Dr. Pepper

Friday, January 18, 2002

As long as I can remember Dr. Pepper's advertising campaign has always been very jingle-oriented. In fact, I distincly remember writing a computer program in 4th grade that would play, on command, the "I'm A Pepper, She's A Pepper, Wouldn'tcha Like To Be A Pepper Too?" song, which indicates that the jingle had pretty thoroughly penetrated my tiny little child brain.

So it comes as no surprise that Dr. Pepper would turn to popular musicians to sell their product, in this case, the soon-to-be-retired Garth Brooks. This is all well and good. Mr. Brooks sings a pleasant country-tinged jingle about being a non-conformist and drinking Dr. Pepper (a centerpiece in the Dr. Pepper ad campaign for as long as I can remember). The song's fine. Garth's performance is fine (though he does wear kind of a goofy mock-turtleneck -- I don't really associated mock-turtlenecks with country wear, but I suppose if you're the biggest selling country artist in the world, you can wear whatever you please)

No, what really bothers me about this ad is the deranged zombie in the prison jumpsuit flailing about just left of Garth. At least I assume it's a zombie. Old man. Orange jumpsuit. Crazed expression on his face. Muscular movements that looks somewhat akin to a marionette as manipulated by a spasmotic child. If that doesn't say Prison Zombie, I'm not sure what does.

All right. Maybe he's not a zombie. Maybe he just likes swinging his arms around like he's fighting a wicked case of rigor mortis. Maybe he just likes wearing his ol' prison jumpsuit. I prefer to imagine that some deranged brain-eating zombie that just busted out of Angola wandered onto the set of this ad, and noone had the guts to try to get him to leave.

Rating: A (Waaay more entertaining than it should be)

Reviewed by Padgett Arango
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