Nimoy Talks To A Bug In VW Ad April 29, 2008
by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Nimoy , trackback
Volkswagen has a new ad campaign based around a mock talk show featuring an early 60s VW Bug (named Max) as a show host. Each commercial features a celebrity guest, including model Heidi Klum, basketball coach Bobby Knight, astronaut Richard Searfoss, actor/singer David Hasselhoff, and Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy’s commercial just started airing this week. VIDEO below…
Not Nimoy’s first car commercial
In 1991 Nimoy, along with his daughter Julie, did a commercial for Oldsmobile.
More on the VW campaign at AutoBlog.
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what can i say dose he make so much cash already and type casting whatever happend to im not spock oh im first but so what
No comments? Nimoy is great no matter what he does.
I’ve been seeing this add for a couple weeks now and nomatter how many times I see it I still think it’s stupid as all heck. I mean come on…who leaves in the middle of an interview? I understand he’s talking about typecasting but all of the sudden Leonard stands up and teleports without saying a word except. WTF?
What? The guys not entitled to make a buck? He donated a boatload of cash to help refurbish the Griffith Observatory in LA, so if he has foundations to fund he can make all the commercials he wants….
If VW put as much energy in designing its cars as it does its commercials, it’d be bigger than Toyota.
I kid.
haha, Das Auto ;))
Really nice Transporter effect… kind of reminescent of the 60s but with a cool facelift… just kiding.
#3
The Bee Gees!!!
3 –
Indeed. The transporting is so random and abrupt.
It would have been funnier if something like this happened:
VW: “An outrage. … Hey, can you do that beam out thing?”
Nimoy: “What?”
VW: “You know. Like on the show.”
Nimoy: “Now *you’re* typecasting me.”
(or)
Nimoy: “Oh, c”mon. That’s so cliché.”
Really, it is a cliché. If I see one more Star Trek actor in a commercial or in some comedy bit doing the transport routine with cheeseball effects, they’ll have to stick me on Tantalus.
Why the french accent? :D
I wonder if that’s a test beam for the ultimate movie effect.
you know, to get our reaction.
GOOD GRIEF…
…what a bunch of Crankensteins today. It’s a funny, silly little commercial. Learn to laugh a little.
Amazing. Both of these. Amazing.
Anthony, I am am an American expat in Europe. Haven’t seen it ’til now. Thanks! And thanks for the Oldsmobile one as well. Perfect.
Leonard looks great. Good to see him out of retirement!
Note that the Eon slogan on their website talks “the best of three worlds”… where is Locutus? :D
Len does look awesome! Makes me look forward to the movie even more!
“Look, Leonard. I have a clip of us working together on the Patterns of Force episode.”
Hey- it may be cliche to Trek fans, but for people who don’t know or care to know about Trek, the transporter gimmick will be funny.
VW’s new campaign focuses on celebrities having an awkward interview moment… Bobby Knight chucks his chair- now that’s cliche!
Oh, my… maybe Nimoy can get a script together for “Three Men and a Lindsay Lohan”… hmmm… guess that girl would be thirty now, though?
Oh, and it;s just a commercial, everyone knows commercials are stupid. To hope for logic or intelligence is expecting way too much today.
As I recall, Shatner and one of his daughters did an Oldsmobile ad during this campaign as well — all of this was part of the “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile” campaign.
Also, Patrick Stewart was voicing Pontiac commercials in the late 80s and/or early 90s. Seems like someone running ad campaigns for General Motors was a Trekkie!
i hate leonards dentures makes his voice all whispery
I thought it was funny. At least, funnier than the other VW ads.
Wish Leonard had sent us a few more blogs from the set.
I didn’t remember Len’s daughter was named Julie.
That’s the name of my 9-months old baby! :-)
HAHAHA!! ROFL!!
*raises rock horns* Nicely done, Nimoy!! :D
#3. It’s only a short commercial, so how long could the interview be?
#9. It’s a German accent, nein?
#11. I’m with you! Let’s just enjoy seing Leonard out of retirement, and looking gosh darn good for 76!
#23. Julie is such a beautiful name.
I had forgotten how pretty Julie Nimoy is. I wonder what Adam is doing these days?
Oh, one more.
#17. ROFLMAO!!!!! Priceless!
hats off to SPB… whatever that means
its a *cute* ad, gees
no need to be critical
It’s a fake german accent. Nobody speaks english this way except in bad hollywood nazi movies. It’s a cliché too
Now all we need is Shatner to do and advertisement for Enterprise car rentals. Now that would be kewl!
Yeah #25,
#9
That would be a german accent…
19. Kyle H - April 29, 2008
“As I recall, Shatner and one of his daughters did an Oldsmobile ad during this campaign as well — all of this was part of the “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile” campaign.”
Excellent Memory! There was also a third commercial for Olds that featured our favorite Scott and his child. Something to do with a garage door opener. I looked on youtube and didn’t find it.
and can you say “fastest shifting transmission” 3 times fast?
ridiculously cheesy………love it
Yeah the beam out was a bit abrupt but it was still fun to see Leonard. Maybe there was some emergency, and the Enterprise had to beam him up quickly. ;)
i just realised that Nimoy leaves his glasses behind. If you watch at the beginning he puts them down on the little table next to the water glass…you can see them again throughout the commercial up til when he says ‘ya, OK’ and beams out.
Not only does Nimoy leave his glasses, his hair is still “Spock short” I couldn’t tell if he has pointy sideburns.
In I Am Spock, he takes credit for the sideburns, otherwise Shatner says he invented them.
Who knows for certain?
yeah, OK.
Those are probably the glasses that Kirk gets from Bones in The Voyage Home. The origins of the infamous spectacles — explained!
;-)
Leonard is Jewish. The Bug was first introduced as “The Peoples’ Car” in the 1930’s by Hitler’s Nazi regime. Fascinating.
Yeah, it’s not pretty when you trace the history of VW.
However, I’m one to believe that the Bug’s bad karma of being associated with the evil insanity that was the Hitler regime was washed away by its years of loyal service as the Love Bug of counterculture fame.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
The Nazis came up with the Volkswagen (VW) idea after they created the KDF (Kraft durch Freude, Force by Fun) organisation that was shipping workers of the Reich for Relaxation to the beaches or the mountains to regain their strength for the national effort. While they were busy building the Autobahnen to enable the Blitzing of neighbouring nations they figured to give a KDF-Car to the people. A certain Mr. Porsche created the car, they build a city called Wolfsburg around it, and the rest is history. Patterns of force.
And yes, the accent is off, german cars still sound like Colonel Klink…
“I warn you. We have ways of making you talk.”
What, Nimoy’s doing a VW ad??? OMG, people will never be able to see him as Spock again…
What a disaster! The young audience now will only recognize him as the show host from the Volkswagon commercial, and the old fans will never forgive him that outing into the lowlands. There goes Spock…
Oh Leonard, how on Vulcan could you do that…? :D :D
ok what to say…
ive seen commercial for moree then a week sorry.
the leave the interview bit was bad and the transporter fx was too red.
i love the vw spots and the knight one had me lmao and the hoff on was good.
…..Damn, whens The New Movie out Again?
It;s funny… the main image on me webbypage says
“It’s not yer Shatner’s Oldsmobile.” click me name ta’ see…
I am psychic ta’ have realized that tha’ auto commercial notion be born back.
arrrrrr…
#43
Of course, I could go the straight route and point out the difference between 1 commercial and an entire DECADE of self-mockery and slapstick, but instead I will pay tribute to your tireless efforts in defending Billy Shatner. The man should pay you! Or at least give you a Christmas card. ;)
If Leonard can do commercials and Star Trek XI (even though he is retired), he should make an appearance on Boston Legal.
fakesteve wrote:
> …the accent is off, german cars still sound like Colonel Klink
Werner “Colonel Klink” Klemperer was German, born in Germany.
#47
Of course, I could go the straight route and point out that self-mockery (ah, we all could use some more, couldn’t we) and that tick of slapstick are not only ingredients of the greatest character of pop culture, but obviously have also been the perfect preparation for another wonderful character for whom Shatner is being showered with Emmys and a Golden Globe, as well as with the affection of old and new fans alike, but instead I will thank you for your tribute, inform you that my tireless effort is a labour of love and therefore invaluable, and that I’m looking forward to *your* next Christmas card instead. If I can squeeze it in while arranging all those Shatner-Defense-Colloquia, I even might write back. ;)
#50
So true, so true. Even though that wonderful character he now portrays is on a show I feel has fallen greatly from its former glory, I can’t deny the appeal of Mr. Denny Crane. Or Captain James T. Kirk, for that matter.
And by all means, I will be happy to add you to my Christmas card list! Assuming you have time to read it between going through all those bags of fan mail! ;)
Oh yeah… I forgot about the Hitler connection. No wonder Nimoy beamed out so quickly. He must have gotten a telepathic message saying “Dude! You’re talking to a car created by Hitler!” :P
Seriously tho. Volkswagon’s trying to get out of all the “I was created by Hitler” stuff. It’s the main reason they refuse to allow their vehicles in war movies (aka sorry Transformers fans but Bumblebee can’t be a bug….).
As for the accent of the car. Voiced by an American named Dee Bradley Baker who minored in German in college. He’s also the voice of Klaus the Nazi fish in “American Dad” and the current VA of Nightcrawler.
So Nimoy talking about being typcast is alot funnier when you know the VA is typecast as German folk as well…even tho he’s American (Nimoy is first Gen Russian American BTW).
“Kraft durch Freude” translates more closely to “Strength through Joy.”
If we’re going to still bash VW for its origins, maybe we should bash the Apollo Program due to the involvement of Von Braun and all of the other German rocket scientists.
Worse yet, let’s throw away all of our Star Trek toys and models (along with 90% of all consumer products, it seems) mostly now made in China. Communism, historically, has caused approximately 100 million deaths to date.
The racism, sexism, sadism, etc. of Nazism were evil to the extreme, to be sure. But why keep bringing up the origins of a car company, when the vast majority of the current employees of that company, and buyers of its products, weren’t even alive during WWII?
Jeez.
#49 … Agreed! It would be FANTASTIC if Leonard appeared in a 2-part Boston Legal season or series finale in May of ‘09, right ahead of the debut of the movie. I can’t imagine much better, and it would help boost him even further into the publicity limelight. I have no doubt the clever writers of that very witty series would honor him with a wonderful role.
As much as he and The Shat obviously enjoy each other, I cannot understand why Nimoy hasn’t previously agreed to be on the show!
Nimoy is a legand!
Nimoy’s eyebrows look like Zachary Quintos.
Tee hee… silly, but funny. I laughed.
hee hee, nice :)
Actually, the voice of Max is Bronson Pinchot. : )