Tucked away 13 miles east of downtown Pittsburgh is the small community of Monroeville.
It's this small, sports-crazed town that produced the greatest 29 seconds in TV commercial history, below.
Note: The fine editors of this commercial made the first 10 seconds of the clip blank, but it's worth the wait.
Where do we begin?
Let's just go in order.
- Colby Armstrong. His supreme comfort on camera really sets the tone for the auto commercial. Actually, the "right on" almost sounded natural. But it all fell apart when Max Talbot had to blow up his scene. You can literally see Armstrong accessing the part of the brain that controls "acting," and it's painful. However, he saved himself with the almost-casual reference to him being a hockey player. In fact, I was at first worried about buying a car from A&L because I'm not an NHL player. I wasn't sure they would take care of me, but Armstrong was quickly reduced to nothing by his upstaging teammate.
- Talbot. His eight-second monologue should be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. The unintentional comedy of Talbot's beatbox is mind blowing. He clearly was trying to be funny, but his attempt was completely superseded by the unintentional comedy of its awkward length and pauses. It's simply brilliant.
- Sergei Gonchar. It would be hard for Steve-O to maintain the energy that Talbot brings, but Gonchar gives it his all. The bottom line is that all of my insecurities about not being a Pittsburgh Penguin are put to rest with Gonchar's reaffirmation of A&L's service. If anyone can figure out what he says before he tosses the keys, leave a comment.
- Evgeni Malkin. Great catch by Pittsburgh's Wonder Kid II (Sidney Crosby being the true Wonder Kid). Judging by his reaction to holding a set of keys, I'll guess Malkin has more assists this year (54) than number of times he's driven a car.
The next time I'm passing through Monroeville, and I have passed through it more than once, there will be a 100% chance I'm stopping at A&L, where everyone's a superstar.
--Adam Abramson
Comments (1)
Some thoughts:
-Armstrong's nose is the size of a BMW.
-Like many Euro-Canadians, Talbot is apparently convinced that the house-music era of the 1990s is still popular. Which explains the goatee, and zip-up fleece with the crew-neck black t-shirt.
-I'm willing to excuse Malkin's bad acting. Look at the tape again. He's clearly STILL trying to recover from watching Talbot's mesmorizing performance. Look at the astonishment on his face before Gonchar tosses him those keys.