This was the most-requested review of all time, because you all hate me.
SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)
Jessica Mancera (Justene Alpert) is a young heiress whose mother, Bunny (Tessa Munro), wants her to marry the wealthy Billy Garibaldi III (Chad Doreck). Unfortunately, Jessica doesn’t feel the same way about Billy and turns down his proposal. Soon, she meets the new family chef Harland Sanders (Mario Lopez), a man who has a secret recipe which he believes will change the world. Jessica can’t help but fall for the sensual man who appears simultaneously to be old and white and young and hispanic. Unfortunately, only her best friend Lee (Martin Morrow) is supportive of her new relationship, while her mother and Billy are scheming against the pair. Can love get through this ordeal to the finger-lickin’ good times?
END SUMMARY
This is one of the greatest commercials ever conceived of by one of the rats that run corporate marketing. It’s everything that is terrible and glorious about bad Lifetime movies condensed into fifteen minutes. The characters are either pointlessly bland, like Jessica, or flat-out insane, like Bunny, just like every other Lifetime film, but due to the short running time the two leads have to go from “first meeting” to “in love” in a scene or two, while the antagonists have to go from “upset” to “maniacal scheming” in the same amount of time. What’s remarkable is how similar that feels to one of their normal films. I think it drives home how much of any Lifetime film is filler and establishing shots. It helps that they stick by the rule of making sure that the two leads are conventionally attractive so we can just assume they each are just physically infatuated.
The commercial was written and directed by “Jean,” which I believe was an acronym for the four people who worked on the technicals: Jay Lifton, Eric Eckelman, Armand Prisco, Natalie Prisco. This clever pseudonym has been labeled “Taylor Swiftian” by the experts or at least by the Faceless Old Woman That Lives on My Sofa. These four clearly were willing to take some big swings with this film, particularly by casting Mario Lopez as a version of Colonel Sanders who is clearly supposed to be old based on his light gray hair but also wears no aging makeup. Apparently this imagery is based on the KFC dating simulator game from last year called I Love You, Colonel Sanders. I have to admit that I’m appreciating how crazy KFC’s marketing team is going in their attempts to get people to keep eating their chicken.
Overall, it was a fun use of fifteen minutes. I’m sure it’s online by now, so you should probably take a look at it.
If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.
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