• July 8, 2005 | 10:15 a.m. PT

Five-link Friday: Harry Potter's horrible jelly beans

Taking another short break from our commercial contemplation for a five-link Friday. (Although my five links look pretty puny next to my colleague Will Femia's massive link collection over at Clicked.) Back to commercials next week, so keep the bests and worsts coming.

• With the new Harry Potter just a week away, it seemed appropriate to point out that Jelly Belly actually makes Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, which come in good flavors (Watermelon, Buttered Popcorn) as well as bad (Sardine, Booger, Dirt). These are not the kind of jelly beans you want to eat in, say, a darkened movie theater. You'll think you've got a Tutti-Frutti bean and pop it into your mouth only to find the scarily realistic flavor of Vomit. Scarily, they've just added two new flavors — Bacon (a little weird, but OK) and Rotten Egg.

ROTTEN EGG? Should they really be trying to make candy that tastes like spoiled food, like things that even a hungry raccoon wouldn't eat out of the garbage? Rotten eggs? Why stop there? Why not Moldy Bagel, or Curdled Cottage Cheese, or Milk That You Think Might Be OK Until You Pour It On Your Rice Chex and Get a Big Whiff?

I personally will not be putting a Rotten Egg jelly bean in my mouth, but iyou're just dying to try them (and you might be just dying after you try them, if you ask me), you can get a sampler box for just $6. (Note: In case it's not obvious, I get no kickback from the sale of rotten-egg jelly beans. In case you wondered.)

• So have you watched the "King Kong" movie trailer online yet? I'm not as huge a Kong fan as many, but I've been hearing that true fans are overall delighted by this sneak peek. And it comes of course from director Peter Jackson, who managed to do the impossible and make even devoted Tolkien fans fairly happy with his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Suddenly, December seems very far away.

• I came late to discovering the wonderfully creepy works of H.P. Lovecraft, but just read "At the Mountains of Madness," in which a research party from (fictional) Miskatonic University discovers unheard-of terror in the frozen Antarctic. While seeking out more on Lovecraft, I found at least two decent Miskatonic U sites (a friend of mine even has a Miskatonic U bumper sticker). Here's one site (I refused the music software it wanted me to load) and here's another. The second site even includes collected notes from the "Mountains of Madness" expedition.

• I admit it, I'm a big fan of Lynn Johnston's family-life comic strip, "For Better or for Worse." With "Peanuts" in perennial reruns (Charles Schulz, R.I.P.), I find it hard to start the day without checking in on the antics of the family Patterson. In a recent strip, April's pal Becky (formerly dogged with Johnston's made-up slang as being "roadside") sings at their 8th-grade graduation. Turns out Johnston's gone all multi-media on us: She actually had someone set her lyrics to music and a young female singer stand in as Becky and record the song. You can download and listen to it here.

• Reader link o' the week: Mike suggests a Friday link, BikeJournal.com. Says Mike: "an excellent place to log your bicycle miles and communicate with other bicyclists." Keep sending in your link suggestions, I'm running short!

Join the discussion Your comments Your name Your city & state Your e-mail address Your e-mail address and/or phone number will not be published. Leave your name or hometown blank if you do not want it published.

• July 6, 2005 | 12 p.m. PT

As we saw yesterday, commercials are easy (and fun) to disagree about. One viewer is entertained by Johnson chomping on his Raisin Bran Crunch, while another shrieks I DON'T WANT TO HEAR SOME MORON CHEW!

But as I sorted through your mail, there was one commercial that came up over and over again as a favorite, and I thought ... could it be? An ad campaign that no one dislikes? Usually if an ad goes out on a limb far enough to be creative and fun, it risks going too far and having an equal number of viewers hate it. Even romping puppies aren't everyone's cup of tea, as some animal-conscious readers informed us.

Yet over and over again, the Hewlett-Packard digital photography ads kept coming up winners with you. Not familiar with the ads? You can watch them here. The most commonly mentioned ones feature people holding white photo frames over their faces or the landscape, then taking the frames away and creating an instant picture, repeated over and over.

Some are fascinated by the "how did they do that?" factor, which HP attempts to explain online. And many others commented on the perfect choice of music — The Kinks' "Picture Book" in some ads, The Robins' "Out of the Picture" in another. Kudos to HP for a cool ad campaign and an early front-runner in our hunt for the best commercial.

But it's true, you can't please everyone. Amidst dozens of e-mails raving about the campaign, I did, finally, find someone who hates it. Here are some of your comments:

First, the lone (so far) dissenter:
“Okay to me the most annoying is the guy in the HP Picture commercial holding the square that magically transforms into “Hey, another picture”. I got it the first time and it was cool but please, enough already! And don’t get me started on the song!”    —Scott

Who is quickly overwhelmed by the ad's many fans:
“The best commercial in the world has to be the ones that HP is doing for their imaging products (You + HP). The visual effects are stunning, the message coming across loud and clear. The Kinks music? Brilliant.”    —Billy

“ ‘Picturebook. Pictures of your mama, taken by your papa [a long time] ago.’ Those HP photo printer ads are so cool — taking the blank frame and poof! there’s a picture. Or there’s a picture and now it’s the blank frame. Plus that Kinks song is cool too. The new one is good too...don’t know the new song yet.”    —Debbie

“Best commercials: The HP digital photography ads. Using the Kinks’ ‘Picture Book’ along with fantastic camera tricks, whereby the action is frozen in a photo, these commercials (especially the one of the guy at his computer desk with the frames) causes me to stop whatever I am doing and rewind the TiVO every time. SEVERAL times. And the advertisers claim to [hate] TiVO? Give me good ads and I will watch them three and four times a pop!”     —Mike

“I think one of the best commercials presently running is the series for HP Color Photo Printers. The white frame held around a face which then makes it turn into a photograph (and then the photograph can turn back to a frame) is very creative, but the song in the background is so catchy I hum it for hours after seeing it. The ones with just the guy printing his photos are good, but I especially like the one with the group photo where they each have a frame and trade faces.”      —Megan

“One of my favorite ad series has to be for the HP photo printer. This is the ad where people hold frames in front of their faces and then when they move the frame their face has become a picture. I love the ingenuity involved and my wife and I enjoy trying to find flaws (we haven’t yet), and figure out how they did it.”      —Kurtis

“My absolute favorite commercials are the HP commercials where the guy is sitting there playing with picture frames. Every time he moves one, it creates a picture of what’s behind it. Then it becomes a picture of the picture. Or it becomes his head morphed from a picture of him. Confusing to explain, but really cool - we’re mesmerized by it!”      —Melissa

“Love the new HP commercial with the guy who puts picture frames up to his head and the pictures of his head keep multiplying. My son (12) says it’s his favorite commercial ever! This is amazing to me because it doesn’t involve a video game or rollercoaster.”    —Donna

• July 5, 2005 | 11:45 p.m. PT

Commercials we love ... and also hate

Not everyone agrees on what makes a good (or bad) commercial. We saw that with our recent debate over the Quizno’s Baby Bob character. Some thought he was cute and loved the ads, others were creeped out by the very adult voice coming from the cute little kid (and many more were disturbed to learn that the boy was played by an infant girl).

Here are some more commercials that have readers disagreeing. Let the debate begin!

DEBATE #1: Johnson gets fired
Love the ad:
“I love the Raisin Bran Crunch commercials with the recurring character of "Johnson." I think it is clever to keep the story fresh by having it last several months. I am not sure when the first one started, but I always laugh when I see the boss tell Johnson he is fired.”    —Alex

“A Commercial I'm enjoying are the ones for the Raisin Bran Crunch, where the boss is apparently trying to fire "Johnson", and his cereal crunches just too loudly for him to hear what his boss is saying. Especially the one where Johnson has bent under his desk, and his boss thinks he's finally left and starts doing a dance and singing "Johnson.. is gone! Johnson... is gone!" to which Johnson pops up and (still crunching) starts doing the dance as well. The newest I've seen, The boss brings his boss out, and he begins to ask why he hasn't left yet, but Johnson doesn't hear and keeps on crunching. The Head Boss likes this and tells Johnson's boss to be more like him. So funny!”        —Courtney

Hate the ad:
“The commercials that make me want to smash our TVs are the ones for Raisin Bran Crunch. Making noise with food is something to be avoided, not magnified. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR SOME MORON CHEW! Not only that, why would someone even be hired if he can't keep milk from running down his chin? I'm a 30-year veteran of the advertising wars and this series of commercials is bad from concept to execution. The creative director should be ashamed. Oh, the same goes for the Grape Nuts ads. I hope the freakin' bear eats that idiot.”    —Melinda

“Raisin Bran Crunch time... I absolutely cannot stand this commercial. First off If I was sitting at my desk eating cereal all day, I should be fired. And secondly If I fail to acknowledge my superior when he is talking to me I should definitely be given the ax. I wanna reach in and grab this guy and throw him and his bowl of cereal out on the street. The commercial should end with him being escorted off the premises by some rough looking security guards and as he lands on the pavement the tag line should read "Raisin Bran Crunch...what did you think was gonna happen?"    —Jim

Debate #2: Singing football fans
Love the ad:
“I really enjoy the Direct TV Sunday Ticket ads that spoof old 30s musical numbers. There is something remarkably appealing about all these jocks doing a number as if from "Annie" or "Music Man." The same appeal perhaps as behind the "Dancing with the Stars" craze. Are we returning psychologically to the 1930s?”      —MJ

“I love the DirecTV football commercial sang to the tune from ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’...the singing and dancing pro football players with regular Joe's all in their football jersey's is just too funny and entertaining!”     —Lisa

Hate the ad:
“I absolutely hate all Direct TV commercials. The NFL Sunday Ticket one is on every break. Even when I mute it I can hear them singing.”      —Yulia

“The worst commercial for me is DirectTV's new NFL Sunday Ticket commercial! How embarrassing is it to see D. Butkus, P. Manning and B. Sanders singing "I've got an NFL Sunday ticket" to the tune of a Willie Wonka song?”      —Jayne

Debate #3: Family gets framed
Love the ad:
“I love the credit card commercials for citi card. My favorite is the one where the man is sitting at his desk at work typing away and you see what you assume are pictures of his family all around his desk. Then the 'picture' of his wife talks and says something like 'Honey, are you almost finished? The kids are getting tired.' He has been waiting on his credit card reward (a camera) so in the meantime he is having his family stand behind empty picture frames.”    —Becky

Hates the ad:
"Worst commercial — I can't even remember who it's for but one of the commercials is a man working at his desk and his family photos are really his family sitting behind picture frames. The, voice comes on and says, "Tired of waiting for your rewards?" I just don't get the entire commercial. What is the reward? Huh?"     —Leanne

"The Citicard ad where people are positioned behind picture frames is so ridiculous. The person couldn't afford pictures or anyone without a credit card with rewards programs?"    —PJ

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