Our culture is long overdue to recognize local business commercials for the important art that they are. Who else would give us the kind of visionary advertisements where a GIF of Thanos dances around restaurant menu items? Who else would spend a chunk of its annual profits on a surreal Star Wars riff meant to sell legal services? Only local businesses have the vision necessary to create this kind of stuff. Free of pesky in-house advertising experts and filled with ambition, they are the geniuses who give us essential works like the one below: A commercial for plumbing and air conditioning services featuring a homicidal Terminator toilet with human teeth.
The Toiletnator’s messaging, which revolves around the concept of an impending “toilet uprising” that can only be stopped by brave technicians doing bad Schwarzenegger impressions, is a little confusing on a first viewing. We see an evil chrome toilet rampaging across an apocalyptic world, its eyes glowing red and its giant, frighteningly human teeth clenched. “We must… destroy… The Mother Toilet,” a plumber in a leather jacket and wraparound sunglasses says in his best Ah-nold.
He’s joined by a few others, all wearing the same outfit and trying out the same voice. These resistance fighters are shown in a sci-lab and on the blasted-out streets of the toilet front lines—and are presumably drawn from the employees of Radiant Plumbing & Air Condition. They grab makeshift props rigged to look like high-tech devices, battle an army of toilets in front of a green screen, and read lines of dialogue mostly consisting of poop jokes. The point of their war against toilets is unclear (are they suggesting that they’ll fix bad toilets by destroying them outright or cautioning us against smart toilet technology?) but that doesn’t matter. Not a single Terminator reference is passed over, logic be damned.
Obviously, Radiant Plumbing & Air Conditioning is working on a level that transcends linear storytelling or easily-discernible themes. They’re giving us provocative material that calls into question things we used to take for granted, making us look at beloved films and our toilets with fresh eyes.
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24 Comments
Wow. I kinda wish all commercials were like this. I’d actually watch commercials.
It was really good, wasn’t it? I had to go cat-sit at my mother-in-law’s place recently. She leaves the cable TV on for the cats. I’ve been streaming exclusively for about two years now so I saw my first TV commercials in years. I’d forgotten how fucking insipid and unwatchable they are. At least on YouTube you can skip them after a few seconds.
Seriously, if they just embraced how weird you can get, more people would pay attention to them.
I lived in Australia in the 80s. Their ads were fucking bonkers and pretty awesome. Like this one:
Oh my god. That’s amazing. If it had blood, I’d think Peter Jackson directed it.
I hope their plumbing skills are better then their commercial making skills.Honestly I watch my local Nextdoor and the things people hire plumbers to do is insanely stupid. Anyone over the age of 21 should know how to fix a clogged drain or toliet and install a toilet or plumbing fixture, none of that stuff is hard
It’s not about it being hard, it’s about the adage of “time is money”, which would of course mean “money is time.” As in: “Is it really worth saving a few bucks to put up with the hassle of trying to do this yourself?” What’s the point of having money if all you’re doing is spending your time retiling your shower and installing toilets? Use that money to buy yourself the freedom to do whatever the hell you want, I say. If you want to spend that freedom installing toilets, go for it. Some people may just want to pay the piper, or plumber, and just get hammered on the couch.As an added bonus, supporting your local plumbers helps keep them in business, which in turn drives the economy. And in some cases (like what happened to me for instance), you discover the plumber actually lives one street over, and that you both like the same basketball team, and that his nephew just moved in with him and sure he’ll take the chairs and table you were trying to get rid of cause he could really use them.Sometimes you never know what can happen.
If I call a plumber or an electrician, I get a job done well with no danger to me or my home. If I install a toilet or wire a thermostat myself, there’s the risk of flooding, fire, or electrocution, but I also get the gift of being able to mention at least once a year, every year, until I die, that time I did a thing myself.
“The things people go to restaurants for is insanely stupid. Anyone over the age of 21 should be able to cook meals, none of that stuff is hard.”“The things people go to dentists for is insanely stupid. Anyone over the age of 21 should be able to take out a tooth with some string snd a door knob, none of that stuff is hard.”“The things people go to movie theaters for is insanely stupid. Anyone over the age of 21 should be able to shoot movies with their phones, none of that stuff is hard.”Etc. etc.
How much did you pay a plumber to unclog a drain? It’s okay. Let it out. We are here to support you and explain how a plunger works and when to use a toliet snake instead.
Nothing, because I seldom clog mine and use plungers.But your comment was taking one example to paint a larger picture about the service industry, one that was, on the whole, incorrect. That’s all.
Unclogging a drain is one thing, removing and installing a toilet on a tile floor is something completely different.
For me, the ne plus ultra of local business commercials remains Sammy Stephens Montgomery Flea Market rap:
Boo. Video unavailable. I was genuinely excited to watch this.
Hmm, it shows up for me. Maybe the embedding screws it up. Try this, because I need you to experience it.
WHOA. That was amazing. “It’s just like a mini-mall” is the most hilarious thing I’ve heard in a while.
Thank you for this, I’ve never seen it before. It’s much more entertaining than my usual go-to local TV commercial.
The concept is like something straight out of a @dril tweet, which is to say it’s baffling and hilarious at the same time.
*Ahem
I’m looking for Sarah’s colon.Come with me if you want to wipe.etc.
Have you looked at some of the other blogs around here recently? They LOVE bidets, and smart toilets and smart bidets send them over the moon. This is the future they want to see.
That’s because bidet attachments rule. I’ve had one for close to 7 years now and it’s great.
Rhett and Link ruined local commercials for me. They all used to be earnestly horrible and insane, but now, most of the crazy ones you see are intentionally bad and it just doesn’t work as well.
This commercial of theirs is even crazier