FADE IN:

INT. BANK TELLER LINE – DAY

MARK, well dressed and handsome, is standing in line waiting to cash a check. He notices GARY, dressed in drab, ill-fitting clothes, holding a sack of change. Gary looks at his watch.

MARK

That’s a nice watch.

GARY

Oh, thanks. My mom got it for me.

MARK

Same one Tiger Woods wears.

GARY

Oh yeah? I’m not really a golf watcher.

MARK

Who is? No, I just like the products the man pitches. He has good taste.

GARY

I guess I never put much thought into celebrity backed endorsements.

MARK

Well, you should. It used to take me hours to get dressed in the morning because all of my clothes were like yours, boring and un-endorsed. But now…

Mark begins pointing out articles of clothing, starting with his shoes and moving up to his sunglasses. (Shoes, socks, pants, belt, shirt, jacket, sunglasses.)

MARK

Clooney, Gere, Depp, Pitt, Pitt, Eastwood, Dempsey. The cologne is by Federline and the boxers are Michael Jordan slash Cuba Gooding, Jr.

GARY

Wow.

MARK

Thanks. I know. You should try it.

GARY

I’d give my left nut for some fancy, advertised clothes.

MALE VOICE (O.S.)

I did.

Everyone turns to see LANCE ARMSTRONG, dressed very fashionably, stroll into the shot.

GARY

Seven time Tour de France winner and Subaru pitchman, Lance Armstrong?!

Lance speaks directly to the camera.

LANCE

Thanks to the generous folks at Celeb’s Threads dot com, now you can purchase celebrity endorsed items at deep, deep discounts. Look like Johnny Depp, in the pages of Vogue, without feeling like you had to pay with the family jewels.

Lance waves his arm and there’s a bright flash and now Gary is also very stylishly attired. And in place of his sack of change, he now carries a man-bag with a small yippie dog in it.

GARY

Wow. Thanks Celeb’s Threads dot com!

LANCE

You’re welcome, Gary. Or should I say McDreamy?

They laugh. Everyone admires what the other is wearing as the logo, a lemming wearing Hugo Boss, appears on the screen.

ANNOUNCER

Celeb’s Threads dot com. Celebrity fashions at trailer park prices. Because, let’s face it, we all want to look like someone else.

FADE OUT:

Friday Sketch War
Advertising Edition
“The ServTech Focus Group”

FADE IN:

INT. MEETING ROOM – DAY

DAVE (30s, sharply dressed) and SAM (20s, nerdy) sit at a big table.

Behind them sits an easel with a poster covered by a sheet. Dave has a clipboard on the table in front of him.

Around the rest of the table sit ENGINEERS with name tags, including PHIL, RONALD, and HARPER.

A video camera next to the exit door records the proceedings.

Dave addresses the engineers –

DAVE

– so I’ll show you a new slogan for Sam’s company, and we’ll talk about how you customers feel about it.

The engineers murmur agreement.

DAVE

Great! So: drumroll…

He removes the sheet, revealing a slick “ServTech” poster that reads –

DAVE

“Solid. Secure. Servers.”

Dave picks up his clipboard.

DAVE

Now, my first question is –

PHIL

Wait, Dave.

DAVE

Yes, Phil.

PHIL

So this is saying that we don’t know how to properly operate a server?

DAVE

I’m not sure I –

PHIL

I see this, I think, “Oh, sysadmins are too boneheaded to fix a system on their own.”

HARPER

As if they’re giving us the easy, safe, kindergarten scissors.

SAM

People, ServTech doesn’t think –

DAVE

Sam? Great. Keep those opinions coming. Obviously, nobody thinks you’re stupid.

RONALD

Oh, so now you’re coddling us?

HARPER

Like children in a delicate garden.

RONALD

Yeah! That’s what this ‘secure’ crap is about. You think we’re all just a bunch of neurotic whack jobs?

SAM

It means the *servers* are –

DAVE

Sam. Good, just let it all –

SAM

They’re jumping to conclusions that are crazy!

RONALD

“Crazy?!”

General distress.

RONALD

This ad is just ServTech’s coded little way of saying sysadmins are crazy.

HARPER

Like foxes afflicted with herpes.

SAM

People –

DAVE

Sam.

SAM

Look, if you talked to any other sysadmins, they’d tell you this is unreasonable.

RONALD

What’s that supposed to mean?

PHIL

Sam is telling us we don’t have any friends.

RONALD

Oh, that’s low.

HARPER

The slogan really means, “Solid and secure, unlike you pestilential hordes who are fated to die alone, friendless, and in some quantity of your own vomit.”

SAM

What?

PHIL

This is, without question, the most offensive slogan I have ever! had the misfortune to lay eyes upon.

RONALD

I ain’t putting up with this crap.

Murmured assent.

The engineers get up and leave.

The last engineer slams the door behind him.

DAVE

That slogan is a no-go.

SAM

Yeah. We can’t offend our customers like that.

DAVE

We’ll go with the previous slogan?

SAM

Yeah.

Dave removes the “Solid. Secure. Servers.” poster to reveal the ServTech poster under it, which reads –

DAVE

“ServTech: because other servers will go down on you, and suck really hard.”

CANNED AUDIENCE LAUGHTER.

Sam and Dave react to this noise.

SAM

Where the hell did that laughter come from?

DAVE

I don’t know –

Dave draws a gun.

DAVE

But I’m gonna find out.

Sam produces an automatic and a wicked-looking knife.

SAM

Let’s go.

Sam kicks open the door.

They exit.

FADE TO BLACK.

INT. OFFICE – DAY

TITLE – Mitchell-Bell, Inc. New York 1962

GARETH MACLAREN (early 30s, wan with thinning hair) sits opposite BARRY NEWCOMB (a late 20s go-getter with moviestar looks). Hair and suit styles are appropriate to the mid-1960s. Whenever he’s not speaking, Barry peers intently, like a detective divining motive.

BARRY

We’re not the first agency you approached, are we Mr. MacLaren?

GARETH

No. No, I’ve been all over town. Spent an hour at Sterling-Cooper while their Creative Director waxed eloquent about something or another.

BARRY

Draper’s very good.

GARETH

He certainly seemed to think so.

(Beat)

Took a meeting at McMann and Tate, but the copywriter never showed up. Sat in a board room with Tate while a crow kept tapping on the window like it wanted to come in and pitch. Very awkward.

(Beat)

I even met with Rock Hunter.

BARRY

He’s become quite successful.

GARETH

Seems to have spoiled him.

BARRY

Well you certainly have a sticky problem, Mr. MacLaren. But I’m not clear why you think there’s money in it.

GARETH

My father believed there was. He came to America with the clothes on his back and spent the rest of his life building a company by anticipating what the public wanted before they knew they wanted it. Before he died, he told me this was the one goal he never achieved.

(Beat)

I think I owe it to my father, for all he sacrificed and all he accomplished, to do this for him. Can you help?

BARRY

There’s no ad campaign we can create that can help you.

GARETH

So you can’t help me either.

BARRY

I didn’t say that, Mr. MacLaren. I’m facing facts. No one else in town came up with anything either because, forgive me, the idea is just crazy.

GARETH

Maybe it is. But I’ve got to try. You won’t help?

Barry ponders a moment.

BARRY

You said your father knew what people wanted before they did, right?

GARETH

Yes.

BARRY

Then maybe this is an R&D problem, not an advertising problem. At least not an advertising problem for today.

GARETH

I see where you’re going.

BARRY

You see Mr. MacLaren, Mitchell-Bell is part of a much larger concern–

INT. OFFICE – DAY

TITLE – Mitchell-Bell, Inc. New York 1992

Barry and Gareth are joined by MELINDA RESTON (20s and casually dressed) in his updated office. Barry looks even more dashing with silver hair. Gareth is wiry and fit with a few wisps of gray hair all that remains. The two older men wear suits.

BARRY

Just skip to the bottom line, Melinda. How close are we.

MELINDA

At least another 30 years.

BARRY

That can’t be! We’ve been running non-stop since ’62.

GARETH

Barry, that’s what my people are saying as well. I’ve just accepted that it’s a bigger problem than we realized and I may not live to see the day.

BARRY

Melinda, is there anything we can do?

MELINDA

I think so. We’ve been seeing a lot of success with the campaigns on the new Hummers. We think maybe pushing in that direction might help. We can spur the public to embrace a whole new class of what we’re calling Sport Utility Vehicles.

BARRY

How much will that help?

MELINDA

We think we can soften the ground considerably. Maybe cut the total time in half.

BARRY

That’ll have to do.

INT. CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY

TITLE – Mitchell-Bell, Inc. New York 2010

Barry and Gareth are still plugging away. Barry’s aging like Paul Newman, Gareth like Abe Vigoda. The lights are dim and the room is filled with young men and women in casual attire. The light of a monitor flickers on everyone’s face.

From the speakers, the recognizable CLINK, CLINK of two ice cubes being dropped in a glass followed by the fizzy sound of a carbonated beverage being poured.

Zoom in on TELEVISION showing ad.

INT. BAR – NIGHT

ICE CUBES land in glass. Cola is poured into the glass.

NARRATOR (O.S.)

Mmm. Cool, fresh, invigorating. Nothing refreshes like MacLarens.

The glass sits on a black velvet tabletop. Nothing is visible beyond the glass. The ice cubes glint as they bob in the sparkling amber fluid.

NARRATOR (O.S.) (CONT’D)

MacLarens Ice. Now available in Alaska.

Zoom out to reveal…

EXT. STREET – TWILIGHT

The television is in the window of a small electronics store. The sign above reads NANOOK’S TV AND RADIO. An ESKIMO stands in front of the window watching. He wears shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops. As the commercial ends, he turns and we see a SINGLE TEAR run down his face.

BLACKOUT:

FADE IN:

EXT. TEXAS PLAINS – DUSK

The sun sets over a rugged orange desert plain, scattered with scrub brush, cactus and purple rocky outcroppings. A camp of cowboys sits around a fire. One cowboy, DYLAN, square jawed handsome and rugged, crouches over a fire and pours coffee into a tin cup as he looks past the herd of cattle watching and sees distant lightning on the horizon. Acoustic guitar strums start in the soundtrack, and a male singer with a Springstein \ Mellencamp type voice and a country-rock twang starts singing.

SINGER (V.O.)

There’s a hard wind blowin’
‘Cross the world today
Storm clouds are building
And skies look gray

CUT TO:

EXT. TEXAS PLAINS – NIGHT

It’s now raining very hard in the night – a major storm. Our cowboys are on horseback herding cattle through a torrential downpour. They are just shadows occasionally lit by lightning strikes. DYLAN makes some impressive cutting moves on his horse

SINGER (V.O.)

But when things get bad
And times look rough
Americans buckle down
And get tough

Another young, but handsome cowboy, CODY, looks over the side of the cliff his horse is near when a lightning strike nearby spooks his horse. The horse rears up in and CODY is thrown over the side of the cliff (all in slow motion).

CLOSE UP ON DYLAN

DYLAN sees CODY go over the cliff, and immediately spurs his horse over in a mad gallop(all in slow motion)

SINGER (V.O.)

We don’t walk away
When we’ve got a tough fight
We grab our neighbor’s hand
And we push through the night

CUT TO:

EXT. CLIFF – NIGHT

CODY barely hangs on to a wet rocky handhold. He struggles to hang on as he sees the huge drop below, but his gloves are giving way. Just as CODY slips completely, DYLAN’s manly hand grabs his. DYLAN grimaces in determination as he hauls CODY back up from certain death.

CUT TO:

EXT. TEXAS PLAINS – NIGHT

As they stand back up on terra firma, DYLAN and CODY walk back to CODY’s horse. CODY still looks shaken, but unflappable DYALN claps him on the back, then hands CODY the reins to the horse that just threw him. CODY climbs back up, and DYALN strides back over to his own horse. They get back to the business of herding cattle in the rain.

CUT TO:

EXT. TEXAS PLAINS – MORNING

The sun starts rising over the plains in a brilliant rain-free collage of orange, red and pink. Flowers are everywhere now, in full bloom from their soaking in the night, and dripping clean raindrops on the ground. DYLAN and CODY look at each other, and confidently nod with only the vaguest hints of smiles on their lips.

SINGER (V.O.)

You know you’ll make it through
No matter how far
You’re American tough
Now buy a fuckin’ car

CUT TO:

EXT. SUBURBAN FRONT LAWN – DAY

A man, his wife, and two boys (BOTH about 8 years old), all dressed in really ugly western wear stand in front of a big black SUV. Text fades in on screen:
CHEVY TAHOE
IT TAKES HUGE BALLS TO DRIVE A VEHICLE NAMED AFTER A PLACE BEING WRECKED BY IT’S EMISSIONS

SINGER (V.O.)

We hired famous singers
And used their big hits
We made tons of commercials
Showing girls with big tits

But you bastards went out
And bought Japanese
You stuck us with thousands
Of SUV’s

CUT TO:

EXT. HIGHSCHOOL PARKING LOT – DAY

A man in his early 50’s stands in front of super-shiny red Corvette. The man is dressed like he belongs in a boy band, but his large pot belly and wind-swept toupee give him away.
More text fades in on screen:
CHEVY CORVETTE
BECAUSE NO OTHER CAR IN THE WORLD SAYS ‘RECENTLY DIVORCED, IN DENIAL, AND EASILY MANIPULATED’ THE WAY WE CAN

SINGER (V.O.)

(chorus)

We lost our private jets
Cause no one bought Corvettes
The UAW
Has us totally screwed
We know we’re making trash
But man, we need the cash
So get American tough
And buy our fuckin’ cars

(bridge)

Now we know your money’s tight
And times have gotten lean
But we still run this company
Like it’s 1913

Becoming more efficient
Just ain’t in our plan
We’ll just pump you full of guilt
Until you buy American

CUT TO:

EXT. BEACH – DAY

A charcoal gray Chevy Malibu sits in front of the sand, waves carrying surfers crash in the background. A guy and a girl, both in their twenties, exit the Malibu wearing bathing suits and sunglasses, and run down to the beach. Text fades in:
CHEVY MALIBU
YES, WE KNOW NO ONE WHO LIVES IN MALIBU WOULD EVER BE SEEN DEAD IN THIS CAR. BUT YOU PROBABLY KNOW PEOPLE WHO’D BE IMPRESSED BY JUST THE NAME, AND THINK IT MUST SOMETHING REALLY EXOTIC. JUST DON’T EVER THEM SEE YOU DRIVING IT.

SINGER (V.O.)

(back to verse)

Some people want a hybrid
Then go out and buy a Prius
But buy an eco-friendly foreign car
Is just like pissin’ on Jesus

Stop worrying ‘bout tomorrow
Life can be an endless Summer
Just speed up global warming
And buy a big ol’ Hummer

CUT TO:

EXT. WHEAT FIELD – DAY

A blue Chevy Volt sits in front of a field of waving wheat. Text fades in on screen:
COMING SOON – CHEVY VOLT
STILL WON’T BE OUT FOR OVER A YEAR, AND WILL PROBABLY HAVE PROBLEMS EVEN THEN. BUT IF YOU BUY ONE OF OUR CARS NOW, YOU CAN ACT SMUG LATER ON BECAUSE YOU BOUGHT FROM A COMPANY THAT MAKES GREEN CARS (IF THIS THING EVER DOES GET TO MARKET)

SINGER (V.O.)

(back to chorus)

We lost our private jets
Cause no one bought Corvettes
The UAW
Has us totally screwed
We know we’re making trash
But man, we need the cash
So get American tough
And buy our fuckin’ cars

Please buy our fuckin’ cars

(this keeps repeating through the end, fading out a little each time)

The screen fades into closeup of a waving American flag, then the Chevrolet logo fades up.
Titles fade up on the screen over the logo:
CHEVROLET
ALL AMERICAN
AND IF YOU DON’T BUY A CAR FROM US YOU’RE A GOD-HATING TERRORIST FAGGOT DOUCHEBAG…AND EVERYONE WILL KNOW IT

FADE TO BLACK.