Right! Most of my writing comes out of procrastinating from doing more valuable things, and this is no exception. I considered doing a bit on slates/timeclocks for old British TV shows, focused on (based on on abandoned/unfinished bit on the first Magazine single) the editorial commentary from timeclock on the Granada TV master tape of a program featuring the Buzzcocks and Magazine ("may God have mercy on Tony Wilson's soul", I believe).
Me being me I from there went looking for any timeclocks I could find on Youtube. The Internet being the Internet I quickly found myself at a recently created channel (not unrelated, I assume, to the BBC's vigilance in protecting their intellectual property) featuring continuity trailers from old BBC TV broadcasts, with plenty of Doctor Who featured. Also included were two videos called "The Doctor Who Ad Break of Death", featuring actors from classic Who promoting various commercial products. Saddest ad: Seeing Fraser Hines promoting a predatory lender. Most entertaining ad: Seeing William Russell ("London 1965!") as the host of a quiz show where all of the questions related to a British meat product the name of which is considered, err, extremely rude in today's cultural climate.
From there I found my way to another video hosted, a corporate video featuring Jon Pertwee as the Doctor. I'm familiar with these corporate videos - I know of some corporate promotional videos featuring the cast of Monty Python in general circulation, which seems even more bizarre than this. I haven't watched it yet - I got as far as the disclaimer saying that people who are used to contemporary social attitudes may possibly find the video offensive and took a break to write this bit and make some popcorn. This is going to be good.
Ohhh, opening with a "Doctor Who?" joke. You can tell this is going to be _very_ classy. Also, unless I've missed my mark the male lead actor is Will Ferrell's character from "Anchorman". I am also enjoying Jon Pertwee's barely suppressed hostility towards the job he's been paid to do. I don't mind when actors whore themselves out for these corporate gigs - we all have to eat, right - as long as it's clear that they're doing it with an attitude of barely suppressed contempt. Also, hiring Jon Pertwee and then cutting to a consumer-grade shit toy robot delivered in a voice that makes the Cybermen sound expressive, that's quality. And then covering the set the robot is standing in in dry ice. Also great.
WOW. Man. That stinger line is just... WOW. Sorry y'all I'm not going to spoil this for you. They paid Jon Pertwee to say that line to promote their corporate brand, y'all.
https://youtu.be/R8r6HA2muMo
Very disappointed that Big Finish didn't use that as one of Jon Pertwee's lines for "Zagreus".
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I spent the whole video wondering exactly what the offensive moment was going to be and I absolutely did NOT see that coming. Also whoever wrote the ad definitely looked at Jon's costume and just took it as read he was a wizard
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