Back in my glamorous Hollywood ad agency days, I worked on the Gallo account for a few years. At one point, we were introducing a new product into test market, a clear malt beverage to compete with Zima (remember Zima?). It was named Kypler's for some reason and was a resounding failure.
However, the concepting and production of the commercials for the brand were a lot of fun. No expense was spared, typical of Gallo (though you couldn't really say that about their products, IMO). We hired a high-end production company and director who specialized in comedy and proceeded to produce a bunch of spots. At one point this led to me being kissed by Rodney Dangerfield which was actually not a high point, but memorable.
Anyway, after we shot all over LA, the team began to edit the spots, which is always tricky but especially so for comedy. During editing you end up seeing the gags 100 times at least. Nothing is funny after you've seen it 100 times except for the sneezing panda video below which brings me to tears but I digress.
We were showing the edited spots to the creative director, who's a comic character in his own right. His family was involved in show business, including his brothers Super Dave and the director Albert Brooks. This led to him saying "I know comedy! I come from comedy!" a lot. At key moments while screening the spots, he would say "I'm laughing...I'm laughing..." in a totally flat voice, indicating that the gag was working. It was kind of funny in itself.
So that's how I'm feeling these days. I'm laughing... I'm laughing... . You may not know it to look at me, but really, it's all working.
This video has been seen over 60 million times. I'm not kidding. A couple hundred views are by me.
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