Concept
Written by Jack Handey and voiced by Phil Hartman, the ad featured three "kids" portrayed by Dana Carvey, Jan Hooks and Mike Myers. The brief commercial declared that Happy Fun Ball (produced by Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company, Global Chemical Unlimited), just $14.95, was "the toy sensation that's sweeping the nation!" However, this positive message about the innocuous-seeming toy was undercut by a much lengthier number of bizarre disclaimers and warnings, including "may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds" and "If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, seek shelter and cover head." Ingredients include "an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space"; said ingredients are not to be "touched, inhaled, or looked at" if exposed due to rupture. Viewers were also warned, "Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball." The sketch ends with a slogan for Happy Fun Ball: "Accept no substitutes!"
The parody lampooned advertisers, toy manufacturers, chemical companies, absurdly long legal disclaimers, alien conspiracies, and even mentioned the 1991 Gulf War (stating that Happy Fun Ball was being dropped by US warplanes on Iraq).
Happy Fun Ball was presented as one of the sponsors of one of the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer sketches later in the decade, with the claim that Happy Fun Ball was "Still legal in 16 states. It's happy. It's fun. It's Happy Fun Ball."
Read more about this topic: Happy Fun Ball
Famous quotes containing the word concept:
“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“The concept is interesting: to see, as though reflected
In streaming windowpanes, the look of others through
Their own eyes.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)