Do I know where my keys are? No.
Do I remember what I was wearing yesterday, or what I did? Ha, not at all.
Do I know without having to think about it what day or year it is? Absolutely not.
Do I remember random lines from random ass trailers for movies I didn’t see?
OF COURSE I DO.
Today’s Friday Videos: random ass movie trailers that are still quotable.
True story: I remembered this video. I could even picture it. I can QUOTE WHOLE ASS PARTS OF IT. Do I remember what movie it was?
Please. I do not. So a-hunting I will go!
Now, the first part is a dude saying, “In a world…” so I searched for that but there’s an entire other movie by that name. For crying out loud. My memory is foggy enough. Foggy isn’t even the right word. Like what’s worse than fog? Smog? Visual soup? My memory is clam chowder?
BUT THEN! I found it!
This is the trailer for a movie called Comedian that’s connected to Jerry Seinfeld (who, forgive me Seinfeld fans, I never thought was funny. He gives me a mighty ick) that I have never seen.
But do I quote the trailer? YES I DO.
In a land…before time!
The voice actor is Hal Douglas, who died in March 2014, and was probably the voice over for more than half the television promos I saw as a kid (This Thursday on a very special episode of…). Linda Holmes at NPR wrote about him when he died, saying, “The lines were so cheesy, and the delivery was so satisfying.” The Guardian even rounded up some of his most iconic trailers and tv spots.
In a world!
What movie trailers do you still remember? Got favorite quotes?
This really ages me, but I still remember the trailer for “2001 a Space Odyssey” which was really wild to me at the time.
I’ve an actor friend who does voice work at times, he has a tale of doing the trailers for a programme that was to go out on all the regional ATV stations in the UK. The trailers had to have each stations ids starting with “Coming soon on …” then “next week on …” progressing to “This week on …” then “Coming on Friday …” continuing with “Tomorrow on …” finishing with “At eight o’clock tonight …”. He said it was one of the most difficult jobs he did, because repeating the same phrase for each station with excitement with out sounding manic or dropping into boredom is tough. And he’d played Boo Radley, and Atticus Finch in different touring productions of To Kill a Mockingbird”. Good voice work becomes part of our lives as you say, yet is completely overlooked by most people.