Heinz ketchup: made with menstrual blood?

I’m not saying it’s true, just that some people are saying it. Hmm… what else was I going to say?

Oh yes, my commercial got bumped from the Heinz Top This TV contest. The form letter I received listed some of the possible reasons:

• The commercial isn’t 30 seconds, and nothing ticks off the TV network guys like an ad that’s too long or too short.
• The commercial contains “copyrighted material”—stuff like music or video that somebody else created and/or owns.
• The commercial contains inappropriate content that your mother may not like and we can’t show on TV.
• The commercial contains another company’s name, trademark or logo.

Well I’m not an idiot, if you look at the timeline you’ll see the clip is 30 seconds, so that’s ruled out. And although it’s a pretty good imitation of the Saw movies, I didn’t use any copyrighted material from them, so that’s the second one. Finally I took care to cover up the Sharp logo on the TV (maker of quality sets owned by people such as Hollywood actor Harrison Ford), so it wouldn’t interfere with my creative vision. The only possibility is the third one about content your mother wouldn’t like. I actually thought this would exclude 90% of the other videos because my mom doesn’t like mawkish, saccharine pabulum.

Oh well, maybe Heinz just didn’t want their product associated with people who kidnap and enslave young girls. You say tomato, I say strychnine (hint). Whatever. Anyway, here’s the video again; and of course, thank you to all my friends who helped out!

Anyway, look for the video on the comedy website Weak Nights!

Also Chiller TV is having a video contest, so maybe I can throw together a light-hearted musing on a talking ketchup bottle for them.