On paper, it looks entertaining. Samsung taps Bob Odenkirk – Mr. Show co-star and auteur behind one SuperDeluxe’s better series about hostile, womanizing co-dependency, Derek and Simon – to create a series of videos pimping its Q1 Ultra.
But once you realize that Odenkirk’s trying to sell what Gabe calls “a 10 pound device about the size of a meatloaf that runs on DDD batteries and requires two hands to operate,” you get that sense that, in practice, this has about a 90% chance of being 0% funny.
Take a look at the best of the three vids released so far:
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Okay, so Odenkirk in an intentionally amateur faux-infomercial doing a Braves Tomohawk Chop after a successful A&E-inspired intervention isn’t bad, but the ones about the Carousel Booking Agent and Freelance Firefighter are. They’re too long with too much extra weight, straddling the border between contrived and unscripted, deliberate and whimsical, Mr. Robinson’s Driving School and Absolut Tim & Eric and Galifianakis and not succeeding either way.
I applaud brands for investing in online media and ostensibly giving artists the flexibility to do whatever they want. Some will work, some won’t. We can only hope that one day all marketing via web video can be as delightfully intoxicating as this:
