Country X does ad in Country Y' theme has to be the Asahi Super Dry London Underground ads from twenty years ago, that have been discussed elsewhere on the boards recently.



Thomas

Mads Mikkelsen has a nice sideline in Carlsberg billboards, which somehow manage to feel 'on-brand' rather than 'sellout'.[nb]disclaimer: I don't drink Carlsberg and I still hate all adverts, including these.[/nb] Perhaps if Kevin Bacon had spent the decades cultivating a classy, well-cut persona, his broadband offers would feel the same.

the ouch cube

I liked the ones with Willem Dafoe voicing a disturbing puppet bear that stalks people around their house. Birdseye Fish Fingers, I think it was. 

George White

Not American though Hollywood,  but there's a 70s Bird's Eye ad with June Whitfield as Mrs. Charlie Chan, and Herbert Lom as Charlie Chan.
And it feels weird, because it could have been Burt Kwouk - he's not the focus of the ad, Lom wasn't cheap. He wasn't that jobbing an actor.

Glebe

Quote from: the ouch cube on December 30, 2020, 06:49:43 PMI liked the ones with Willem Dafoe voicing a disturbing puppet bear that stalks people around their house. Birdseye Fish Fingers, I think it was.

Good call... he did several ads for the Birds Eye range!

Quote from: George White on December 30, 2020, 07:25:13 PMNot American though Hollywood,  but there's a 70s Bird's Eye ad with June Whitfield as Mrs. Charlie Chan, and Herbert Lom as Charlie Chan.
And it feels weird, because it could have been Burt Kwouk - he's not the focus of the ad, Lom wasn't cheap. He wasn't that jobbing an actor.

Crikey!

Thomas

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on December 30, 2020, 03:07:47 PM
I like De Niro and Warburtons, although it's not like I'm thinking that Warburtons is his bread of choice and that makes me even more keen on it. He's probably never eaten it in his life.

Fucker doesn't even know how to pronounce it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k9lkF6OFlM&ab_channel=Warburtonsuk

George White

Quote from: Glebe on December 30, 2020, 08:53:12 PM
Good call... he did several ads for the Birds Eye range!

Crikey!
It was on youtube for a long time, but it's gone now.
I know Lom became a star in the London version of the King and I, and was known as one of those actors who could play any nationality/ethnicity but he did seem too much of a get, although the same ad series also featured Terry-Thomas just before he deteriorated, as Shakespeare, and the more affordable Alfred Marks.

buzby

The Celebrations ad i the OP was intended for multiple markets, not just the UK & Ireland, which is why it's got a generic transatlantic vibe - they weren't sold in North America, but were sold in Australasia and the Middle East (and mainland Europe, where it was redubbed). It was shot on film, not NTSC video (at the time it was easier to shoot on film and telecine it to different video standards than put something through electronic standards conversion - the ads were also shown in cinemas too where originating from video would have looked awful), by the UK-based Abbott Mead Vickers/BBDO ad agency.

Schwimmer may have been booked for the current ad campaign on the back of the Friends reunion that was supposed to be happening earlier this year but was postponed due to Covid.

Direct Line's agency had to get permission from Tarantino and Lawrence Bender for Keitel to reprise the Winston Wolf role.

George White

Thanks, I guessed international market.

RE:Keitel, with Leslie Nielsen's Red Rock Cider Fraud Squad, they were able to circumnavigate copyeight. By not calling it Police Squad and never referring to Drebin by name

paruses

Quote from: George White on December 31, 2020, 12:34:24 AM
Thanks, I guessed international market.


I bet Kevin Bacon is really popular in France. He seems the sort.

Adjacent to this is mid-range car ads made for at least the European market - I find them weirdly creepy. They could almost be the UK but at the same time there's no way it's the UK. A bit like all those Harlan Coben novels that have been adapted into Netflix originals.

Still - soon be done with the need for those - we'll all be driving Caterhams and Morgans from tomorrow.

George White

A lot of those ads are shot in South Africa.
This comes to mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S6N_gQPYIM The kid, Sven Ruygrok was dubbed.
Here is his real voice. https://youtu.be/Myj3TosetNQ
Has been in straight to ideo sequels to Critters Attack, a Cinderella Story, Inside Man, Bring it On,

beanheadmcginty

My mate's missus worked on the Warburton's ad with Stallone in it and says she felt a right wally one day when she caught herself saying "Watch out, this is heavier than it looks" while handing a tray of sliced loaves to fucking Rambo.

petril

Quote from: George White on December 31, 2020, 03:43:03 PM
A lot of those ads are shot in South Africa.
This comes to mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S6N_gQPYIM The kid, Sven Ruygrok was dubbed.
Here is his real voice. https://youtu.be/Myj3TosetNQ
Has been in straight to ideo sequels to Critters Attack, a Cinderella Story, Inside Man, Bring it On,

a simpler time, when conspiracy bollocks was harmless and innocent


mothman

It's a science. An inexact one - the Hollywood rule, Nobody Knows Anything, definitely applies. It's not just Don Draper types pulling ideas out of their arse with one hand while holding a cocktail with the other. They count on that incongruity and shock of recognition to form a connection in our brains. We remember these ads for these brands because of the famous people in them. How many other EE/Direct Line/Warburton's/First Direct ad campaigns can you remember off the top of your head?

Bacon started advertising for EE in 2012. I switched to EE in 2012. I'm reasonably certain that wasn't from any direct connection, I was looking for a new SIM-only deal for my first iPhone, and EE fit the bill. It's possible the ads influenced me to look more closely at what they were offering. I can't really tell for sure. I'm still with EE now, not because of the ads (which have gotten even more annoying over time) but because I can't be bothered to shop around. Which is another way they get you...

Mister Six

Quote from: George White on December 29, 2020, 10:15:24 PM
This is another one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r6TZ5IK42w Buffy's Tom Lenk

Was he Jonathan?

That one was probably nothing to do with his minimal "star power" though - I'll bet they just wanted to set the ad in a big flat desert, and the easiest thing to do was film in California and cast a bunch of Yanks who already live there.

George White

No, Andrew Wells, founder of the TRio.

Mister Six

Oh yeah, I remember now. God, I hated that season.

Catalogue Trousers

Do those bizarre PPI ads with Arnie voicing a robot head of himself on caterpillar tracks count?

Icehaven

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on December 29, 2020, 10:44:31 PM

Al Pacino doing Sky Fibre Broadband ads and De Niro the one for Warburtons were odd as well. De Niro said he did it as he "thought it was funny".

Shame he doesn't apply the same logic to his films, unless he has the worst sense of humour in Christendom.

Don't think they were British but Robert Downey Jnr. was in a few HTC ads at the height of his Iron Man fame so they must have paid him an absolute fuckton.

Icehaven

Quote from: studpuppet on December 30, 2020, 05:15:29 PM
Seemingly Snoop Dogg has done a deal whereby he pitches up for the first ad, and then gets paid for his image rights while they use a puppet dog and a Snoop impersonator for any other ad they care to make. Tidy.

And the best iteration of the 'Star from Country X does ad in Country Y' theme has to be the Asahi Super Dry London Underground ads from twenty years ago, that have been discussed elsewhere on the boards recently.






dissolute ocelot

Schwarzenegger also did a crazy series of ads for a Japanese energy drink. This one actually shows him buried in a pile of gold coins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl0HOqjSzqw

petril

are we sure Chris Quentin isn't just Dan Renton Skinner?

buzby

Quote from: icehaven on April 21, 2021, 11:18:46 AM


When we discussed those Asahi Super Dry ads originally, I did wonder if Lost In Translation had been an influence on them. However, the ad campaign preceded the film by three years. They were a parody of the brand's contemporary Japanese ads that used native celebrities with a smattering of Engrish, along with the Japanese form of 'western celebrity endorsement' advertising that Lost In Translation later drew from.

Bahamadia

Mark Wahlberg is in a betting ad in Australia right now playing 'a character'. He is obviously not in the same room as the Australian actors, it is so poorly done, and seeing him just feels me with rage. Although I'm a non-betting woman so it is not like I am the demographic for sports multi-betting I guess.