Hummer ad parody

July 29, 2003 7:10 AM

Hummerdinger! The Sierra Club spoofs the Hummer, Onion-style.
posted by liam (11 comments total)

Love the concept. Agree with the sentiment. Hate the result. They're lacking two things that make for good satire...wit and subtlety. I like the Sierra Club, and I think they do a lot of good, but I don't think this is going to win them any conversions.
posted by Ufez Jones at 7:26 AM on July 29, 2003

I think the reason for lack of funny is the difference between their outlook and that of the Onion, as an example. These guys think that SUV owners and makers are evil, whereas the Onion outlook is that they're simply stupid.

Stupid == funy, evil == not funny. Quite simple. They're too emotionally tied to the subject matter.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:28 AM on July 29, 2003

Just like the Onion, it isn't funny.
posted by jon_kill at 7:29 AM on July 29, 2003

I agree that this is fairly lame, but subtlety isn't always the best way. mathowie's suv ad parody worked with the direct approach.
posted by liam at 7:34 AM on July 29, 2003

Tragically lacking in zing. But Hummer's a bad target to begin with; the vehicle itself is already taking its concept to the extreme. And the overwhelming numbers of more pedestrian SUV models contribute a lot more toward safety and environmental problems than the limited number of Hummers on the road.
posted by mattpfeff at 7:51 AM on July 29, 2003

I think Matt's ads were good because they were an appropriate farce of the billboard that he'd been seeing. Those billboards were obviously way over the top, and he did the same thing. However, if he'd taken that concept and used it forty times in forty different ways with the same droning point, it would get tedious.

Besides, everyone knows the best SUV-parody was done years ago.
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:02 AM on July 29, 2003

hummers are for wusses maximog is a real giant car. ;)
posted by dabitch at 8:03 AM on July 29, 2003

Not only is it not funny, the site blows it in other ways too. The New York Times ran a story on this site today, and it allowed some auto-industry weasel to make the point that "If you look at what Hummer is, in terms of its impact on the fuel emissions that vehicles put out, its sales are 0.5 of 1 percent of the U.S. vehicle market." Exactly.

How many people do you know with Hummers? Rather than going after the hummer in particular, going after SUVs in general would have helped drive the point home with more people. After all, it's easy to say, "oh, yeah, well, sure, my 4runner may not be the greatest thing, but a hummer... that's just obscene."

And of course, it's seriously unfunny.
posted by emptyage at 9:18 AM on July 29, 2003

it's seriously unfunny

How Americans use their Hummer H2
Overcoming fear of heights: 12%

OK, THAT was funny.
posted by mathis23 at 11:42 AM on July 29, 2003

Besides, there's nothing funnier than the fact that it's called a hummer. My wife and I were at a state fair in NH a while ago, and there was a big fat guy yelling over the PA about how he was going to give a away a free hummer! We couldn't stop laughing.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:25 PM on July 29, 2003

Yeah, when I was car-shopping, the Mazda dealership I visited had recently become an authorized H2 outlet, and the salesman actually asked me if he could interest me in a Hummer.
posted by kindall at 2:07 PM on July 29, 2003