The MAGIC show in Las Vegas screwed up my schedule of watching this season's 24, and I had forgotten to DVR it, so I was forced to watch it on my computer. Easy enough.
I've done this once before and the commercials were so long and aggravating I almost stopped watching it. With a DVR, you can simply fast forward the commercials. When you watch TV on Fox, you can't fast-forward the commercials, and they're 30 seconds long. AHHHHHHHHHH. That's a long 30 seconds, especially when its for some random product/TV show that you could care less about.
Well last night I had a little epiphany that could revolutionize TV watching and commercial producing.
Weary of my last experience with 24, I had a list of things to do during the upcoming commercial break. But once the commercial commenced, I was so excited and eagerly awaited the next commercial break. It was a commercial for the greatest television show of all time, The Simpsons. The commercials were clever, short (under 5 seconds), and informative. That's what an advertisement should do--it should cater to the individual watching, so it's not a miserable, dreaded experience. (As an FYI, it was advertising for their 20th Anniversary Poster contest)
Here's my new idea, based on my desire to make everyone's commercial watching as enjoyable as mine was last night.
A TV show should give the individual the option of what types of commercials s/he would like to see. It could be categorized by product (Cars, Makeup, Clothing, Miscelaneous), genre (humor, drama, informative), or demographic (Age, Gender, Location). It doesn't matter to me, as long as I can opt out of watching commercials for diarrehea medicine.
It transforms commercials into an opt-in method where the viewer is bestowed a little more control over what s/he is subjected to watching. Its no longer so dictatorial. Come on people, we live in a democracy, our Televisions should acclimate.
Before we announce the winner I must admit how thrilled we are with the quality of the submissions. Everyday I was oohhed and aaaahhed by the quality and quantity of submissions we received.
Because of the phenomenal response to our Valentines Day Poem Contest, we've decided to have more t-shirt contests, more often. During this recession, we've got to be creative and find ways to help the consumer spend less money. We've already got ideas for contests, but if you've got any, please email us or post the ideas as a comment here. We're building a nice community here at Crooked Monkey funny t-shirts, and we're loving it! Feel free to subscribe to our RSS feed to keep abreast of all contests, funny blog posts and new t-shirts.
Choosing the best poem was quite difficult. We are swamped with tons of work in anticipation of the largest annual tradeshow of funny t-shirts next week in Vegas, but instead of working on that, we spent all day reading and rereading these poems. And after reading all the poems, we didn't feel it was right to just pick the best and leave the rest out, so we chose a top 5. Perhaps in the future we'll give prizes to the top 3 poems, but this time only the winner wins. Number 5: Eve with "My Sweetest Gift" Number 4: Kittielee Faircloth with "The touch of your Lips" Number 3: Heath with "The economy is Bad" Number 2: Nathaniel with "My Dear Love" Number 1: Lior Geft with "Romance 101"
The top 5 are all posted as comments under the original Valentines Day Blog Post. So please check them out because they are all awesome in their own right.
We posted Lior's poem as a blog post a few days back, but it still did not do it justice. So if you'd like to view it, please download the poem, in its original format (the poem is written in the shape of a rose and its quite beautiful). We uploaded it to our server.
We've gotten an amazingly great response from our Valentines Day Poem Writing Contest. We had no idea you guys were such hopeless romantics and are impressed and moved by the poems. I guess it answers the age old question, Can you love funny t-shirts and still be romantic.
The contest is over tonight and we'll be posting the winner tomorrow. Good luck to all the contestants. Everyone is a winner in my book. And to honor the poem writing process, we will be giving 15% all our funny t-shirts from now until Valentines Day! Enjoy the sale. (And don't forget that our Buy 2 shirts get free shipping promotion is a staple of our site, and runs simultaneously to other sales).
Feel free to let us know who you think composed the best poem. Just go to the blog post that started it all, and either comment there or email us at poem@crookedmonkey.com
This was submitted for our Valentines Day Poem Writing Contest via email to us and we felt it needed to be posted in its original format. To be honest it looks a lot cooler in a Word document. The stylized nature of the poem forms a Rose. Imagine that while reading it:
Q:What do you get when a Crooked Monkey pounds a Valentine's Day poem from the exit?
A: Romance 101 (aka my submitted poem)
Romance 101
Hold a steady middle finger to whoever
insists that our relationship, our rose, replete
With soothing thorns and aromatic roots
Suffocated deep in the dirt of our past,
Is unlike any other plant. Remember
the beginning,
nervousness
armpit
stains,
sweaty
palms,
two
gametes
falling
in
soil’s
raunchy
orgy,
thrown
missionary
on one
another,
involuntarily
stapled
together.
Tragically,
gossip
oozed
into the
social
pipelines
bombarding
our voicemails
with sheer
vanity,
blinding
flashes from
disposable
cameras
trapping
our hearts
in 4 X 6
prison cells,
slapping
stereotype on all our fun, leaving us to deteriorate in the plastic rooms of a photo album.
Roses are red, Violets are blue Crooked Monkey has a challenge for you:
Valentines day will soon be here What will you get for the one you call dear? How do you show your significant other That they're your one and only lover?
Instead of just saying, "can i take off your pants?" Write a little something that screams "romance" Talk about passion, about beautiful eyes If yours is the best, we'll give you a prize!
Write a poem, thats the deal Tell your girlfriend or boyfriend how you feel Let your love flow through your pen But make sure its in by february ten!
Love is tricky, sometimes it hurts But the winner of this gets three free shirts! Every girl hopes that her man proposes But she'll be content with a dozen roses
The Fine print: Submit a Romantic poem, via email to Poem@crookedmonkey.com or just post it as a comment, by 2/10/09. There are no rules as to the length, format and content--so be funny and creative!
The best poem receives: A Free shirt for yourself A free shirt for your boyfriend/girlfriend A Free shirt for the boy/girl on the side A dozen Roses to the person of your choosing.
Last year, Scotlend decided to ditch their old slogan, "Best Small Country in the World" for a new, catchier Generation X slogan.
$250,000 and many focus groups later, Scotland unveiled their new slogan. "Welcome to Scotland." Amazing. Maybe they should have hired Crooked Monkey to write their slogan.
Here's what we would've suggested. 1)Scotland "Brave Hearts, Courageous Souls" 2)Scotland "No, William Wallace will not accompany your booze cruise" 3)Scotland "We shoot Fireballs from our eyes, and bolts of lightning from our arses" 4)Scotland "Best Small Country in the World at producing bad slogans"
Email your slogan to themonkey at crookedmonkey.com. All entrants will receive a 35% discount on all your shirts! (Don't forget to use the @ symbol). That discount code will save you a ton on holiday gifts
Look at what they could get away with in the 80's, amazing. 25% discount to the first 5 people that can tell me how many asspumps occur from 1:30 - 1:36. Email themonkey@crookedmonkey.com
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