Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Orange memories. Missing Mr Dresden.

Remember when the Orange Wednesday Adverts were funny?  Remember the Orange film funding board and Mr Dresden and his product and promotion obsessed cronies dishing out money to stars to help fund their vanity projects.  I used to look forward to seeing these before a movie. 


Officially known as "Orange Gold Spots", the adverts feature short sketches involving various celebrities.  The fictional Orange executives started out hearing pitches from stars including Sean Astin and Rob Lowe, then after many, many adverts moved into the world of producing the films of the likes of Macaulay Culkin and Val Kilmer with frequently very funny results.  Recently Mr Dresden and his team have disappeared from the adverts and they’ve never been the same since.  So here is my salute to the best, the great, the good, and the just ok of the now disbanded Orange Film Funding Board.  Thank God they’re fictional.

The Best

Sean Astin is good with the goblins


Darth Vader underestimates the power of the Orange side


Rob Lowe’s a sex object


Steven Seagal pitches a rom-com


Roy Scheider’s gonna need a bigger boat


Patrick Swayze is a mute assassin


The Great

Anjelica Huston is creepy


Verne Troyer needs one million pounds


Macauley Culkin’s all grown up


Val Kilmer is difficult to work with


The Good

Snoop Dogg


John Cleese has a funny walk


Mena Suvari swaps leading for cheerleading


Michael Madsen is the call box killer


Sigourney Weaver and snake


Dennis Hopper pitches on the bus


The OK

Danny Glover in Dial Hard


Juliette Lewis is going to sue


Ewan Macgregor makes poverty history


Spike Lee’s down with Orange


Carrie Fisher’s pitch


Daryl Hannah dazzles Mr Dresden


Emilio on the red carpet


Now there’s no more Mr Dresden and pals but at least The Muppets one is quite funny.


And Jack Black’s was ok


And the A Team’s had its moments


Just don’t mention the bloody awful Rio one.  What's your favourite?  Anyone up for starting a petition to get Mr Dresden back?

6 comments:

  1. Woah!! I didn't even realise that they made so many.

    I must admit they have gone down hill these days.

    Great post my friend

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    1. No neither did I, I definitely hadn't seen a few of these and I couldn't find the Alan Cumming one online either. They did start to go downhill a while back so I'm kinda glad Mr Dresden jumped ship!

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  2. Wow. Living in Malaysia I had no idea what Orange was and had never seen any of these ads. Thanks so much for posting these!!

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    Replies
    1. No problem! And thanks for stopping by asrap! Some of them are hilarious but they just started milking it by the end.

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  3. Pete, those are actually pretty funny. I had never seen any of those spots and had/have no idea what Orange is.

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    Replies
    1. Orange are just some mobile/cell phone service providers but they do Orange Wednesdays where their customers can get two for one cinema tickets! It's pretty cool. Someone in that company definitely wants the film lovers!

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