Here are some old TV commericals that Zeb and I made back when we worked at Tanana Valley Television and Doney Advertising, respectively. Zeb and I made many many more TV commericals than these few examples (especially Zeb), but unfortunately we do not have copies of a lot them. In fact, most of these were only saved because they were made at home, instead of at work.
Showdown 2003
This commercial was made for the 2003 Showdown at the Top of the World tournament. I just recycled the same footage I used in the 2002 ad (which was shot at the 2001 event). This time I hyperactively edited the footage to a track by DJ Mowgly (aka Alec Empire). I had to add new titles and stuff too. The still shots for these basketball ads look pretty boring; the editing is the fun part of these ads.
Cast & Crew: Joed Polly.
Showdown 2002
I made this commercial for the 2002 Showdown at the Top of the World basketball tournament that takes place annually in downtown Fairbanks. I used some footage shot from the previous year and edited it to a short segment of a track by Bit Meddler called 'Shitmix2000'. It worked pretty well. However, one day Planet-Mu will track me down and kill me. I think it was only when me and Zeb made commercials (and probably Ben and Chris too) did such rad/weird music play on the televisions of Fairbanks.
Cast & Crew: Joed Polly.
Box Office Video - 777
This was the last of the goofy commercials I made for the local Fairbanks movie rental chain, Box Office Video. Actually this ad isn't that goofy, except that it is sort of dumb, and has tin can audio. Anyway, it never aired, but maybe it should have, I mean, where are you now Box Office Video? Huh, huh? They all turned into Movie Gallerys, which is a pretty sucky chain from what I can tell. RIP BOV. Thanks anyway Mark, you did a quality job looking excited about BOV's new 777 deal. Oh yes, I used yet another Planet-Mu artist's track, 'Capitol Beat Sticky (Posh Mix)' by Capitol K.
Cast & Crew: Mark Holmes, Joed Polly.
Box Office Video - Crouching Tiger
I made this commercial to pitch to Box Office Video after they bothered to air my Box Club ad the previous summer. I thought for sure they'd find it amusing, but they didn't I guess, and it never aired. This ad was a parody on the very popular movie at the time, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which is about ninjas having a dream and also fighting on top of leaves or something. I basically did this in Attack of the Killer Blankets style, only this time we shot in an aspen woodland off of Chena Ridge in Fairbanks. I found out later that the whole time we were filming, the neighbors, the Loftus family, were watching us out their window, astounded by our foolery.
Cast & Crew: Jenny Regitano, Chris Taylor, Cyrus, Joed Polly.
Box Office Video - Crouching Tiger - Bloopers
This isn't a commercial obviously, but it's a must-see if you bothered to watch the Crouching Tiger ad. This is the blooper and behind the scenes footage that shooting a ridiculous ninja commercial can bring about, complete with tongue flicking sound effects!
Cast & Crew: Jenny Regitano, Chris Taylor, Cyrus, Joed Polly.
Box Office Video - Box Club
So here's the Box Office Video commercial I made that actually made it onto the air. Well, there were others too, but they were A) boring and B) in long lost Beta SP land, never to be retrieved, where hundreds of other mostly boring ads I made are (but better quality footage). Anyway, this ad is fairly amusing. I grabbed Scott, Abe, Mike, and Mark and we snuck into a utility room at UAF and quickly shot the first half of this ad before anyone asked us what we were doing. It's a parody of Fight Club of course.
Cast & Crew: Scott Ledbetter, Mark Holmes, Mike Chevchek, Abe Julig, Joed Polly.
Novus - Penguin
This commercial was made for the local Novus branches. It's about a flying penguin that smashes into a car windshield. Me and Scott made this ad (and the Box Club ad) when he was learning to make ads for Doney Advertising, to take my place when I went to college shortly after. When we were brainstorming he said, "well it's just a matter of what breaks the window" for an ad for a window fixing place. So true Scott, so true. So I brought a penguin puppet and penguin stuffed animal (yes, two separate penguin actors) and Keith brought his Honda and we threw this goofy thing together. Note how the window crack is computer generated (by me). Scott made both of the songs used. After I showed Keith and Scott the finished ad, they begged me to not let it air. They were afraid they'd get mocked in the streets for the end penguin-petting scene. I told them to stop their wussing, and it aired.
Cast & Crew: Scott Ledbetter, Keith Hutchison, Joed Polly.
Atomic Video Games
I didn't actually make this commercial, I'm just the actor kid. Zeb did the editing and Ben did the shooting with his XL-1. This was the first television commercial for Ben's video game store, Atomic Video Games. It was shot at Ben and Zeb's apartment that they had at the time. The ad was actually shot in early 2000, but it didn't get edited and go on the air until around November. I look twelve years old.
Cast & Crew: Ben Wade, Zeb Polly, Joed Polly.
Miller Time Ski-doo Giveaway 2
I didn't make this commercial either. This was all Zeb. I'm just hosting it, as well as a couple other of his ads because they are either amusing and/or rad, and they aren't on his website. In this ad Zeb decided to go for ULTIMATE VIOLENCE, since it's good for the whole family. Even though the commercial made it's debut after midnight, during Jerry Springer, the barrage of angry phone calls to FOX7 got the ad pulled after just three airings. At first it was just a few calls, and then over fifty, but what really did it was when the angry viewers called the sponsors of the event, whom then called the owner of the station. Zeb, how dare you corrupt the sanctity of a Jerry Springer show?
Cast & Crew: Zeb Polly.
Miller Time Ski-doo Giveaway 1
Another Zeb commercial. This was the first Big Time Miller Time Ski-doo Giveaway ad (or at least the first one that was somehow cool). Local Fairbanks radio and tv celebrities / comedians Jerry and Glenner star in this ad shot by Ben Grossmann. Zeb did all the sweet editing. This one aired many times due to it not being extremely violent (see above). It also won the 1998 Alaska Broadcasters Association Goldie Award for best commercial production under $1000.
Cast & Crew: Jerry Evans, Glenner Anderson, Ben Grossmann, Zeb Polly.
Northern Lights Travel
Back to a commercial I made. I forget how this all came about, but basically I had Heather read a script that Tracy (of Doney Advertising) wrote and then I put it to a ยต-Ziq song with silly almost-animations that look like they were made by a nine year old. I often enslaved Heather in this way. For a Santa Claus House commercial she volunteered to dress as an elf. During one of her classes, she and her friends whipped up a sweet elf costume out of green and yellow construction paper. I wish I still had a copy of that ad! This ad however was for a travel agency, and it advertises sort of outlandish travel arrangements (climb Mt. McKinley? Really?).
Cast & Crew: Heather Mease, Joed Polly, Tracy.
Blue Loon - Zeb and Ben's 21st B-day
I'll end with another commercial by Zeb. This ad was made for Zeb and Ben Grossmann's 21st birthday party at the Blue Loon bar in Ester, Alaska. They are good pals with the owner of the Blue Loon, Adam Wool, since they always made his ads, so they got to have a joint b-day party there. They also got to air this ad a decent number of times due to their television station hook-ups (they worked there). This ad is all about the sweet editing to the music. Check out Zeb, he looks like an alien with those alien goggles.
Cast & Crew: Ben Grossmann, Zeb Polly.