Two fast food spots that would never run.

Talk about thinking outside the bun brand and the norm. If only brands had the guts to roll the dice and do something this whacked, what a wonderful world this would be. Instead, leave it to the people to come up with the funk. The first great find from Why Advertising Sucks has The Hoff for Wendy’s. (Which is just really a tribute/mashup of his recently released falling off the wagon video.) Then there’s this other one that could be for any burger joint really, further proving why YouTube is very much like the Wild West where anything goes.

Yeah, granted, there’s really no strategy behind either of these that any brand would approve, and the second one is annoying in a beyond-Andy Kaufman/Crispin Helion Glover annoying way. (If you never saw the routine, Kaufman would stand there on stage for minutes doing nothing, making the audience uncomfortable, breaking down their expectation of how they thought a stand-up should perform.) Same effect with this clip as it builds. But you notice it and I bet you’ll hum that damn song all day.

Maybe our media saturated minds need shaking up sometimes.

It would be refreshing as hell just to see something brands would never normally do, something with rough edges to it. I’ll take the Homer Simpson-sounding “ring-ding-a-ling” of this video over the latest KFC offering or latest Wendy’s on an airline spot. (What’s next, comparing Wendy’s takeout to hospital food? Way to own that niche.) Why not try stuff like this more? Worst case, what, an art director like me blogs about it and says it sucks? Nobody died in the spot. Nobody jumped. Nobody threatened to jump.

No. The worst case is that it’s no worse than getting trashed at the company party. The next day, you go back to work, hung over, guilt-ridden and trying to forget last night. All the while returning to a buttoned-up world with shiny happy burger-eating families regurgitating the usual brand USP—with smiles all around.

Tags: Wendy’s, Burger King