Good Then, Good Now

Tuesday night

I was watching a clever commercial for Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The first half of the commercial featured a man speaking English with a Dutch accent. He was dressed in a sportcoat, a dark turtleneck and light-colored slacks, and his hairstyle was from the early 1970s. He was talking about the great taste of Ben & Jerry's flavors. In fact, this part of the commercial had been filmed over 30 years ago. Then, suddenly, as the pitchman kept speaking, using the same exact script, and wearing the same outfit, the scene morphed to the modern day. Same guy, some 35 years later, giving the same exact pitch. The idea was that nothing's changed, folks; the ice cream was great then, and it's great now.

*****

That's a pretty neat idea, if I say so. Ben & Jerry's didn't start in the early 70s, though; I think their first shop opened up around 1978.

I've always thought that it would be a very cool thing if some of the great young stars of today, say, Scarlett Johannsen and one or two others, would begin filming a story now -- it could be a simple love story, or more of an epic -- put the results in the can, and then wait many, many years before filming more of the story. They could do this over time, then release the movie 40 or 50 years hence, using today's footage as flashbacks. Wouldn't that be a powerful thing? I suppose that it would be difficult to keep such a project under wraps, what with the cost of filming these days, fan websites and stuff. Anyway, I guess that this dream grew out of that idea.

I do like Ben & Jerry's -- too much. Now that I'm watching my weight and cholesterol, I don't eat it the stuff nearly as often as I once did. (In fact, we've only had one bowl each this year.) I can attest that it's still really, really good.