Dumbledore and Diet Coke: Send an Owl to the Ad Agency Right Away!
Those of you who have – like me – read the book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and have also seen the movie of the same name will have little trouble, I am sure, conjuring up the image. Said image being that of Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, side by side in the cave, risking their lives to thwart the evil wizard Lord Voldemort.
For the uninitiated, Dumbledore and Harry were looking to procure – and then destroy – a horcrux, which is an infernal magical object into which a madman has encased a piece of his soul. It’s a nasty business, and in this case, nearly a fatal one. However, as is usually the case (Martin Scorcese notwithstanding), the heroes triumphed and lived to fight another day.
The plot was diabolical. In order to retrieve the magically protected horcrux, Dumbledore was left with no other option but to drink the unkown potion in the basin where the horcrux had been placed. Consumption of this dreaded concoction, it turns out, causes the drinker to relive his or her most horrible moments, weakening them to a near death state. And it also leaves them with a burning thirst.
The final magical protection the horcrux had was that the only source of water that could be found was the water in the pool surrounding the island on which the aforementioned basin rested. Any and all attempts to produce water via magic, and therefore, any attempts to circumvent the perfidious enchantment cast on the cave, were doomed to failure.
So, Harry did the only thing he could, which was to retrieve water from the pool. This action triggered the final trap, which, perpetrated against a lesser wizard, would have resulted in a gruesome and unimaginable death.
And then it occurred to me. A great idea for promotional campaign. Dig it if you will: Any and all attempts to produce water were doomed to failure. But what about other beverages? Orange Juice, perhaps? Vodka? Coffee? I know that an ice cold German beer is something I very much enjoy to slake my thirst. German beer – and Diet Coke.
Re-imagine, if you will, the scene I had described previously. Dumbledore, having drunk the potion, appearing to Harry to be on death’s door. Weak, disoriented and cursed with a burning thirst that can’t be quenched.
Harry attempts to summon water. Due to the dark magic about the cave, it disappears just as quickly as it appeared. Another summoning attempt. Same result. A third try. A fourth failed attempt, and despair filling Harry like the ineffectual air filling a pool toy courtesy of a frazzled parent just looking for peace.
Then, the camera focuses on Harry’s tortured face. Suddenly, a small grin crosses his face. Instead of “aguamenti” Harry calls out “makeitreal” and an icy cold Diet Coke appears in his hand, open and ready to drink. Harry pours some into Dumbledore’s waiting mouth, and as soon as the drink passes his lips, he springs up, revived and refreshed.
A la “Mean” Joe Green in that famous ’70s commercial, Dumbledore downs the remainder of the soda in one continuous chug. Finished, Dumbledore holds the empty bottle at arm’s length, and smiles broadly. Then, he turns to the camera and says “Life Tastes Good!” Cut. Print.
BETC London, I’ll be expecting that call any day now. You’re welcome.
Last Night a Wilco Saved My Life…
I had given up all hope. These were desperate times, my friends.
Flashback to the summer of 2009: word creeps in that my all-time favorite beer – Dinkel Acker – will no longer be distributed in the US. I brushed this off. Surely it can’t be true!
Much to my chagrin, as 2009 closes out, I find that there is truth to these rumors. So the hunt begins. I walked into liquor store after liquor store asking if they had any Dinkel Acker. After quizzical looks from the stock dudes, I explained that it’s a very good German beer – and that it seems to be in the tragic and shortsighted category of no longer being distributed in the US.
As 2009 drew to a close, I realized that the two bottles of Dink that I had left in my fridge were probably the last ones I would ever have.
Then – the oasis. In a last ditch try, on the way to a party in November, we stopped at Martin’s Liquors in Mt. Laurel, NJ – and I feebly mentioned Dinkel Acker to the cashier. Instead of the usual crushing blow, I heard sympathetic talk. “Hang on a minute,” the guy said. “I think we might have some of that.”
I didn’t allow myself to get my hopes up. It had been too many months since anyone indicated that the Dink could be within pouring range of my poor, starved gullet. But after a quick check, Martin’s produced three 12-packs.
If, like Tom & Jerry, my eyes could literally roll out of my head with 12-packs of Dinkel Acker in place of the pupils, that’s what would have happened. I was thrilled. “I’ll take it all,” I said. And I did. That was all I had left of my beloved Dinkel Acker – 36 bottles of wonderful beer that has been brewed “in strict accordance to the German purity law of 1516.”
It was a real labor of love to stretch that Dinkel Acker out for four months.
In early spring, I found myself in a painfully familiar spot – there were only two Dinkel Ackers left in my fridge. For all I knew, these were the last two Dinkel Ackers in all of the United States. I knew it was time. With a trembling hand, and a heavy heart, I opened the last two bottles, and that was that. That was it for the Dinkel Acker. Time to move on and seek out an alternative. Oh sure – Molson, Yuengling, Grolsch – even Spaten are all good beers. But from now on, The Dink existed only in my memory banks.
Until last night. Until…the Empire. Or at least, until someone wonderful brought me a Roger Wilco flyer that actually mentioned this Shangri-La of beers. For a mere $20.99 per case. I was stunned to see it written on a current flyer. Remember, it had been three months since I consumed the last ones. And seven months since the last of the Dinkel Acker was purchased.
With a cautious, skipping heart beat, I called the Deptford Roger Wilco to ask about the Loch Ness Monster of beers. I was told that they had not only some – but they had five cases of it. Five cases! It was too good to be true. I asked the gentleman on the phone to repeat himself and confirm that he had actually laid eyes on these cases. He had. Too good to be true. I drove to Deptford (25 minutes away) with a real sense of hope.
And when I got there (cue angelic music and light) it was just as advertised. As promised, there were five beautiful, glorious cases of Dinkel Acker – and they were all mine. I felt like I had just completed the Louisiana Purchase. What a score!
After loading the cases into the car, I went back in to the store, as the guy who made this wonderful acquisition possible called the other Roger Wilcos to see if they had any Dinkel Acker. No such luck, but I totally appreciated his conspiratorial spirit. Kudos to the Deptford Roger Wilco – this guy’s cool handling of the situation just made this experience that much better. I came back to the car, and opened the trunk – just to make sure the cases were real and, most importantly, still there. They were. All was right with the world.
Perhaps I am making too much of the awesomeness of Dinkel Acker, but I don’t give a crap. I have five cases of it – and you don’t. I can’t thank Bridget enough for finding the ad that led to this purchase. I am enjoying a Dinkel Acker as I write this. Life is good. Sometimes, it’s something simple that can make all the difference. I am happy to be able to have another shot to enjoy my favorite beer. Viva la Dinkel Acker!
Andy Blank
Mike Frangione
Depends on What the Meaning of the Word 'Blog' is 
The NFL’s Assault on Your Wallet… And Senses
Apparently, the National Football League (NFL) is no longer happy with simply taking excssive amounts of your money and giving you little more than buyer’s regret in return. Now they’re after the minds of their legions of fans. I’d love to meet the person (or people) who makes marketing decisions for the NFL.
The NFL – which alternately stands for “No Fun League” , “Not For Long” or “Don’t ask questions, just hand over the money” depending on who you ask – has evolved into a sentient being. A $9 billion living organism that has figured out how to prosper in a down economy. And the question remains – how did they manage to do this?
It’s simple. They’ve cultivated a fan friendly image that transcends reality. And this absolutely fake image gets stronger every year. It’s stunning, really, how they’ve managed to do this while fleecing the very fans they claim to love. Here are just a few of the fan-frienly innovations the NFL has come up with over the years:
Most of these items are pretty self explanatory, and defy logic. If the quality of the product does not improve year-on-year, you would think that they’d be unable to raise prices with impunity, but this idea has been proven wrong time and time again. As long as they continue to assault the intelligence of their fans and reduce the majority of them to slavering, crazed pigskin zombies who will pretty much swallow whatever the NFL pushes their way, they can pretty much print money.
I have plenty of inane and random thoughts about the last two items on the above list. I’ll address the Super Bowl halftime entertainment in a separate post.
As for the commercials, the latest iteration of this nonsense is brought to us courtesy of Bud Light – a product that can thank Coors Light for being the only thing preventing Bud Light from being the planet’s worst beer and from having the worst commercials. Close, but no cigar, Bud. You’ll have to pass a lot of bar exams before your product or advertising will be worse than Coors Light.
But I digress. I can’t decide which commercial I hate more – the one with the place-kicking Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan or the one with the end zone diving Cleveland Browns fan. Perhaps I should create a poll so that all five of you who read this would be able to help me decide.
Here’s the brilliant set up (it’s actually the same for both commercials, so you get two bad commercials for the price of one): aspiring model girl in cute, overpriced team logo adorned t-shirt approaches two dudes adorned in the guy version of said team’s hideously overpriced apparel and inquires as to the state of things.
Aside from my complete lack of interest in the answer to this question, there are a few immediately spotted problems before we even get to the ‘hilarious and clever’ conclusion of these absolutely timeless works of art.
I’m a glutton for punishment (and so are you, if you’re still reading this), so I stayed tuned to see how these vignettes of American Life ended. Be glad if you didn’t. Or if you simply changed the channel when the commercial came on. Or if you finished crocheting that West Ham tea cozy during the commercials.
In the Browns commercial, they were giving some dude the chance to experience an end zone dive. In someone’s back yard. Among friends. In a bad commercial with bad beer being served. Ready for the O Henry surprise ending? The dude was thwarted by a wood defender that knocked him across the yard. Funny as hell, huh?
In the Buccaneers commercial, they were giving some dude the chance to experience the pressure of a game winning field goal. At a tailgate in a parking lot among other morons in Tampa Bay Buccaneer garb. In a bad commercial with bad beer being served. O Henry ending? He kicked the ball and it knocked beers out of hands (something to be grateful for if it was Bud Light), hit a car and plopped into someone’s chili pot.
Instead of being rained with punches from irate fans of no acquaintance for disturbing their tailgating, our hero was left a shell of a man and mocked by his fellow Buc fans. There is one redeeming thing about this commercial, which I found out after I made this rant: the two dudes at the end of the commercial are none other than former place kicking brothers Martin and Bill Gramatica. Not enough to make the spot worth remembering, but somewhat amusing.