The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 5A
The best infomercial
on television
I've always had this odd fascination
with infomercials. I almost never
want the ridiculous product pitched
on Saturday-afternoon television, yet I
find myself watching a decent amount
of them out of curiosity anyway. Before
I realize it, I usually end up blowing an
hour of my day watching a demo of some
poor-quality "super" blender that I have
no use for.
But my all-time favorite
infomercial doesn't run in the
typical Saturday afternoon/
late-night timeslot. It's a clever
little serial infomercial that's
on every Thursday at 8:30 p.m.
on NBC.
A joint collaboration
between afew corporations,
this next-generation infomer- MICI
cial doesn't involve cooking PASS
small birds in a rotisserie oven
in front of a live studio audience; instead,
it's a faux documentary about the drudg-
ery of office life in a suburban setting
where the co-workers at the fictional
Dunder Mifflin Paper Company use
sponsored computers, have outings at
various national food chains and name-
drop a multitude of other goods at strate-
gic times. The infomercial is called "The
Office," and it's so good it won last year's
Emmy for Best Comedy Series, despite
being a 22-minute commercial.
Unfortunately, this past week was a
rerun, but the last new episode featured
a recently fired Dunder Mifflin employee
named Dwight Schrute who takes a job
at an office supply retailer that happens
to be one of the show's biggest sponsors.
I'm not going to name the store - let's
just say that they sell staples - but it was
heavily featured in the episode and has
been mentioned numerous times before
this season. The store also happened to
be stocked strictly with products from
a computer manufacturer who sells,
um, Hewlett-Packards. Thankfully
though, the Dunder Mifflin expatriate
was offered his job back at the end of the
episode.
Despite its shamelessness, I like "The
Office" because it has emerged as the
most consistently funny half-hour of
network TV since the death of "Arrested
Development." But I can't help but
wonder what the infomercial would be
like if it was an actual show. By making
sponsored products such an integral
part of "The Office," a limit is placed
on the amount of material available to
satirize. For instance, when Dwight is
offered back his job at Dunder Mifflin,
he's asked about his experience in retail,
to which he gives a tame answer about
how he couldn't wear his cool ties and
had an unfunny boss. Now, if this was
an unsponsored store, the writers could
have given Dwight a funnier, more biting
response.
In the interest of full disclosure, I
should add that not all the sponsors get
off completely scot-free. A number of
fast-food chains have been featured in
the show where either the impossibly
uncool boss, Michael Scott (Steve Carell,
"The 40 Year Old Virgin"), or another co-
worker gets too excited about some chain
restaurant that's degradedby associa-
tion. The problem here is twofold. First,
a fictional chain allows for the same
joke (see Chochkies in "Office
Space") sans annoying spon-
sorship. Second, "The Office"
places the joke on the overt
lameness of the characters
- not the chains themselves.
It's interestingto note that
"30 Rock" - "The Office"'s
9:30 p.m. counterpart in NBC's
"Night of Comedy" - has its
HAEL fair share of corporate sponsors,
MAN too. They even did an episode
about product placement earlier
this season. The difference is "30 Rock"
makes its corporate ties abundantly
clear in a humorous manner. When Jack
Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) talks about
NBC parent company GE, it's always
satirizing corporate culture. But when
"The Office" centers oversized HP logos
in the frame, there's no laughing.
In truth, if sponsors don't overpower
a show, product placement isn't a terrible
thing. There are obvious benefits for the
networks, and as long as the show can't
be confused with a high-budget Super-
bowl ad, there's little harm in it. But
when corporate ties become a central
feature of a show, limit potential content
Maybe watching Ron
Popeil baste chickens
would be better.
and blur the line between art and adver-
tising, the art suffers for it. In real life,
people drink Coke, not generic cola, so as
long as logos aren't centered and episode
content doesn't revolve around a product
someone's trying to sell, it's OK.
But "The Office" has gone too
far. While the show/infomercial has
improved immensely since its first sea-
son, it's also sold out and shoved it in
it's audience's faces. How a series with
such intelligent humor could tarnish its
reputation with an increasingbarrage of
blatant plugs is puzzling.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get
in my Ford and drive to Best Buy to pick
up a new Sony Blu-ray player so I can
watch "Superman Returns" on my Pio-
neer HDTV.
- Passman is constantly looking
for bigger and better swords. E-
mail him at mpass@umich.edu.
Second
time 's a
charm
MATURITY MARKS
CYHSY'S 'THUNDER'
By KIMBERLY CHOU
Associate Arts Editor
If you didn't think art could sound
deliriously haunting, nasal and sexy all
at once, you haven't
heard "Love Song No.
7" on Clap Your Hands
Say Yeah's new release, Clap Your
Some Loud Thunder. HandsSa Y
The quiet pistons
of alternating left- Yeah
hand/right-hand piano Some Louder
chords duly clear the Thunder
tracks for lead singer Wichita
Alec Ounsworth's
splintering warble, fol-
lowed by a casual whistle. Over military
tom-toms he croons "We'resafe and sound
/ So safe and now" like some kind of murky
indie mantra - which will be considered
ingeniously abstract by some, inane by
others - as if partly underwater, his voice
burbling and weighted by the auxiliary
instrumentals.
And it's just lovely.
On CYHSY's follow-up to its critically
lauded, self-titled debut, there are a num-
ber of these transcendent moments - you
just need to search for them. There's no
Appalachia-to-Brooklyn come of age and
no soft spot for dental discoloration ("Yel-
low Country Teeth") on Some Loud Thun-
der. The quasi-surrealist lyrics are still
very much present, but even though the
whine of harmonica shows up from time
to time, they're certainly tamer than on
"Heavy Metal" off the first album.
CYHSY's sophomore album exercises
restraint and a subtle experimentalism.
While it stings something fierce when
they slip up, you'll be able to appreciate the
courtesy of Wichita
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah should pat itself on the back for putting out a solid second record.
Motown and '60s American strains that
push through clearer now than before.
On "Goodbye To the Mother and The
Cover," Ounsworth's voice glides through
the glockenspiel, bass and layered harmo-
nium as if they were buttercream frost-
ing. The baroque-influenced melody keens
and crescendoes as the drums vault Oun-
sworth's voice upward to meet the har-
mony. The percussion sounds as if from a
fatalistic march, sister to those on "Love
Song No. 7."
The 19th century circus strain - a novel,
if cutesy, device on the first album - makes
itself heard in more subdued fashion on
the minute-plus interlude "Upon Encoun-
tering the Crippled Elephant." The track
sounds exactly like its pathetic title: Sad-
sack accordion rises and falls with a har-
mony that's purposely just off pitch. It
slips leisurely into the following track (the
aforementioned "Goodbye").
CYHSY rode the hype train for the
majority of last year after signing with
Wichita Recordings to cap off a Cinderella
story for the '00s: They famously won a fair
amount of praise and fans (including David
Bowie and David Byrne, who were spotted
at their shows) through the Internet before
they actually had a record deal. Thus the
presence of songs already made popular
on the road seems natural, like the whirl-
ing "Satan Said Dance." While the chants
of "Satan, Satan!" live at The Blind Pig suc-
ceeded in creating an occultish, dance-or-
die mood, on record the track loses some of
its overwhelmingly visceral appeal.
Strangely enough, the most lackluster
tracks fall at the beginning and end of Some
Loud Thunder. The title track and opener
is a blustery, ill-synced mess. The vocals
are too ioud and the guitars, in compari-
son, not loud enough - although volume is
less of an issue than the distracting, care-
less harmonic texture. The intent of raw
production is as jarring and doesn't match
the rest of the album. If CYHSY wanted to
build a bridge for fickle fans between the
two discs, "Some Loud Thunder" isn't the
correct choice. Ending track "Five Easy
Pieces" has a few keen details - the return
of clear, open harmonica is a nice touch
- but drones on without saying much.
The band isn't throwing the joyous
cacophony of "Yes, we're borrowing this
from the New Romantics and that from
post-punk, and topping it off with circus
noises - and you will love us!" in our faces
anymore. And although it was that quality
that firstswept the Pitchfork generation off
its feet, it's worth taking the few extra spins
to let this calmer Clap Your Hands sink in.
The novelty of the band may have won you
over on the last album, but the maturity of
Some Loud Thunder will keep you interest-
ed this time, and for future efforts.
[DAILY]
A
R
T
POST-
MODERN
I imx~r ii in1nz
'Naked Trucker'? Not so much.
By MARK SCHULTZ
DailyArts Writer
Ever since "The Partridge Fami-
ly" and "Donny & Marie," television
has provided
a venue where
comedy and
music comes
together. Naked
But Donny Trucker and
Osmond T-Bones
couldn't have
foreseen "The Wednesdays
Naked Trucker at10:30p.m
and T-Bones Comedy Central
Show," which
stars David Koechner ("Anchor-
man") as the boorish T-Bones and
Dave Allen ("Freaks and Geeks")
as The Naked Trucker (who looks
exactly like you'd expect). The duo,
who have performed their comedic
songs on "Late Night with Conan
O'Brien," are an odd pair to say the
least. Allen makes music from the
only thing he wears - a strategi-
cally placed guitar while Koechner
doesn't sing much; it's hard to when
your lower lip juts out like Billy Bob
Thornton's in "Sling Blade."
"Trucker," like "Chappelle's
Show" and "Blue Collar TV" before
it, runs on a loose format of live seg-
ments and pre-recorded clips. But
it would have been wise to heed
another lesson from "Chappelle's
Show," which succeeded because
of its hilarious and controversial
sketches on race and culture in
America. But "Trucker," a show
based on two rednecks, fails to
comment on a demographic so ripe
for satire. Instead, the sketches
mostly revolve around nonsensical
attempts to make "Naked Trucker"
a music star.
"Trucker's" biggest problem is its
failure to master the two most basic
tenets of television comedy - writ-
ing and acting. The jokes simply
aren't funny and the delivery is sub-
par. Koechner, a career bit player
most people remember from small
but funny roles in "Anchorman" and
"The Office," is in way over his head
in the starring role. All Koechner
can seem to do is stammer around
like a (more) mentally challenged
Champ Kind, and his bawdy antics
soon become more irritating than
funny. Even Will Ferrell's guest
appearance as a robot-hating hitch-
hiker can't light a fire under the ass
of "Trucker," and his few lines are
uncharacteristically contrived.
The most disappointing part
of the show is the Naked Trucker
character. By name alone, you would
expect him to be outrageous, but
Trucker is controversial in appear-
ance only. Allen talks and moves
in a slow manner that reeks of bad
comedic timing. The end result is
humor that's derived solely from the
fact that he only wears aguitar. This
gimmick, coupled with Koechner's
antics, makes "Trucker" a two-joke
comedy, where neither of the jokes
are particularly funny.
The show's final, futile stab at
comedy is an attempt to make a
music video out of one of the duo's
new songs. What results is an amal-
gamation of bad country andbizarre
Who actually
thought this would
be funny?
rapping, with Koechner flapping
around like a fish out of water and
making vaguely hip-hop-esque ges-
tures. The actual Naked Trucker
doesn't appear in the video, and at
the end he's seen shaking his head,
embarrassed at the spectacle he's
just witnessed. This may not even
be acting; Allen is probably just as
disgusted with this show as any self-
respecting person who, after watch-
ing "Naked Trucker," may wonder if
it actually qualifies as television.
'Ten Years' of
good music
By ANDREW KAHN
Daily Arts Writer
Stones Throw Records began as
a label for DJs, by DJs. Ten years
later, more
than just DJs
can appreci-
ate the Los Various
Angeles-based VAtis
hip-hop label's Artists
music. Stones Throw:
To com- TenYears
memorate its Wichita
milestone,
Stones Throw
has released atwo-disecompilation,
Stones Throw: Ten Years, featuring
Madlib, J Dilla and MF Doom, but
there are plenty of other artists that
only the most devout underground
hip-hop fans will recognize. And
perhaps it's onlythose fans who will
fully appreciate the album.
The album is littered with funky
and mellow instrumentals and
songs reminiscent of the early days
of hip hop. This isn't surprising
since the album is a greatest hits
collection, but listeners may find
themselves asking, "People used to
think this was good?"
Butnotallthetracksseemoutdat-
ed. Lootpack's "Whenimondamic"
is a catchy Madlib-produced tune
with a slick bass line, and "Move Pt.
2" is a thumper produced by the late
Dilla featuring Oh No and Roc C.
The Stones Throw artists aren't
afraid of experimenting, and the
compilation reflects the label's for-
ward-thinking mindset. Ten Years
bubbles with creativity and origi-
nality, which is probably what Pea-
nut Butter Wolf had in mind when
he formed the label in 1996.
The second disc, however, is far
less creative, pointlessly rehashing
the first disc in a different order.
It's difficult to say if Stones
Throw is several steps ahead of the
rest of hip hop or several steps in a
different direction, but wherever it
is, this is a solid collection.
[invite your friends to our pool (hall).]
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