{"id":4576,"date":"2003-08-05T07:00:45","date_gmt":"2003-08-05T14:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=4576"},"modified":"2003-08-05T07:00:45","modified_gmt":"2003-08-05T14:00:45","slug":"the_mentos_cons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/08\/05\/the_mentos_cons.html","title":{"rendered":"The Mentos Conspiracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Remember all those zany, kitschy TV ads for Mentos, complete with that awkward jingle and those odd, off-culture story lines &#8212; clearly the effort of someone to save money by just transplanting the European commercials for the Dutch candy to America?<\/p>\n<p>Well, the truth is <a title=\"Begging to Differ - August 2003 Archives\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beggingtodiffer.com\/archives\/2003_08.html#000314\">a bit more interesting<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"block\">For reasons I won&#8217;t go into at the moment, I was having a email conversation with co-workers that wandered into the topic of Mentos commercials. Most people assume that these commercials, which practically define the term kitsch, are filmed in Germany or the Netherlands&#8211;the (fresh)maker, Van Melle, is a Dutch company&#8211;and poorly adapted for an American audience. Not so, wrote a coworker, claiming that it is a little-known fact that the commercials are actually filmed with struggling actors in Los Angeles backlots.<\/p>\n<p><small>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.instapundit.com\/archives\/010777.php\">InstaPundit<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember all those zany, kitschy TV ads for Mentos, complete with that awkward jingle and those odd, off-culture story lines &#8212; clearly the effort of someone to save money by&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":136819,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/22\/what-is-it-about-insurance-commercials-these-days.html","url_meta":{"origin":4576,"position":0},"title":"What is it about insurance commercials these days?","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 22-Jun-18 9:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I swear to God, the funniest commercials on TV right now, and for a while, are from Geico -- with Progressive and Farmers trailing closely behind.I'm not sure why that's the case (at least to my aesthetic), but as I'm FFing through commercials on the DVR, those are the ones\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132483,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/01\/01\/japanese-commercials-of-2016.html","url_meta":{"origin":4576,"position":1},"title":"Japanese Commercials of 2016","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Jan-17 11:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I have no way of knowing if these are in fact the best commercials from Japan in 2016, but they are certainly ... entertaining. And musical. And shouty. View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8001,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/07\/05\/and_now_a_word.html","url_meta":{"origin":4576,"position":2},"title":"And now, a word from our sponsors","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Jul-05 10:32am","format":false,"excerpt":"I remember when the theater was either silent or had some sort of generic music pumped into it. Then we started having \"customized\" sound tracks before movies, usually with commercials....","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Media Moguls&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128197,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/01\/forget-about-it-jake-its-japanese-commercials.html","url_meta":{"origin":4576,"position":3},"title":"Forget about it, Jake &#8212; it&#039;s Japanese commercials","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 1-Oct-15 1:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A bit of surreality for your Thursday morning.(h\/t +Gretchen Sher) View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2455,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/06\/19\/sex_violence_an.html","url_meta":{"origin":4576,"position":4},"title":"Sex, violence and commercials","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Jun-02 12:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Could it be? Some recent studies indicate that folks don't remember commercials as well if the show is graphically violent or sexual. More visceral content seems to distract viewers from...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Media &amp; Culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Media &amp; Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133134,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/23\/is-even-the-nfl-getting-tired-of-too-many-commercials.html","url_meta":{"origin":4576,"position":5},"title":"Is even the NFL getting tired of too many commercials?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 23-Mar-17 9:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"A look at the changes coming next season, mostly to get home viewers to get less ticked off at frequent commercial breaks. Exclusive: Roger Goodell says changes coming to quicken NFL games in 2017 Expect less frequent commercials and mechanisms to reduce down time during games. View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}