Monday, August 07, 2006

Well, I guess it's a good sign...

You know, it's odd. When you're clicking around randomly on YouTube, you might come across Al Gore's Penguin Army, which includes the tagline "What is Al Gore's new movie, An Inconvenient Truth, all about? Global Warming? The Environment? Or something much more BORING? See Al Gore's Penguin Army learn how crazy this flick really is..." It even has a link to a MySpace page (which, as it turns out, is pretty much just a placeholder for the movie).

And if you're really bored, you might make the mistake of watching the thing. And that's when you realize that this video is evidence of why some people are neither professional comedy writers or animators. It's boring. The animation is crap.
It has one joke (which isn't even funny - the penguins fall asleep because Al Gore is boring), and it goes on for WAY too long. (OK, it's only two minutes and change. But it seems like a lot longer, somehow...)

But, hey, somebody went to the trouble of making it and posting it, which is more than you've done, right? Well, that's where it gets a little tricky. Because, as it turns out, this little piece was produced by a company called DCI, a public relations firm working for Exxon-Mobil.

And strangely enough, would you like to guess which left-wing rag uncovered this? Mother Jones magazine? Nature? Again, that's where it get's tricky. Because the member of the Giant Liberal Conspiracy who found this out turns out to be the Wall Street Journal, which has long been an arm of the Democratic party, right?

So that leaves us with only two questions. First, isn't Big Oil supposed to be some kind of supervillian bent on world domination? Then why are they acting like high school kids?

And second, with trillions of dollars at their disposal, this is the best they can come up with? Something that even Conan O'Brien wouldn't think was funny? Yes, bad animation can be forgiven in an amateur video. But for maximum effect, there should be some humor involved. After all, the purpose of the video is that people should want to see it. And should want to show it to their friends. And maybe, should absorb, at least subconsciously, part of the message.

But if the video is stupid, it's got limited replay value, which destroys the entire purpose.

Suddenly, I'm feeling a lot better about the future of the environment, if these guys are the ones trying to destroy it.

I'm also wondering if Linux is going to sue, since the PR firm stole their penguins.

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