Thursday, February 27, 2025

SAG 31st Awards Show Honoring Jane Fonda...and some Local Features

For the second time ever the SAG awards were being aired solely on Netfix this year. We were fortunate to be with our friends across town last year as we hadn't a Netflix subscription at the time. We made it an evening and a half with attending a movie (One Love, biopic of Bob Marley) first, then going back to their house to take in the 30th SAG Award Show.

This year however, well, we'd like to say that our evening of viewing the 31st SAG Awards was...but unfortunately, it wasn't.

Verizon had just upgraded us to a new router and for the life of us, we couldn't get the ID and password to work our Netflix feed. Who woulda thunk that a silly glitch could prevent us from viewing the awards LIVE! Of course, that brings to mind that an actor who's strapped for funds and can't afford a Netflix subscription, is in the same boat.

Part of the evenings events featured a tribute to honor Jane Fonda. Miss Fonda was awarded the 60th Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

Jane is a two-time Academy Award-winning actor, producer, author, activist and fitness guru. Her career has spanned over 50 years, accumulating a body of film work that includes more than 50 films and significant contributions to political causes such as women’s rights, Native Americans' rights and environmental protection. She is a seven-time Golden Globe® winner and was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021. She accepted The Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. Most recently, in April of 2024, Fonda accepted the TIME Magazine Earth Award.

It was a fine evening as I saw the next day online here & there. But, you know, this was the 2nd time the awards were on Netflix solely and regardless of ability to watch...the presentation wasn't half a good as the first viral award showing on Youtube. It was a whole different and exploratory vibe. They took chances, things were absolutely more casual & free, less rehearsed, no commercials (altho, can't say for sure) and you felt as though you were a part of the evening. Check it out with this link to the 29th SAG Awards

On the home front

We were fortunate to be cast in a spot for an 85 year family owned HVAC business in upper New York State. I had been doing their VoIP voicing for years alongside their jingle. They wanted to continue that image with their Podcasts. Click to listen

We had a bit of good luck as well just a little bit due south of us in Greenville, South Carolina. EISS, a European salon supplier wanted a British accent featured for all their VoIP work. They wanted a more stylish sound when European callers checked in... Giv-a-Call at: 843.552.7600

It is with great sadness we deliver the news that Gene Hackman, a fellow union member, passed away in New Mexico, yesterday. He was 95 years old. We had featured Mr. Hackman only last month as the voice-over to the “Fly the Friendly Skies of United” commercial some years back.

There is a coincidence and uniqueness part to this, in that it comes with a recent revelation that it was my step dad who coined that inimitable phrase in the United Airlines voice-over ...amongst some other cool phrases. The revelation, keeping in mind that it means; a surprising and previously unknown fact, is that it came with the surprising news that my birth mother was still alive and had married this phrase-maker! The uniqueness is, it all came about as a result of us being reunited recently after all these years! Side-steppin' back to the coincidence part: we're all UNITED now as a family...with new aunts & uncles, cousins and names and words we've never used before or not in quite a while...like grandma, step dad, step sisters, drt'r-in-law, etc.

Segueing back to Gene Hackman; there's no better welcoming these days than those four wonderful words of my step dad he spoke; FTFS of United Airlines. Gene made you feel as though he was saying 'Fly the Friendly Skies of the United States'. The fact that it's literally carved (inside info) in stone and sewn together to the tune of Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue' for me, makes it hard to find a more Amatriotic slice of time. And nobody says: Baggage the way Gene Baby can. We'll miss you and hope that you and Peter are able to have that "espresso"!

by:+Tom Clifford, VoiceOver & Creative Services

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Friday, January 31, 2025

The Most Lopsided Superbowl in History...and Humongous G/E Turns Thirty-Five

That is correct. Super Bowl XXIV was and still is the most lopsided point spread difference in game history. That's right, on January 28, 1990 the San Francisco 49ers were pitted against the Denver Broncos for an ultimate 55 to 10 victory...a 45 point spread difference.

San Francisco's 55 points were the most ever scored by one team, and their 45-point margin of victory was the largest ever. The 49ers are also the only team to score at least eight Super Bowl touchdowns and at least two touchdowns in each quarter (only missed the extra point attempt).

But there's another reason that Super Bowl XXIV was more than a lopsided score. For me, it was a dream come true. 'Cause this Super Bowl, we had a Dog-in-the-Race...On Camera no less. Yes, this year marks the 35th anniversary of the "Humongous Gas & Electric" spot for the Oil Heat Institute. I never knew that there was a OHI, but boy am I happy there was and still is. The Humongous spot was super popular...once upon a time. I played an 'on camera' character named: Bob Davis - number 247-27A.

He was a wimped-out customer type who was calling the big, bad Gas & Electric company 'cause there wasn't any heat. And the Big-Ass Conglomerate could care less, unless he smelled gas and treated Bob as the lowly number he was. They should do a "Where is Bob Now" redux campaign only to find him still roughing it out in the catacombs of Big Brother. Check it out below.

I had a ball doing the spot and had a chance to work with Bill Bryden, no that's not him as the bald dude in the video, but the star voice of those "Oxy Five" (jejune pimple) spots. We went from cloud nine to cloud ten when we learned later that year the spot had won a Clio, the Ad Industry's Oscar equivalent.

So that's one millennium...not to be outdone we had some luck in this millennia with a spot in Super Bowl 54 in 2020.

Not as Bob, but Oh'bother - Pooh. We were featured in ad agency - Fantastic Plastic's TV spots or end tags, played on Superbowl LIV, February 2nd, 2020. The VoiceOver was for the Damson Auto Dealerships in the Southeast half of the country. We managed a Winnie-the-Pooh sound-a-like that was in good form. Here's the full Damson Automotive Grp spot with its run a few months earlier.

We blogged about some of this last year. Then, it was more about my new step-dad, who coincidentally also had a Super Bowl dog-in-the-race as well. He was a creative directors creative director. An original Mad Man. It's been more than a bit freaky to be reunited with my birth mom. To learn that she married the coolest dude in advertising was like - Good Gosh. Do you believe my step-daddy came up with the Leggo-My-Eggo slogan or This Bud's for You, Coke is It or my mom's all time fav - Fly the Friendly Skies of United ? Way...Cool!

On the United spot, that's the voice of a tinder Gene Hackman, in the day, paying tribute to the inspirational words my step father coined against the vibes of a Gershwin sound-track, that instilled a campaign at the ad agency Leo Burnett. “ Fly the Friendly Skies of United” was first introduced in 1965. The tagline was used for over 30 years before it was retired when the airline parted ways with the agency.

That is the master-adcrafter; Al Lerman. And as a matter of record, he created the greatest ad of its era which debuted on: Superbowl XIII: It featured overtones of hard times that needed a bit of bolstering to accent the positive.

Check it out at: This Bud's for You

Stefan Nadelman our resident Go-to-Guy for conceptualization in the movie & doc world is on the move this year in what might be considered an APB on his recent work on the docu-series - Don't Die. It's about this perfect protocol advocate / slash, W-a-D centimillionaire - Bryan Johnson. The Late Show's Stephen Colbert, did a number on Bryan Johnson, Monday night, unveiling his sequence of measuring his "Youthful Virility" or overnight - Winky - with an over-night tracking machine...and it included his son. They got metrics too. Stephen explains it all for us on his show entitled: Daddy Issues . Check it out.

Also check out Don't Die. It's being offered as a Sundance contender.

Don't Die is film about centimillionaire Bryan Johnson, a 46-year-old tech entrepreneur, who's obsessed with letting AI determine his health regimen to de-age himself.

He has spent millions on a team of experts with the goal of making his organs look and act like those of an 18-year-old through a strict diet, which he combines with a one-hour exercise regimen, a rigid bedtime routine, blood transfusions and daily health tests.

Just Completed for Apple-Tv - Stefan had let me know about a docu-series called Con Queen. He did the Main Title Animation, along with graphics & animation - Not a bad feather either, to be picked up by Apple.

Eternal Values is another docu-series Stefan has completed about a new age cult of supermodels in the 90s, run by Frederick Von Meiers. As a cult leader of the group Eternal Values, Frederick Von Mierers, claimed to be an alien from the star Arcturus. Mierers believed in impending doom and that he and his fellow aliens had been sent here to help earthlings.

And Monkey Business (not a remake of the 1952 version with Cary Grant nd Ginger Rogers) is a doc about the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT scandal. Stefan's on the job but aspects are still in development. We'll follow up as soon as we hear further. Or you can always go to Stefan's IMDb page.