the progressive girl

http://www.carinsurancecomparison.com/Images/Flo-Progressive-Car-Insurance-Girl.jpg

what do we think?

creepy.

yet compelling.

i always lol @ matt taibbi's bio:

I'm a political reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, a sports columnist for Men's Journal, and I also write books for a Random House imprint called Spiegel and Grau. My main ambition in life is to someday strangle that chick in the Progressive Insurance commercials who is always waving her hands back and forth and screaming, "Discount!!!" Anyone who has suggestions for how to dump her body without being caught is welcome to write to me. I already have plenty of plastic and a staple-gun.

I kinda feel bad for the actress tbh. The first few commercials, it was kind of amusing I guess, but as the commercials grew in number her character has started to get reaaaaally fucking annoying. Who knows, maybe she loves the way the character has developed, but for some reason I think that she hates the character, she knows she's ruining the rest of her career because she'll always be the the high-strung "quirky" Progressive girl, but the money is good, it would be foolish to throw away easy money that takes less than a weekend's work per commercial. She's completely empty, she knows the commercials can't last forever but doesn't know where to go next. Who knows.

i bet secretly, in real life, she's bitter and angry like gumby.

and she's probably trying to get a restraining order against matt taibbi right now.

whiney posted her in ws

commercials are super annoying, but she does her job -- hate her

"yea -- office party!"

(waves hands furiously in little circles)

Stephanie Courtney (born February 8, 1970) is an American actress and comedienne. She is best known for playing the advertising character Flo for Progressive Insurance[2] and is noted for her recurring roles on several television shows including: the voices of Renee the Receptionist and Joy Peters on the Adult Swim comedy Tom Goes to the Mayor (2004-2006); Marge on the AMC drama Mad Men (2007); and Diane on the ABC comedy Cavemen (2007). Courtney is a senior member of The Groundlings improvisational theater in Los Angeles, California.

I kinda feel bad for the actress tbh. The first few commercials, it was kind of amusing I guess, but as the commercials grew in number her character has started to get reaaaaally fucking annoying. Who knows, maybe she loves the way the character has developed, but for some reason I think that she hates the character, she knows she's ruining the rest of her career because she'll always be the the high-strung "quirky" Progressive girl, but the money is good, it would be foolish to throw away easy money that takes less than a weekend's work per commercial. She's completely empty, she knows the commercials can't last forever but doesn't know where to go next. Who knows.

― party time! (Z S), Monday, May 3, 2010 1:05 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

i tend to feel oppositely tbh -- like she takes pride in this character

it's weird how many 'actual' comedians got caught up in the abc cavemen show

my buddy worked on that show--i should find out what the deal is

Ties to both Progressive and the Geico cavemen... she's playing both sides against the middle.

i tend to feel oppositely tbh -- like she takes pride in this character

No, I know exactly what you mean, and I thought that at one point too. But then a new commercial came out, and I thought "she looks like she takes pride in this character, and maybe she's even fooled herself into believing she does, because to not take pride would be like admitting that her whole life is a game. But somewhere buried deep, she hates this character more than I do, even."

her life is very complicated

I like Flo but like I have this feeling like that she's hiding something, like maybe she has some weird fetish having to do with toenails and/or oxen....

what are you hiding, Progressive Girl!?

bodies

i like her, i bet she gives crazy BJs

countdown to thread being moved to ILTMI in 5....4....3....2...

if her progressive career doesn't work she'll always have a place in an indie garage rock revival band

http://www.getrealdenver.com/wp-content/photos/silversun.jpg

and play Progressive rock

aw, i like her. she's plucky and has moxie. and she went to my undergrad college (before i went there).

Her regular appearance doesn't offer any of the palpable frisson of Flo:

http://celeb-news.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/stephanie_courtney-3718.jpg

Along with her voice & general annoying demeanor, I kind of hate her eyemakeup for some reason. Also: sooooooooooo annoying.

hey she's kind of cute!

Speaking of which, there's an astounding amount of Rule 34 imagery of Erin Essurance.

Some involving Flo.

want to touch the heiney

Maybe it's just the frackles, but she looks a little like Evangeline Lilly.

The Flo character is creepy as hell.

VdGG or gtfo

http://media.compete.com/site_media/upl/img/AP-Progressive3.gif

Somewhat surprised that Flo's demo is 40 yo middle-class women.

ahhhhahahahahahahaha

it's a flo chart!

...

i think i've reached my corny portion of my evening

i loled

does flo wear a bumpit y/n

n, she is totally snookieproof'd

Lauren Graham - sex = Flo.

I love Flo, and I covet her hairstyle. I'm totally in her demographic.

and [she'll] play Progressive rock

it's a flo chart!

This has been a productive thread.

hate both this chick and the name "progressive"

love that you love her laurel

Ty! I do think they've cornied her up a little bit since the first ads, but I still like her wide-eyed, flatly earnest delivery of every line.

courtesy Catsupppppppppppppp dude (not entirely safe for work):

http://blog.wizardishungry.com/post/567145036
http://blog.wizardishungry.com/post/567097871

1. weirdly cute
2. oh my eyes

Results 1 - 18 of about 59,500 for progressive flo costume

Not a few couples have attended Halloween as Progressive Flo and the Geico Caveman:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2508/4064873699_257f19d5df.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3226/3016451806_9329584f16.jpg
http://meleesapellerino.com/0_0_0_0_250_188_csupload_16535598_large.jpg

does flo wear a bumpit y/n

― mookieproof, Monday, May 3, 2010 5:37 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark

lololol at this btw

i mean, that has to be a bump-it

you guys are full of hate

i like the way she says "maybe" in the radio ad.

you guys are full of hate

not me i like her

dude, i love this woman! i'm just sayin'

i mean if i could wear a bump-it, i would

i mean if i could wear a bump-it, i would

this has completely brightened my day

haha you know it's true too

In the vein of annoying commercials, there's quite a few around right now that simply feature annoying customers yelling "WHAT A DEAL!!" in a real obnoxious way. There's one for an office supply store and there's another for a car rental. There's no funny skit involved, no wacky costumes -- the whole gimmick is 'look how big an asshole this customer is'.

the character is a little too college comedy troupe cheesy to really be funny but i've rarely been ever been actively annoyed by the ads. and she's total WS material out of character (and WS of shame material in charater).

cracked me up how i had no idea this is what this thread was gonna be about w/o caps in the subject line.

http://mqschmidt.com/7af81950.gif

I am embarrassed to say that I find her really attractive. :(

A crush of shame for me. She's so.... positive.

I really don't get the hate. The ads are fairly innocuous and occasionally amusing. I also really like the actress when she's on Mad Men.

I kinda feel bad for the actress tbh. The first few commercials, it was kind of amusing I guess, but as the commercials grew in number her character has started to get reaaaaally fucking annoying. Who knows, maybe she loves the way the character has developed, but for some reason I think that she hates the character, she knows she's ruining the rest of her career because she'll always be the the high-strung "quirky" Progressive girl, but the money is good, it would be foolish to throw away easy money that takes less than a weekend's work per commercial. She's completely empty, she knows the commercials can't last forever but doesn't know where to go next. Who knows.

― party time! (Z S), Sunday, May 2, 2010 8:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

from what i understand of the advertising world, spokespeople for big ad campaigns usually get locked into long term contracts (probably as much to keep competitors from hiring them for gotcha ads as anything else), and if you're the star of a series of ads that gets played on every channel all day every day, those contracts can be REALLY lucrative. so she probably made the decision to ride this out for a while, and is making so much cash that it's hard to really regret it.

the character is a little too college comedy troupe cheesy to really be funny but i've rarely been ever been actively annoyed by the ads. and she's total WS material out of character (and WS of shame material in charater).

cracked me up how i had no idea this is what this thread was gonna be about w/o caps in the subject line.

― hey lol hipster (some dude), Monday, May 3, 2010 9:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

^^^

I could be friends with this girl. She may be the only one who understands me in this mysterious, chaotic world.

this thread should be titled the progressive woman. Come on people, this isn't the 50s!

it's not like we smacked her on the tush and lowered her salary by 35%

from what i understand of the advertising world, spokespeople for big ad campaigns usually get locked into long term contracts (probably as much to keep competitors from hiring them for gotcha ads as anything else), and if you're the star of a series of ads that gets played on every channel all day every day, those contracts can be REALLY lucrative. so she probably made the decision to ride this out for a while, and is making so much cash that it's hard to really regret it.

― hey lol hipster (some dude), Monday, May 3, 2010 9:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm. 'can u hear me now' verizon dude can never work anywhere else as an actor, nor will he ever 'have to' work as an actor again. we all make choices, basically.

I think the verizon guy could come back if he wanted to, in like 10 years. Do a guest spot on Law and Order as a creep. Back in business.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Guy

Ben guest-starred on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and an episode of Law & Order in 2007.

I remember Patricia Richardson, the mom from "Home Improvement," coming on some talk show & talking about her acting past. She had been in some O.B. tampons commercial (iirc as a bike cop) in the early '80s that she said "kept her from getting a job for 10 years." But look, she went on to be in that TV show, and then, judging by appearances, I think she was also the drummer for Sleater-Kinney. So there's hope for the Progressive girl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoyBCz30cQM

so many major actors have a cheesy commercial in their past that Leno or whoever can dredge up for LOLs that i feel like anyone that blames ads for stifling their career is just scapegoating.

The trick is to have a heavily stylized/made-up commercial persona. Verizon guy can still audition without his glasses. Progressive Flo's career advanced without the bump-it. And depite the fact that Stephanie Courtney's stand-up comedy has, shall I say, a limited audience appeal.

"are we having fun yet?"

can't find the picture of her doing stand-up in an exorcist t-shirt, I like her just because of that

lol lamp i didn't even think of that.

i'm still pretty wowed that this is the same person who did the ogre-ish voice for tom's 400lb wife in tom goes to the mayor

http://i51.tinypic.com/x4nbc5.jpg

<3h8 this broad

the worst

fuck you jordan sargent but u are right. sb.

http://christwire.org/2010/09/progressive-car-insurance-lady-secretly-finances-sex-drugs-and-radical-politics/

O_O

That screed borders on spiteful fanfic. Just, wow. I mean I can't stand her but I feel grateful that things haven't spiraled out of control so badly for me that I'm imagining what she wears when she gets off work. The only thing this is missing is the phrase "dirty pillows". Jesus christ these fucking nutjobs, seriously.

"One imagines her outside of work prowling after-hours night clubs in inner cities, stomping around in high-heeled black boots that lace up to her ruddy knees, a torn heavy metal t-shirt revealing a milky shoulder blade and eyeliner that makes her look heavily bruised.

lololol

xp isn't "christwire.org" a satire site?? surely?!

Haha omg you're right. Lol @ me, what a maroon.

yes, it's a satire site

there was a good article in the NYT recently about how they fooled some actual crazy christian writer into letting them syndicate her column along with their bogus ones

Haha that's awesome

don't feel like a maroon. i think there has been a fair amount of debate whether or not that was the case.

xxpost

aw thanks Will

no prob. thanks k3vin k. i had not seen the NYT article.

i wanted to do a t/s thread between flo and the education connection girl but she's already got one

Education Connection vs FreeCreditReport.com commercials

no prob. thanks k3vin k. i had not seen the NYT article.

― hypnosis is the reason some Jewish people backed him → (will), Sunday, October 3, 2010 2:31 PM (36 minutes ago)

well it was more a profile piece with what i mentioned as a funny ancdote - here's the article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/us/04beliefs.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=christ%20wire&st=cse

She was on House and revealed that she probably doesn't have much of a career beyond those commercials.

have a crush on this lady tbqf

did not know she was on mad men.

I totally signed up for Progressive auto insurance just because that guy gave $3 million to the Marijuana Policy Project. That was honestly the only reason I went with them.

!

He gave a lot of $$$ to other causes I like, too.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/peterlewis.asp

As far as insurance *mascots* go, I think this guy is a much better Halloween costume:

http://www.thegeneral.com/images/theGeneral.gif

fwiw, the Buffett Foundation has been sponsoring a contraception awareness campaign in Iowa and a few other states ("Avoid the Stork"). So some Geico money is going to decent places, too.

Shows up on Glitter in the Garbage:

http://www.earwolf.com/episode/episode-4-stephanie-courtney-ron-morehouse-sam-pancake

Did not know she was/is a Groundling.

http://twitter.com/#!/ochocinco/status/56168984344670208

Retweeted by iLikeDonks and others

iDonks would be an odd soulja boy related amalgamation

there was a time when I told everyone who would listen that she was the blonde doctor from Scrubs, and but I got a closer look and man do I feel stupid

lol

a couple of months ago my brother was telling me an amusing anecdote about his 7th grade math tutor, and after his story was over he casually says, as just an afterthought, "and a couple months after she left the school I recognize her as the lady in those progressive commercials," at which point I flip out and yell "FLO!?!??! Your teacher was Flo???"

lol

what made it classic was that, prior to that twist at the end, the story he told couldn't have been any more of a 6/10, things you tell your brother in traffic kind of anecdote

Flo's down with Booger!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHmrHQBYbyg&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/embed/pEHxtbPyR5g

maybe this'll work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pEHxtbPyR5g

i guess i no longer know how to embed youtube on ilx...

one last try:

http://youtu.be/pEHxtbPyR5g

haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEHxtbPyR5g

I dream about Flo every night. I think about her during the day. I can imagine nailing all her holes. I want to cornhole her so hard that her eyes pop out. I also want Flo to sit on my face so I can work tongue magic on her progressive pussy. God, I hope she is a screamer! I want to make Flo eat the Geico lizzard! A good commercial would be Flo pleasuring herself with the Geico lizzard and talking dirty!

jamaljamal85 1 month ago

That is surely the end of the internet right there.

I think I started at the end and am working my way back to the beginning

Cartoon Flo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he3cMiZVq0o

Buffy's a fan

i'm not

You're not Buffy.

the matt taibbi quote about flo copied in the second or third post on this thread is creepy and gross.

If you watch the clip, Buffy makes glaring error calling into question her fandom tho.

Matt Taibbi in gross/creepy shockah.

and she's total WS material out of character (and WS of shame material in charater).

otm

it's a shame that he manifests everything i hate in a human being because much of his coverage of the financial meltdown/housing crisis was quite good. xp

I've a friend who like to tease me about being a Flo fan. He made up a little for this by FB'ing me this fantastic article about Stephanie Courtney and her career up to and including Flo:

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/career/news/a38633/get-that-life-stephanie-courtney-flo-progressive/

There have been some roles I didn't get that I really wanted. Originally I auditioned for Joan for Mad Men. They said, "You didn't get that, but will you play a switchboard operator instead?" I said, "Sure!" Then I saw Christina Hendricks in that emerald dress, and I went, Oh, I get it now. I also auditioned for Pam for The Office. I didn't get far in that audition, but I was such a fan of the British Office I was just excited to be there. Both of the ladies who got these parts are so perfect. You have to audition for a thousand "no"s so you can get a "yes."

much prefer the AT&T girl

Caity Weaver interviews Stephanie Courtney -- Flo herself:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/magazine/progressive-insurance-flo-stephanie-courtney.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BU0.yRwt.o01D-8trpQXq&smid=url-share

much prefer the AT&T girl

Off-topic, but Good Grief does she have some psycho edgelord incel fanboys.

...but you could probably same the same of any TV spokeswomen.

Very charming and normal Taibbi quote at the top if this thread

a clue to his later turn against progressives

The first few commercials, it was kind of amusing I guess, but as the commercials grew in number her character has started to get reaaaaally fucking annoying. Who knows, maybe she loves the way the character has developed, but for some reason I think that she hates the character,

funny in retrospect as I do not think she now hates the character and is probably quite happy with this regular paycheck plus the cultural impact she's had. These commercials have gone on for so long that they passed through the 'annoying' era ages ago and now are something I enjoy when I see them (which is admittedly not often as I don't watch much commercial tv). She seems like a nice person.

A good commercial would be Flo pleasuring herself with the Geico lizzard and talking dirty!

can't argue with that

weird this thread was bumped today! at about the same time ned revived (and without seeing it until just now), i took this pic

https://i.imgur.com/IhMfc1f.jpg

just read the article, holy shit at the likely $10 million a year paycheck

Very charming and normal Taibbi quote at the top if this thread

― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Sunday, November 26, 2023 5:12 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

just saw this. wtf.

glad flo is getting her money. she is a reassuring presence on the airwaves. has been around for years.

i actually don't understand what is supposed to be annoying about her.

in any case, i use njm for car insurance. sorry flo.

A good commercial would be Flo pleasuring herself with the Geico lizzard and talking dirty!
can't argue with that

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Sunday, November 26, 2023 7:22 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is also really not ok.

i actually don't understand what is supposed to be annoying about her.

I think it was the ilxor Homosexual II who long ago stated on ilx that in her experience when a man says he finds a woman "annoying" it generally means he would like to fuck her. Ever since I read that I've mentally tested her observation against each instance where it could be applied and I've come to regard it as true more often than not.

probably also true for murder fantasies like the one taibbi sketched above.

if i was not a man, i would probably think men are trash.

xp It was sunny successor who said that

probably is true of all genders. good deflection from one's true feelings. "omg, you are soooo annoyinggg"

It was sunny successor who said that

I see it stuck in your head, too. thx for the correct attribution.

for reference: truth bombs

was Flo the first time a big company made a recurring character out of a regular employee? seems like a bunch of 'em have done that over the years - Jan from Toyota, the AT&T girl, Liberty Mutual's moustache guy, Jake from State Farm, probably a few others I forgot. that's a pretty good legacy for a TV commercial actor

Fun addendum: Annie Fish on Bluesky dug up the 1999 Bud Light ad mentioned in the piece

https://bsky.app/profile/anniefish.bsky.social/post/3kf5auipjrc27

lol xposts, but I also internalized this truth RE: annoying and have definitely observed it in action so I basically now try to avoid ever describing anyone as annoying lest someone draw the same conclusion.

also, I've always been outspokenly pro-Flo and am glad to hear she's making bank.

For those not on Bluesky, the Bud ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDZB6W71-f4

On camera for perhaps 0.7 seconds!

Ah i saw her that time

I remember Patricia Richardson, the mom from "Home Improvement," coming on some talk show & talking about her acting past. She had been in some O.B. tampons commercial (iirc as a bike cop) in the early '80s that she said "kept her from getting a job for 10 years." But look, she went on to be in that TV show, and then, judging by appearances, I think she was also the drummer for Sleater-Kinney. So there's hope for the Progressive girl.

― This is four-dimensional art; the 4th dimension is incredibly powerful. (Abbott), Tuesday, May 4, 2010 11:06 AM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this made me miss abbott

loooool that’s an excellent abbotttt post

speaking of the AT&T girl it really bugs me that Keegan-Michael Key is in the latest commercial and doesn't really do or say anything? like he's still a fairly big name, he still does a lot of movies and voice work, kinda pathetic to basically be an extra in a commercial isn't it?

if i was not a man, i would probably think men are trash.

― treeship.

counterpoint: i'm more fond of and less judgemental of men now that i don't feel like i have to _be_ one.

There is something distinctively straight male about concocting a murder fantasy about a woman one has a crush one, as mr. taibbi did upthread. I am glad this is less acceptable now than in 2010.

was Flo the first time a big company made a recurring character out of a regular employee?

i feel like this had a moment in the 70s as well: the maytag repair man, the "time to make the donuts" guy, etc

Good call. Time to make the donuts guy was a character named Fred the Breaker. I knew the actor who played him. He was also the Breakstones Sour Cream guy!

Fred the Baker not breaker!

see that shit would not fly today. remember the Sprint "can you hear me now?" guy jumping to T-Mobile? something about that just didn't feel right.

At some point, commercial broadcast television became a subsidiary of the auto insurance industry. We did not see this happening.

I feel like I have seen more ads for car insurance than I have for any other good or service. And they all have their cutesy memes and whatnot. The cavemen, Flo, the thing with the emu, the thing with the gecko, etc.

One used to see ads for beer or hamburgers or long-distance telephony or diabeetus supplies or whatever. At present, advertising is mostly about car insurance.

This is a strange timeline and I want out of it.

earlier in this same timeline, commercials were all about husbands berating their wives about coffee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnjjkgIO3Ck

now we get insurance-selling lizards

The proliferation of insurance commercials has always boggled my mind. Like who changes their insurance that much? I only pay renter’s insurance, but I haven’t changed it for like 20 years. Maybe I’m not the target demographic here.

If it didn't work, they wouldn't do it. Or so one would assume.

I dunno. Allegedly, John Wanamaker said that half of the money spent on advertising is wasted; you just don't know which half.

auto insurance is one of those things where everyone feels like they pay too much, I suspect, so people are likely to shop around for that at least once a year.

...

we could all save up to 15% by switching to geico

is what i heard

ya I think what it comes down to is everyone needs it, few really care much about how 'covered' they are, so it maybe just comes down to which ad you saw last. I mean I assume that's what their internal studies tell them, which may explain why very few of these commercials have anything to do with insurance at all.

personally the thing I find irritating about them is that they're so self-aware and cynical. like half the Geico ads now seem to be about how there are so many Geico ads on TV. same with the Progressive ads, they all have this subtext like "yeah we know commercials are annoying, so we're going to do you a favor by making them entertaining", but there's something wrong about that. its like when brands on Twitter start co-opting memes and act like teenage edgelords, shit that might be funny if it was a parody Wendy's account, but coming from the actual Wendy's account it's just makes you cringe. real stepdad-trying-way-too-hard vibes there. or maybe when a teacher tries to make something 'fun' but in a way that just reminds the class they're being held captive.

one fun thing about my current media diet is that the fewer commercials I see, the weirder & more impenetrable they seem. there are so many ads now that appear to just be self-referential callbacks to long-running campaigns and jokes that seem to have become completely untethered from whatever the original product or premise was, just some bizarre nonsequitur of a scene with the name of a product at the end of it, and its impossible to parse if you're not up on all the years of lore.

like the credit card company ads that feature rampaging vikings or norsemen or whatever? these uncouth vikings show up at a board meeting or a child's birthday party, do schtick for 15 seconds, and then yell the name of a credit card at the end. Ok? I assume at one point 15 years ago there was a punchline that made sense comparing credit cards to vikings somehow. but to see it with fresh eyes shorn of context its just like, wait, why was I shown that? I dont think it makes for "good advertising" per se, but it often makes watching TV these days an amusingly strange experience.

It's 2023 and the commercials are weirder than the shows

Frogbs and President K., this was one of the points made by (sorry) David Foster Wallace.

When Saturday Night Live started making fake commercials for things that didn't exist (like "edible diapers"), people started watching commercials differently.

People were like, "Is this a real ad or a fake one?" And then, predictably, advertisers started making real ads that seemed like they might be fake ads.

That's how we get J.K. Simmons in an apron with a helicopter feeding a lizard to an emu. Or whatever. Sorry, I can't keep track. There's also a caveman, or something.

TS: Milana Vayntrub vs. Stephanie Courtney

i never knew stephanie's real name until this recent article dropped, so milana

Sometimes I need to remember that she doesn't even do insurance ads.

It must be weird for her to have been rejected for just an audition for SNL sooooo many times, and then years later they're having Heidi Gardner do half-assed impression of Flo on the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcYT5FkIa_I

I like Milana Vayntrub but really dislike the AT&T ads. most of them make me feel like I have brain damage. but I've seen her in other stuff and she's pretty funny, though like Flo I think being such a recognizable face in commercials probably is gonna hinder her 'serious' career to the point where it probably just won't exist. ditto for all these other people.

True, but J.K. Simmons also gets to be in "Whiplash" or whatever. And then he can do another insurance ad.

Might be some sexism going on in this. Just a theory.

There is something distinctively straight male about concocting a murder fantasy about a woman one has a crush one, as mr. taibbi did upthread. I am glad this is less acceptable now than in 2010.

― treeship., Monday, November 27, 2023 6:40 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

some 2010-era village voice guy (f*nn*ss*y?) had a year-end blurb around then where he fantasized about sealing taylor swift in a well. i was like “oh, that’s definitely a cool thing to write in print”

Yes and also Flo is presented as an adult human woman. Then we look at the title of this thread.

O.J. Simpson was in car rental commercials when I was a child; I don't remember him being referred to as a boy.

fwiw I always found the character really annoying and I never wanted to f F. I'm sure that it is often true, the whole annoying being code for something else, but it's also not impossible that some people found her irritating because that was def the case for me.

lol at "f F"

I was trying not to be vulgar lol.

True, but J.K. Simmons also gets to be in "Whiplash" or whatever. And then he can do another insurance ad.

well right but this is a different thing because he was an accomplished actor before doing these commercials. whereas people like Flo and AT&T girl are primarily known for commercial work which I think is gonna give a lot of pause to casting directors. like I wouldn't really want Milana Vayntrub in my movie either because I think people so strongly associate her with a corporation and I don't want people to be thinking about AT&T when she's on screen.

i want to make a movie where the whole cast consists of human mascots like this. no in-jokes or acknowledgment of it. just a oscar bait style civil war movie starring these people.

whiplash (2014)

or you could just watch Oz

some 2010-era village voice guy (f*nn*ss*y?) had a year-end blurb around then where he fantasized about sealing taylor swift in a well. i was like “oh, that’s definitely a cool thing to write in print”

― ivy., Monday, November 27, 2023 11:10 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes, googling bears that out. I only became aware of him recently, when listening to The Big Picture podcast, and there have been occasional comments about his excessive Taylor Swift opinions from earlier in his career.

i want to make a movie where the whole cast consists of human mascots like this. no in-jokes or acknowledgment of it. just a oscar bait style civil war movie starring these people.

― treeship., Monday, November 27, 2023 10:47 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

when I was a teenager I had RPG Maker 2k on my computer and in the first game I made the main character was Colonel Sanders. originally he had some chicken-themed attacks but I later realized it would be a lot funnier to just not acknowledge KFC at all. the next one I did you could play as Matthew Lesko, the crazy question mark suit infomercial guy, also without mentioning what he did, though that time it was because I didn't really understand it myself. I couldn't have been the only one obsessed with these dudes back then (not if Neil Cicierega is any indication). feel like these companies are way too in on the joke now for that to really work today though.

It must be weird for her to have been rejected for just an audition for SNL sooooo many times, and then years later they're having Heidi Gardner do half-assed impression of Flo on the show.

Maybe extra-weird because Gardner was also a Groundling and probably knows Courtney personally.

Milana Vayntrub is ridiculously attractive imho, but her AT&T character has an air of smugness that might fit with the tone of the ads but irks me.

The only thing I've knowingly seen Vayntrub in was the 2021 horror comedy whodunit Werewolves Within, which was a light, fun, cozy movie. She was great in it. Would like to see her in more leading roles.

Flo and AT&T lady are markedly less annoying than Liberty Mutual ads.

Maybe just exposure though, Liberty Mutual was the main Amazon Freevee advertiser when I was watching Bosch Legacy.

the Liberty Mutual ads are just really bad I think, like they're trying to do what Geico and Progressive are doing but they just don't have the talent to write anything remotely funny. except for the Liberty Biberty guy which I think was accidentally funny in a memorable way. so of course they have to keep bringing him back.

The Liberty Mutual ads are very bad at being clever or entertaining, but they are obviously good at making sure you remember the name of the company. They've succeeded in occupying part of our brain space and decorating it with their imagery. That's the main point.

Aimless is right. There was a Quizno's subs campaign a while back that definitely tried to push the annnoyingness envelope as far as it could go and... fuck. It worked. Because I just typed the name of a company I hadn't thought about in years. I don't think I've ever even eaten there.

What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs?

here in Wisconsin there's only one Quizno's left so I don't suppose it worked too well. that said idk maybe their problem was insisting on making all their subs toasted which kinda jammed up the line. I thought they were good sandwiches. but yeah...that ad campaign was maybe a little too ahead of its time in the wrong ways

https://www.foxnews.com/story/coyote-visits-chicago-sandwich-shop

I’ll forever associate this story with Quiznos. Probably guerrilla marketing.

it does bum me out that we'll never see anything like the Folger's incest ad again

why not? the people involved in making that were dense just like a.i.

I kind of like the weird dream ad Progressive is running currently.

Nothing beats the Wendy's commercials, though.

Where's the beef, jimbeaux?

personally the thing I find irritating about them is that they're so self-aware and cynical.

― frogbs

stan freberg to thread

It's 2023 and the commercials are weirder than the shows

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes)

i spend a lot of time watching old ads - it's one of my special interests. ephemera. advertising has always had a lot of weird shit going on. fuck, _monty python were paid to make corporate films_. _monty python_. you can watch them online. there's something... like that's one of the reasons i like advertising, because you can do shit in that that you just can't do in long-form television. the renowned abstract artist oskar fischinger literally made ads for muratti cigarettes. could he have made a tv show? maybe! shit, jim henson made tv shows. you ever see the ads he made?

Yes and also Flo is presented as an adult human woman. Then we look at the title of this thread.

― Iris Demented (Ye Mad Puffin)

an adult human female even haha

with gender there's a whole... patriarchy is a thing and fucking sucks, it's just the gendered _essentialization_ of stuff that i'm wary of. i don't know the gender of "la senora" (no, i'm not going to assume), it's just... a potentially complicated situation that doesn't translate well to direct critique, imo.

There is something distinctively straight male about concocting a murder fantasy about a woman one has a crush one, as mr. taibbi did upthread. I am glad this is less acceptable now than in 2010.

― treeship.

like... there's always one woman... you might know about her because she's the one gender critical people always talk about. rowling or someone will say something respectably transphobic, and some trans woman on twitter will respond with by fantasizing about sexually assaulting and killing her. which is awful and grossly inappropriate, and which is then used as a pretext to say that trans women are men. well, we're not men. not even the woman who made a violent threat against j.k. rowling. that behavior doesn't say anything about the gender of the person who displays the behavior. or, for that matter, imply that the person making the threat "has a crush on" the person they're making the threat against.

there's something "distinctively straight male" about extreme metal, too. about speedrunning videogames. there are all kinds of things, good, bad, neither, that are primarily done by cis men and trans women. taking behavior and essentializing it to a gender... it doesn't benefit anybody. not when it's "boys being boys", nor when it's used to imply that men are somehow _worse_ than people who aren't men.

ike Flo I think being such a recognizable face in commercials probably is gonna hinder her 'serious' career to the point where it probably just won't exist. ditto for all these other people.

― frogbs

maybe... i mean typecasting can happen in any field. you play one role for a long enough time... like tom baker and doctor who...

i think about someone like bryan cranston... he spent, like, decades doing commercials before his commercial breakthrough. so many ads with him in them, he's so recognizable. he wasn't associated with any one brand, though. maybe he's a one-off.

i also wonder... one of the last things roger delgado did before he died was a sunglasses ad. fucking awesome ad. better than the castro episode of _the twilight zone_ imo. nowadays he's best known as "the master" from doctor who, but i'm not sure he was doing a "celebrity ad" when he did that sunglasses ad. he was just the right actor for the part.

-

when I was a teenager I had RPG Maker 2k on my computer and in the first game I made the main character was Colonel Sanders. originally he had some chicken-themed attacks but I later realized it would be a lot funnier to just not acknowledge KFC at all. the next one I did you could play as Matthew Lesko, the crazy question mark suit infomercial guy, also without mentioning what he did, though that time it was because I didn't really understand it myself. I couldn't have been the only one obsessed with these dudes back then (not if Neil Cicierega is any indication). feel like these companies are way too in on the joke now for that to really work today though.

― frogbs

there is, of course, a pc game based around colonel sanders now. it's a dating simulator. where you date colonel sanders. it seems weird, but a lot of it relies on his reputation as a japanese advertising icon. but i mean, also... my steam avatar is a cartoon of colonel sanders holding a lightsaber. that's from a "star wars episode 1" tie-in campaign in 1999.

now, ok, compare that to the media appearances of the real-life harland sanders. herschell gordon lewis' "blast-off girls". al adamson's "hell's bloody devils". he didn't even get _paid_ to be in those films. he paid _them_. gave the cast and crew free fried chicken. now, personally, i don't think a colonel sanders dating sim is any more... herschell gordon lewis is famous for "2000 maniacs" and "the wizard of gore"! they found al adamson's body buried beneath the floorboards in his bathroom! and then, towards the end of his life, when he was dying, he went on the PTL Club with Jim Bakker a couple of times.

really. a colonel sanders dating sim just elevates his reputation, imo.

-

The Liberty Mutual ads are very bad at being clever or entertaining, but they are obviously good at making sure you remember the name of the company. They've succeeded in occupying part of our brain space and decorating it with their imagery. That's the main point.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

there was an old ilx thread about local ads... mostly ny/nj... i'm not sure where it is, but the other day i was hitting up a playlist of louisville-area local ads from the 90s, with a special playlist for "biggest earworms". when i saw the ad for valumarket... i haven't thought of that supermarket chain in at least 20 years, and yet the jingle popped right into my head. it's part of my brain now. i don't mind. it's a good fucking jingle. i don't even know if valumarket still exists. probably bought out by kroger or something. every other grocery chain seems to have been.

i mean shit look at how much goddamn money _coke_ spends on advertising. look at how much money fucking _at&t_ spent on advertising, in the days when they were _a fucking monopoly_. that's the thing about today's advertising to me. monopoly capitalism. it doesn't matter _what_ you say, only _that_ you say it.

-

Aimless is right. There was a Quizno's subs campaign a while back that definitely tried to push the annnoyingness envelope as far as it could go and... fuck. It worked. Because I just typed the name of a company I hadn't thought about in years. I don't think I've ever even eaten there.

― Iris Demented (Ye Mad Puffin)

shit it don't matter how fucking memorable their ads are, i'll always associate them with the stuff details at length in the "Lawsuits and Controversies" section of their wikipedia page. that's why you haven't thought about them in years. gross exploitation and mistreatment of their franchisees.

xp Those were a travesty, although by god I can clearly hear Clara Peller's voice 40 years later.

The new ones are pretty funny. I like the crew of idiots they have assembled.

remember walter mondale used "where's the beef" as a zing line in the 1984 presidential debates with ronald reagan

i do

of course that zing line went on to carry mondale to overwhelming electoral success in the 1984 presidential election

the other "where's the beef" trivia i can share with you is this bit of electro-funk written by power pop icon tommy marolda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCNsU5U4I1M

in the future, ai will just write songs like "where's the beef" and we'll all be that much poorer for it. i guess?

Reagan was able to carry the day with the more memorable zing line "There you go again."

Well, that, and Mondale's bold strategy of promising to raise everyone's taxes.

xp i didn't mean to inadvertantly criticize transwomen, kate. i do feel like taibbi's "humor" is an example of a disgusting, misogynistic, bro-ey trope, one that tragically couples sexual attraction with contempt. i can't speak to the trans experience, but this is something i have seen cis men deploy against cis women and it is something i think is gross.

i think about someone like bryan cranston... he spent, like, decades doing commercials before his commercial breakthrough. so many ads with him in them, he's so recognizable. he wasn't associated with any one brand, though. maybe he's a one-off.

I always thought brands tried to avoid that - unless it was someone famous, they didn't want to cast an actor who was in another currently running commercial. I do know certain actors appear in a decent amount of ads before making the leap to TV (or not!) - Tony Hale, who plays Buster in Arrested Development, was famously one of them

I didn't know Cranston did ads, but I do know he did a lot of bit parts in various TV shows before Malcolm. probably most well known for Seinfeld but he was in a LOT. actually Progressive Flo was in a lot of stuff too, not many recurring characters but she has a lot of one-offs. she was the Rats Off To Ya! lady from Tom Goes to the Mayor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s8Os_32qQY

Dean Winters is another one, aka Mayhem in the Allstate ads. That seems to be his primary gig now, though he was fairly memorable as a lawyer for the Tarasov mob in John Wick.

I'm so tired of breaking bad themed ads at this point.

see now the Mayhem ads I like. kind of rare these days for an insurance ad to actually make the case for why you should have insurance.

yeah, but maybe that isn't what advertising is about. don draper, it's toasted, etc

the fact that this thread has so much life really indicates, to me, that a lot of people out there find flo "annoying" if you catch my drift.

honestly I have no idea why but the "it's not gonna fit" commercials make me laugh a lot

xp i didn't mean to inadvertantly criticize transwomen, kate. i do feel like taibbi's "humor" is an example of a disgusting, misogynistic, bro-ey trope, one that tragically couples sexual attraction with contempt. i can't speak to the trans experience, but this is something i have seen cis men deploy against cis women and it is something i think is gross.

― treeship.

to be clear i'm not accusing you of being transphobic (by the way _always_ put a space between "trans" and "women", "transwomen" as one word is often used to imply that we're categorically different from "women", meaning "cis women").

threatening violence or sexual assault against a person, regardless of their gender, is wrong. i think that's what differentiates taibbi's "humor" from other threats of violence. i would put it in the same general category as frank zappa's "joke" about how all college educated women "need" to be sexually assaulted. gender _isn't_ irrelevant to those considerations. it reflects patriarchal standards, the implicit assumption that cis men as a class have dominion over the bodies of anybody who isn't a cis man. people have made threats of sexual violence against me phrased as "jokes" since my transition. nobody treated me like that before i transitioned. clearly there's a gendered aspect to this behavior.

it might seem like a meaningless distinction to say that these sorts of violent threats are reflective of _patriarchy_ rather than _misogyny_. it's a meaningful distinction to me. though it's _overwhelmingly commonly_ practiced by cis men against cis women, although it's done in accordance with and in furtherance of patriarchal ideology, the gender of the people involved isn't an inherent part of that behavior. whether or not one deems these threats "gross" or "disgusting", such behavior is wrong and ought not be be tolerated. from anybody.

the fact that this thread has so much life really indicates, to me, that a lot of people out there find flo "annoying" if you catch my drift.

― treeship., Monday, November 27, 2023 3:32 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh for sure, though she isn't as "annoying" as the AT&T girl who I think is insanely "annoying" though unfortunately she's gotten a lot of online abuse for how "annoying" she is so it feels wrong to point it out in the first place

xp good tip kate. i will place a space between trans and women from now on.

and frogbs -- i think it is horrifying that milana vayntrub is tormented because she is desired. this the exact dynamic i am talking about. it's rooted deeply in western culture, maybe other cultures too. but shakespeare has contempt for the dark lady and not the fair youth, you know.

Dean Winters is another one, aka Mayhem in the Allstate ads. That seems to be his primary gig now, though he was fairly memorable as a lawyer for the Tarasov mob in John Wick.

He's successfully continued to play his role on Oz in both narrative media and commercials.

he was good in Sarah Connor Chronicles

it might seem like a meaningless distinction to say that these sorts of violent threats are reflective of _patriarchy_ rather than _misogyny_. it's a meaningful distinction to me. though it's _overwhelmingly commonly_ practiced by cis men against cis women, although it's done in accordance with and in furtherance of patriarchal ideology, the gender of the people involved isn't an inherent part of that behavior. whether or not one deems these threats "gross" or "disgusting", such behavior is wrong and ought not be be tolerated. from anybody.

i feel like maybe if i gave a specific example it would help. i've been in situations where cis men threatened to "breed" the transmasc (no space here, btw, because the whole thing is an adjective) people (this is the noun) i was with. this was done under the guise of "flirting". characterizing that behavior as "misogynist", to me, that is kind of disrespectful to the genders of the people i was with. not intentionally! but disrespectful nonetheless.

ok, i understand.

i like flo, especially the one with her dismissive sister. she's cute, and also taught me about bumpits. and as the article that kicked off this revive mentioned, it's really difficult to make someone interested in, let alone loyal to, an insurance company

there was one at&t ad with milana v. and gal gadot and it was appalling how much better an actor the former is

Dean Winters is another one, aka Mayhem in the Allstate ads. That seems to be his primary gig now, though he was fairly memorable as a lawyer for the Tarasov mob in John Wick.

― omar little, Monday, November 27, 2023 3:18 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

never forget the Beeper King!!!

lol I was going to say, he will always be Dennis Duffy first and foremost to me no matter what he appears in

He was in Brooklyn Nine Nine too. He’s the same guy in everything.

he have a very straight dramatic role in Sarah Connor Chronicles. I kept waiting for him to bust into that mode but he never did.

then he got iced by a Terminator.

I always just call him "dummy", I can never remember his name.

"Technology is cyclical, Lemon"

how quickly we, and our upside-down friends, forget history

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvHtKcS1POk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_06ReKtOx8w

oi!

I think the Geico ads are still pretty fresh, but whenever I see a Liberty I'm likely to recall Consumer Reports' conclusion, based on customer surveys re many many auto insurance companies, that the ones with the biggest ad campaigns are shit, and have to replace many many customers every year. Unfair to single out Liberty in this regard, but as my girl says, "You can't help what you think."

i have found that NJM is good at paying out claims. it isn't too expensive but maybe will go up next year because of said claims lol.

i would be their spokesperson if they asked.

i've had a few claims with Geico in my time, never had a problem with them

I work in insurance and yeah I think most companies are good with most claims, it's the weird edge cases where things can get a little wacky. That's why I think the Dean Winters Mayhem ads are very good, because we get a lot of strange claims and it's definitely true that just picking the cheapest option isn't going to cover everything.

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

We had NJM when we lived in NJ and they were very good, always sent us money back at the end of the year. Now that we're in Montana we have Allstate. So far they seem...fine.

We have Travelers for auto, they are very good and fast about paying claims. Rates are competitive also.

I have had Progressive long enough that I've almost hit their top loyalty tier. The only perk left to attain? They will not drop you no matter what. It's already incredibly hard to get dropped by them as they're a carrier of last resort, so I have no idea what this means.

You don't need car insurance while in prison so presumably it'd have to be some accident where you're not at fault but manage to destroy an entire building, or something

I looked it up online and someone who was a progressive employee posted this comment
Crown literally is just adding the renewal guarantee. Believe it or not, some crown progressive policyholder has a firetruck on their personal auto policy, which is a big no-no. Idk who was fool enough to add it in the first place, but we can't do shit about it bc they're crown.

So I guess if I insure something they decide isn't insurable in the future, they're stuck

hah yep that is one of the challenges of the insurance industry you have to design a system that's smart enough to kick out all the weird shit because if something slips through and you bind it there's not really a way out of it

fwiw I'm emerald tier so when I call in they connect me directly to Flo

There's one commercial where she shows up in the rain and it's paced like a romantic comedy.

It didn't make me switch insurance but I did think it was well-done.

(Somehow after years of Progressive I ended up getting Erie. I am not sure they even have ads.)

Due to my credit only my EMERALD status at Progressive is saving me from paying a fortune for my car insurance. Even then just barely.

Next status up allows me to vandalize people's cars thrice per year