Monday, February 20, 2006

Frank and Gordon rule the airwaves

One of the byproducts of hour upon hour of Olympic television viewing is a sudden ability to recite television commercials ad naseum. For every screaming yogurt commercial to rattle around my head, there are the soon to be classic commercials offered up by Bell that never seem to grow old.

The two beaver spokes er animals, Frank and Gordon are getting the gold in getting the message out. The commercials featuring the two furry mascots for Bell remain funny even after the tenth viewing in one sitting. They are well crafted, entertaining and make you remember the product, pretty well all you can ask for in a thirty second attention grabber.

Their march to pop culture icon status continues on through the games. They even have their own website now, so we can follow them along long after that final gold medal has been handed out. Check it out and see their audition tapes, play some air hockey, sign the petition for a National Beaver Day and seek other Bell features on the site. It's a pretty smart way for Bell to get all their products out there to a buying public.

Most importantly perhaps it finally answers an all important question for Canadian pop culture, whatever happened to Mike Bullard? The former Canadian talk show host (such as it was) used to be a telephone lineman for Bell, maybe his old employer has given him a second chance.

I'm not sure, but he seems to bear a similar resemblance to either Frank or Gordon (you try and figure out which is which). Perhaps after a few years in the media wilderness Bullard bounced back into a Beaver dam! Then again maybe not, the Beavers after all are quite funny, the same couldn't always be said for Bullard, but I dunno there are some similarities in the physique!

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