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“Better Off Ted” creator takes on Obama with fake commercial

The season finale of Better Off Ted scheduled to air tonight has been rescheduled to next Tuesday, May 5, because of the President’s primetime address tonight – and the folks at Better Off Ted aren’t taking this lying down. Creator Victor Fresco created this very funny fake Veridian Dynamics commercial in response, with the tagline, “When Presidents talk, Americans get hurt.”

Watch it here:

This is the kind of marketing I can get behind! Not only is this funny on its own, it’s a clever way to let existing viewers know about the schedule change, and potentially attract new viewers.

For those who haven’t been watching the show (and that’s a lot of you, judging by the ratings), Veridian Dynamics is the morally corrupt business at which Portia de Rossi and her employees work (tagline: “Veridian Dynamics. Making your world better. Whether you want us to or not.”) The clever folks at ABC have created an official website for the fake company at VeridianDynamics.com.

Here are some fun facts about the fake organization from its official bio that will give you a pretty good sense of the corporate culture:

DID YOU KNOW…

    • Our company has 532,972 and 1/2 employees? That’s right, we created half an employee as an experiment – a successful experiment!

    • Veridian plans to be a leader for future generations, which is why many of our employees are children.

    • Our blueberry toaster waffles were originally created as insulation.

    • Veridian Dynamics is at the forefront of feminist issues. Before we started dumping waste in the oceans only fifty percent of fish had female genitalia. Now it’s up to eighty-five!

    • We can manufacture a car that gets 200 miles to the gallon. And we will begin production on the very next day after the world runs out of oil.

    • Over half our employees work in the legal department. So don’t even think about suing us. We’re looking at you, guy with no face who used that shampoo we recalled.

    • Our robot servants are programmed to not be dangerous. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t. Please don’t taunt our robot servants.

    • Our logo is supposed to be a duck? The artist who designed it said that’s how he sees a duck. He no longer works for us.

  • We invented that thing you use when you need to do stuff. No, not that thing… Yes, that one.

Very funny.

Each episode of Better Off Ted includes a fake company commercial, which brilliantly skewers all those ads you see on TV for companies that never quite explain what they do. As much as I enjoy the show (although the writing is admittedly a bit uneven), the fake commercials are even funnier.

Here’s the first commercial they aired:

“Usually.” Genius.

My favorite line in their commercial about diversity was this one, delivered over video of ants marching in a line:

Veridian Dynamics. Individuals – we believe everyone is special, irreplaceable, and will follow the thing walking in front of it. That’s why we celebrate all individuals, even ones going nowhere.

Then they ended with the lines, “Veridian Dynamics – because you can’t spell “individual” without ‘Veridian.’ And ‘U.” (pause) And an “L.”

I also get a kick out of this fake corporate recruiting video in which Veronica (Portia) extols the merits of making nicotine ice cream, replacing fingers with tentacles, and being a medical test subject:

“Sorry Denmark, you know why we’re mad at you.” Heh. You can see more videos from the show at ABC’s official Better Off Ted site.

If you’re a fan of the show, keep your fingers crossed that it gets renewed (it’s currently on the bubble), and let me know your favorite lines from the show in the comments!

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