Möbius Commercial

This is my Christmas gift to all my readers involved in advertising. I would have made it a Chanukah gift, but I was working through Chanukah and this is a little better than a new pair of socks. But, if you want to think of this as a late Chanukah gift, feel free.

Over the last couple of years I have seen more and more attempts at piggyback advertising, commercials advertising two or more different products in an attempt to save money on media buys by sharing the cost with one or more other companies or divisions of a company. You have probably seen one or two of these commercials even if you are blind, fast-forward through commercials, and don't have a TV.


A fairly recent, extreme, and in my opinion, ineffective example of said piggybacking is this preview/commercial staring Serena Williams and Hayden Christensen which advertises the 20th Century Fox movie Jumper, Microsoft Windows Vista, Outkast, Nike, The HP Pavilion Desktop Computer, and Serena Williams' clothing line. I probably missed a couple of advertisers, so you might just want to watch it for yourself.

Piggybacking in commercials and sharing media buys to cut back on cost is an excellent idea, but only when the ads are effective for all products involved. I believe that my new idea, the Möbius commercial, will fulfill the wishes and dreams of advertisers wanting to share the cost of some prime time air to get more bang for their buck.

Here is the short explanation of how this works.

Don't get it? Well, here is the long explanation along with an example.




The Möbius commercial would actually be two separate thirty second commercials for different products that share a similar or identical target demographic. These commercials are able to function separately or together, and together they loop back into each other infinitely.

Here is an example:

Title: Very QuikWii

Bob walks into the kitchen with a sad look on his face. Seth, a man in his late 20's, sits at a kitchen table stirring up a glass of Nesquik chocolate milk.


"What's wrong?"

"I'm sad."


The Bob sits down. Seth slides the glass of Nesquik towards him.


"Close your eyes... take a sip of this... and I'll take you to my happy place."


Bob closes his eyes, takes a sip, and smiles. He opens his eyes.


"That is delicious and chocolatey, but we are still in the kitchen."

"Wait for it."


Seth claps his hands. Funky music starts playing and two very shapely black women, Mary and Kiki, dance into the room wearing Nesquik bunny bikinis. They dance for Seth and Bob for a few moments.


Bob asks, "Do you guys want to go play Wii?"


They walk into the living room and Venus and Serena start to play Wii tennis.


"It's on!" Kiki announces.

"Girl, I move like Venus Williams."


Seth and Bob sit on the couch and enjoy watching the girls play.

They turn to each other and simultaneously announce, "Wii!"

The girls continue to play and taunt each other.

Seth stands up.


"I'm thirsty."


He walks out of the room, leaving Bob to watch the game by himself on the couch.

The game ends.


"Can I play?"


The girls turn and lean down towards Bob.


"Uhuh little man! This is best of nine."

"Yeah."


Bob gets up and walks out of the room looking very sad.

Bob walks into the kitchen with a sad look on his face. Seth, a man in his late 20's, sits at a kitchen table stirring up a glass of Nesquik chocolate milk.


"What's wrong?"

"I'm sad."


The Bob sits down. Seth slides the glass...



It never ends.

So? What's the big deal? And isn't that a minute anyway? Where are the savings?

This is something new and interesting that will get people talking, and various news outlets will most likely mention the ad, and or play it for free, especially if you buy some ridiculous airtime during the Super Bowl, say a two minute block of time so that you can show the commercials back to back to back to back. That is a lot of backs. The key to this whole thing is buying large chunks of time up front, and then weening down, so that eventually you are just showing the thirty second spots by themselves, but by the time you are showing them standing alone, enough people have seen them together that they are indelibly linked in the consumer's mind. When they see one, they think of the other and vice versa.

I am sure that you can come up with about a half a dozen other justifications and facts to support this idea when you are trying to sell some clients on it. I have several in the back of my mind that I don't want to bore people with.

P.S. Click here to subscribe to Ideas By Chuck before The Rapture.

P.P.S. If you are interested in producing my "Very QuikWii" spot on spec., let me know, as there may be several interested parties. I love parties.

P.P.P.S. For anyone that may doubt me, just remember Spuds McKenzie.

Sundae Bar

Most of you, my millions of readers, would probably be surprised to find out that I have worked for no less than four ice cream franchises in varying capacities. Yes, I have a lot of ice cream experience under my belt.

I worked for Marble Slab as a "scoopstar," painted murals for Petrucci's Ice Cream and Cold Stone Creamery, and worked in marketing/advertising for a small but corrupt ice cream franchise that shall go unnamed. Ice cream is in my blood, and if it's not in my blood, then it is in my fat.

Besides the ice cream industry, I have also worked at several bars and clubs. As with ice cream, my experiences have been varied. From a dive called the Nowhere Bar in Athens, GA to one of the largest clubs in the world, Webster Hall in New York, NY, I have seen it all.

What am I trying to get at?

If there are two things that I know about from hands on, personal experience, they are ice cream and alcohol.

Here is the idea. The combining of alcohol and ice has been severely under explored. If you were to open a bar that served ice cream and alcohol and specialized in the combination of the two, you would have a cash cow on your hands, or all over your hands. Sticky.

Why?

People love ice cream. People love alcohol. People love gimmicks. People really love gimmicks when ice cream or alcohol is involved. Just look at Pinkberry and Coldstone or Coyote Ugly and Hooters.

I would call the place either Sundae Bar, The Ice Cream Bar, or Frozen Not Stirred.


Here are a couple of recipes for drinks you can use in your new bar.

The Adriatic - Vodka, Kahlua, Milk, and Vanilla Ice Cream.

WWWonderful - Vodka, Sprite, Cranberry Juice, Sherbet, and Three Cherries.


P.S. I have been working. Sometimes when I work, I am not able to post ideas as regularly as you or I might like. Subscribing to Ideas By Chuck is the best way to make sure you don't miss out on all my thinking. I am actually on the clock right now helping my friend Denny promote his documentary, The Wrecking Crew. Luckily, I can help him and post a blog at the same time. But, what if I couldn't? You really should subscribe to Ideas By Chuck.

Chuck Dickens: Illiterate Trucker

This one is for all my adoring fans in the world of scripted television, for all you thousands of TV show writers and producers out there who look to me for inspiration. Whether you work for NBC, CBS, Spike TV, Comedy Central, and even PBS this one is for you.

I have created a TV show born from the smoldering bonfires of past greats such as Kung Fu, Highway To Heaven, Touched By An Angel, and Knight Rider. I have created a show that rides on the wings of a c-130 Hercules transport plane forged from the smelting of thousands of classic tales.

I give you, Chuck Dickens: Illiterate Trucker.

Chuck Dickens: Illiterate Trucker or CDIT for short, is the tale of Chuck Dickens, a long-haul trucker on the road to nowhere. He travels the land helping unfortunate souls solve their larger than life problems with his knowledge of classical literature, while all along, searching for an "ending" to his own story. The irony floweth over the damns and dikes of this epic tale, for though Chuck Dickens knows every twist and turn of every classic tale from Emma to Ivanhoe, he is completely illiterate. He cannot read. Listening to thousands of books on tape has given him the ironic knowledge of classical literature that is both his gift and curse.

Characters:

Chuck Dickens - 50's - trucker with uncanny knowledge of classical literature

Basker - Chuck Dicken's dog, a faithful Boston Terrier

Claudet - 40's - trucking company dispatcher

Karl Grendelhousen - 50's - trucker and Chuck Dicken's nemesis


Notes:

I was thinking of having him pick up a teacher named Jim Smith who has given up on life. Maybe Jim could be his sidekick, always learning something from an old, illiterate trucker.

You can rip plot lines directly from thousands of books and short stories, and it is totally fine because that is the premise of the show. Brilliant. You PBS people might be interested in playing up this fact and trying to use the show to encourage people to read.

If you are a writer, producer, or trucker, get to work.

P.S. I subscribed to Ideas By Chuck today. It was so fun and easy.

P.P.S. If you use this idea, and the show is a big hit, I would appreciate a creator credit along with some money.

Pavlov's Porn Plan

This is another one of those sneaky marketing ideas that I have, and yes, once again it has to do with pornography, a field virgin only to the probing fingers of mainstream advertising and marketing. It might be wrong, but I just see so much potential. It is like Alaska for oil companies, but with no chance of killing off any ailing species.

Here is the idea: Give adult entertainment production companies such as Evil Angel and Vivid Entertainment limited rights to music from upcoming video games for use in their adult films, six months to a year ahead of release.

The soundtracks for most adult films are fairly pathetic, and I am sure that many companies would welcome free, quality music for their films.

Final Fantasy XIII would be ripe for this, because like all the other Final Fantasy games, it is sure to have a new and unique scored soundtrack (not existing pop songs). Plus, the sexuality of the main character Yuna is one of the attractions for many of the franchise's fans. Moreover, "Final Fantasy" could be easily already be a porn title.

Some of you are probably scratching your heads, or something else, and asking why. Why?

This would strengthen the association of sex with the video game for its existing fans who have seen the adult films before the game even comes out, and make TV and viral commercials for the game more effective in reaching potential buyers/players that have seen one or more of the adult films utilizing the music in the soundtrack. Classic conditioning.

Of course, you would want to keep this pretty hush. No need for anyone to put one and one together anywhere other than their subconscious.

If you are in the marketing department of one of the major video game companies (Acclaim, EA, Capcom, Sony, Square Enix, Konami, or Nintendo get on this! You should probably think about this even if you work for Adventure Soft, and if you work for the Climax Group, you should not even think twice (real companies).

Some other game franchises that this would definitely work for are Tomb Raider, Dead or Alive, Silent Hill, Zelda, Resident Evil and even Super Mario. Thats'a one'a sexy plumber!

P.S. Ideas By Chuck might save your life. Click here to subscribe. It might not be fun, but it is easy.

P.P.S. Weren't able to pick up a copy of Inventors Digest? Here is a link to my interview. Click to read.

P.P.P.S. Click to read some other thoughts on adult film "sinergy."

Hacky Snacks

Do you work for Willy Wonka, Hasbro, Jelly Belly, Tonka, Wham-O, Slam-O, Jack-O, Wack-O, or any other candy/toy company that I didn't mention? Do you want to bring joy and cavities to millions of boys and girls, while making millions? Are you excited yet?

Get excited, because here is my latest idea: the Hacky Snack.

What is a Hacky Snack? It's just what it sounds like it is. The Hacky Snack is a hacky sack or footbag filled with candy instead of the usual plastic beads or beans. You know. For kids!

The Hacky Snack sack would open and close easily so that after you have kicked it around, you can open it up and have a taste of that tasty candy inside.

Believe it or not, I (my mom) actually made a prototype and did some of the groundwork on this idea. Here is what I found.

One, Nerds work best as the candy inside, so Willy Wonka should be all over this idea. Two, Runts suck, both as a filling for the Hacky Snack and as a candy. Three, the sack closing mechanism is the tricky part. It has to be easy to open and close, but at the same time, not throw off the weight balance of the sack.

Sure, some of you are wondering who would want to eat candy that has been touching people's feet, the ground, and a dog named Carma's mouth? The answer, kids. Kids love disgusting candy. More Disgusting = More Fun. Have you seen the stuff that kids are eating these days? Think about the candy that you stuffed in your chubby little face as a kid. Fun Dip? Super Giant Jaw Breakers? Big League Chew? Big League Chew is supposed to be chewing tobacco for kids.
Still not sure? Wondering about the FDA? Don't think they will be okay with it?

The candy inside the sack would be in a plastic pouch similar to the Glad ForceFlex trash bags, completely protecting it from the elements. Refill pouches of candy for the Hacky Snack would be sold separately.

There are sooooooooo many different little details that can be added or tweaked to make the Hacky Snack more appealing to kids. I will let you work out most of those details, but think about this.

The Hacky Snacks can be made into collectible items by printing characters from a popular movie franchise on them, and guess what. This idea was actually born from a 30 installment mega movie franchise that me and my friends Mike B. and Spencer K. are writing. I can't give away much about this project without you signing a nondisclosure agreement, but I will say that the product tie in with Hacky Snacks is complete and the most stunning example of toy/movie/candy synergy ever seen on this planet.

Basically, you would be a fool to make Hacky Snacks and not dump a couple of million into the production of the first movie in this 30 part mega movie franchise.

P.S. Ideas By Chuck is free to subscribe to. Why haven't you subscribed?

P.P.S. No candy babies were eaten during the writing of this post.

Margaret Cho Drama

I know that putting this back to back with my last idea is going to make some people think that I think about Asian people too much, that maybe I have some sort of fetish or hatred for Asians. Well, I don't. Sorry.

I spent a couple of weeks of my life around Margaret Cho. Don't ask me when. Don't ask me where. Let me just say that she was already established as a comedian, and that I am not calling her out for not being funny when I knew her in middle school, because I didn't know her in middle school.

Did you catch the not funny part of that? Yeah, I don't think she is funny at all. The entire time I was around her, she never made one single person laugh. Maybe she is just stingy with her comedy, but if you are a comedian that hates making people laugh, you should probably find something else to do.

Whether she is just not funny or she hates bringing the joy of laughter to the lives of people around her, I have the solution. I have an idea, and here it is.

Someone needs to put Margaret Cho in a super serious role. Give her, her break into drama. Get her off the stand-up stage. Just look at Robin Williams. I would do this if I had a couple of million dollars laying around, but I don't, so you will have to make this happen.

This is not to say that I won't help. I have already come up with a concept for the movie she can star in, the break-out role of her career. I even made a poster for it.

Title: Miss Oriented
Logline: A woman on the cusp of understanding her art and sexuality finds out that she has AIDS, and must reconcile with her past.

Synopsis: Patty Tang (Cho) an aspiring artist in NYC. Working as a gallery assistant to get by, as she searches for her own style, her own voice. She has never quite felt at home in her own skin. Her world turns upside down when she meets performance artist Janice Red (Sasha Grey) and discovers a deep and powerful love. She carefully ends her on again off again relationship with her boss and gallery owner, Tomas Hurst (Harvey Keitel). Patty had never imagined being with a woman before, but for the first time in her life, she is at peace and finally finds her voice as an artist. Even Hurst is happy that Patty has found what she was looking for, and offers to represent her, to show her new, powerful and exciting artwork. Their momentary bliss is shattered when Patty's ex-boyfriend Zach Messenger (Sean Patrick Flanery), comes to her art show, and tells Patty that he has HIV, and that she probably has HIV too. The art show is a bitter sweet success, as almost all of her paintings sell. Patty breaks down and spends days in her room crying and sleeping. Refusing to see anyone, even Janice. Janice gets tested and comes back negative, not meaning much, but she pleads with Patty to get tested. Finally, Patty goes to the hospital and gets tested. After her visit to the hospital, she begins painting. She paints until she passes out, completing dozens of pieces. Janice wakes her with an envelope, her test results. Patty reads the results, and starts crying. Janice holds her and cries with her. We never know what the results were.
It's all there for you. All you have to do is write the script, get Margaret Cho signed on, get SPF signed on, get Harvey Keitel interested, raise a couple of million dollars, find a director, cast the other roles, lock down locations, hire a crew, shoot the film, edit the film, win some festivals, get distribution, advertise, become an indie hit, and get Margaret Cho an Oscar nomination. EASY! See, you don't even have to get her an Oscar, just a nomination.

When all of this is done, you can sit back and relax, knowing that Margaret Cho will never again try to do stand-up.

P.S. Subscribe to Ideas By Chuck.

P.P.S. This idea is not meant to be in any way offensive to people with HIV or AIDS, lesbians, Asians, Harvey Keitel, or artists. It is only meant to be offensive to NYC and Margaret Cho, and even then, I am saying that I think Margaret Cho could make a pretty good dramatic actor, and that is actually a compliment.

Candy Cane Chopsticks

Whenever I eat Chinese food, I use chopsticks. Guess what. Billions of Chinese people also use chopsticks when they eat Chinese food. Of course, they just call it food.

Disposable bamboo chopsticks have become a huge problem in China and Japan. Their production is taxing the environment, and causing quite a mess. Japan has just passed a tax on chopsticks to try to encourage restaurants to switch to plastic, reusable chopsticks, but many critics think that this won't help because the cost and ease of the disposable chopsticks is not effected enough by the tax.


Many people are working on different options and solutions. The best being edible chopsticks made from sorghum flour and the worst being a bra with a pouch to carry collapsible chopsticks in, which happens to be a little too close to the armpit for my taste. (click this for video)

I started thinking about edible chopsticks today in the shower. Don't ask me why. Yeah, no, I don't know why. Don't ask. Anyway, I was thinking about it, and this is what I came up with.


My idea: Candy Cane Chopsticks. Straighten out that cane, and you got a stick.

As tasty as sorghum flour chopsticks sound, I think that most people, would much rather have a sweet and tasty treat after eating their squid dumplings and chicken feet. Also, I believe that candy cane chopsticks will be more durable, and last longer in storage. Plus, red and white candy canes are the color of the Japanese flag, and I think I have seen yellow and red ones too, so Chinese people can have patriotic candy cane chopsticks too. Moreover, candy canes are awesome!

Some of you are probably thinking that candy cane chopstick would be, well, sticky. The beauty of this is that you leave the wrapper on until you are done with them. Take off the wrapper, or lick off the soy sauce, and save it for later. You even have two candy canes, so you have one to share.

Do you know how many people there are in China and Japan? Close to 1.4 billion people. I am no math whiz, but if on any given day, one half of that population were to use disposable chopsticks, and you only had a 10% market share of that half, selling the chopsticks at 4 cents each, you would be looking at 2.8 million in gross sales a day. That translates into over a billion dollars a year in gross sales. Of course, you have to take out production, shipping, and advertising costs, and take into account variables such as the fluctuating cost of sugar and corn syrup, but still. And, I didn't even consider sales in the US and worldwide. You could make a lot of money.


Go do this. Make this happen, and taste that sweet success. But, don't forget to do what Santa has never done, write me a check for a couple of hundred thousand dollars or yen.

P.S. It's not too late! You can still sign up for IdeasByChuck.com. Do it now!

P.P.S. Don't forget, it's a lot harder to change the world, than you change your underwear.

The Big Lebowski Musical

There might be some friends lost, enemies made, pins split, and some CCR played because of this idea.

Please, believe me when I tell you that I did a lot of soul searching before deciding to let this one out into the public consciousness. I looked deep into my soul, consulted several holy books, thought about going bowling, and took a bath before I decided that I should let this idea float out into the world, like that mylar balloon that I lost on my fifth birthday and have missed everyday since.

Here is the idea: A musical adaptation of the Cohen Brothers classic film, The Big Lebowski.

I know what you are thinking. I know. I hate all the crappy musical adaptations of everything from Lord of The Rings to Legally Blonde, just as much as you do. Believe me, I really do hate them.

So, why am I here telling the world that there should be one for an amazing film like The Big Lebowski? Two reasons. First, if there is going to be a musical adaptation of The Big Lebowski, it should be written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Second, I see it as inevitable force of nature, something not to be stopped.

As to the first reason, I am a big fan of Jesus Christ Super Star. The movie is the most amazing thing ever. The music is epic, the costumes and actors are 70's in a bottle, and it's much easier to understand than The Passion of The Christ.

The music and lyrics for Jesus Christ Super Star were written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. If you don't know what I am talking about, just believe me when I say that these guys are the only guys that I would trust to write and compose the music for a Big Lebowki musical, with help, of course, from the Cohen brothers themselves. These guys aren't getting any younger. I am introducing this idea to the world right now, to any producer who wants to touch it, because I strongly believe that if these guys aren't behind it, it will definitely be total crap. Don't let these guys die before you decide to get off your butt and get the bowling ball rolling.

As to the second reason, there is no way that there is not going to be a musical of The Big Lebowski made. There might even be one being produced right now. I did some research, but I might have missed something. Trust me, there will be a Big Lebowski musical, even if it is a rogue production called The Dude Sings, begging to be sued by
the Cohen brothers, there will be a Big Lebowski musical.

You can look past the fanaticism and unabashed loyalty of many of the movie's super fans. You can look past the action figures and the conventions. You can look past all these outside tell tale signs. All you have to do is watch the movie, and you will understand the inevitability of a Lebowski musical. The dream sequence is an homage to Busby Berkeley, several of the movie's pivotal scenes consist entirely of music, and the there is no shortage of over the top characters. Essentially, it is already a musical.

Don't not be the Broadway producer to take the Dude to The Great White Way. The people want to hear a chorus of German Nihilists sing about no'sing.

P.S. My mom subscribed to Ideas By Chuck, and she doesn't even know what a computer is.

P.P.S. If you haven't seen it, you should see the movie version of Jesus Christ Super Star. If you like Jesus in The Big Lebowski, you will love him in Jesus Christ Super Star. Plus, Judas is a pimp daddy! You hear me cat?

Coffetti

The other day I was having some coffee with my friend Jen X, not to be confused with Gen X.

The coffee was already made, when we realized that we didn't have any sugar.

What did we have?

Candy sprinkles for ice cream (by the way, I have worked for four different ice cream franchises, and it still blows my mind that ice cream is two words).

Guess what we did.

That is right! You are so smart. I am always telling people that I have some of the smartest little readers in the world, and there you go again being smart.

We used candy sprinkles to sweeten the coffee, and it was delicious. What's more, it was fun.

It was at this moment that we started a long, coffee fueled, think-party, geared towards developing this discovery into a marketable force not to be denied. The jabber and the gibber went on for hours. Quick. Intense. Fast. It was just like a game of badminton.

This is what we came up with: Coffetti, coffee with sprinkles in it.

Think of the endless paths to be taken. You could make tons and tons of different flavored sprinkles, different shaped sprinkles, different sized sprinkles. You can do a good number of things with sprinkles.

Don't wait to be the first to launch a line of specialty coffetti sprinkles or to open a coffetti cafe in your hipster rich neighborhood. Don't be left in the sugar dust. Don't be that guy who didn't open Pink Berry because it seemed to simple. You know who you are.

We came up with about a million different names for coffetti shops, but I am not going to share them with you. Half the fun of opening a coffee shop is trying to come up with some new pun that hasn't been used already. By adding sprinkles to the mix, we have opened a new door to millions of new cutesy names, and I don't want to ruin your fun.

Fine. It's not a name for a coffetti shop, but I have included in this post a picture of a coffetti franchise mascot that I came up with, Java The Hut.

People love to have fun with their coffee. People love to have fun with their food. When was the last time you heard someone say, "Don't play with your food."? A long time I bet. People love to play with their food, because it is fun. Go make coffee more fun and when you make your first million, send me some(dollars not sprinkles).


P.S. Wracking your brain for a fun Halloween gift to give your loved ones? Why not subscribe to ideasbychuck.com?

P.P.S. I think you know what you need to do.

P.P.S. I have said it before, and I will say it again. Why do we still use post scripts?

Select-A-Soda...JERK!

For any of you out there who aren't familiar with some of the basic history behind soft drinks, let me give you a little crash course.

Back in the day, soft drinks, sodas, pop, etc. started off as medicines, or a way of delivering medicine. Syrups, sugars, and carbonated water were used to disguise the bitter tastes of the medicines, many narcotic and opiate based. Coke isn't called coke for nothing. Alka-Seltzer is kind of a throwback to the old school.

There were no canned or bottled drinks at first. Each soda was hand mixed by a pharmacist, and then when these drinks became more popular for their tastes than for their medicinal powers, soda jerks, teen boys with acne and funny hats, would make customers drinks, basically like a bar.

When companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi started, they were just producing and selling the syrup flavoring. Eventually they started mixing and bottling the drinks themselves, but to this day, a majority of their profits come from the sale of the syrup flavoring separate to restaurants and gas stations etc. where the modern day soda fountains abound. You have seen these, and most of us know how to use them now due to the fact that a huge percentage of the population has worked at McDonald's or some other fast food place, and they are so simple that a chicken with a broken leg could probably use one.

Of course, I have left some things out, but I am sure that there are books or something somewhere that you can get more info from, but
that is not why I am here.

Back to the soda fountains, they basically work like an automated soda jerk, kid with acne and a funny hat. They take the syrup flavoring and mix it with carbonated water in the right ratio to give you a tasty beverage.

But, because of differences in machines, water quality, settings, dirty pipes, a guy named Murder Clown and his soda fetish, or whatever, drinks don't always taste exactly the same from fountain to fountain. Moreover, these fountain drinks also taste different from the bottled versions. It's true, you can ask my friend's mom Nancy. She only gets her Diet Pepsi from Taco Bells.

Fine, I know you are sick of reading this crap, so here is the idea: A soda fountain that allows you to vary the amount of syrup in your soda - at least 3-4 choices of how sweet you want your drink.

Plenty of people in this country are already diabetics, why not let us decide how sweet we want our soda?

I wasn't there, but I would assume that back in the day, when ugly, loser, teen boys with bad acne were serving up drinks, I would assume that you could have told these ugly losers to make your drink the way you wanted it. After all, they were essentially really ugly, horribly deformed by acne, bartenders. Bring that back, but without the acne.

Most fast food places make you get your own drink anyway, why not have some more power over it?

Do this. Make this happen. There are advantages all around.

Fast food restaurants will love this. Their highest profit margins come off of the sales of soft drinks. Imagine how happy they will be if they can sell soft drinks for the same price, made with less syrup. Maybe less people will develop type two diabetes, and soft drink companies can use this angle as a PR boost. Plus, the carbonic acid is really what eats away at your teeth, not the sugar, so dentists won't care. It won't affect them one bit.

P.S. I have heard that a blind man subscribed to IdeasByChuck.com, but I wasn't there to see it.

P.P.S. This post is dedicated to all those poor, horribly deformed, bastards...the soda jerks. God bless em.

Waste Of Ad Space

What do the billboard companies do when no one wants to buy space on their billboards?

Most of the time they just put up their phone number and the word "available," and or some stupid, but effective phrase like, "Look HERE!"















If a billboard is empty for long enough, they drop their rates, or maybe decide to run one of the God Speaks billboards.

What a waste.

Here is my idea. Billboard companies and any other similar companies, should start their own websites, kooky content based websites with kooky names. I would suggest teaming up with an established company with tons of content not yet fully exploited on the internet, i.e. The Bathroom Reader Institute.

Companies could sell advertising on these sites and have links to their own site.

Why does this make sense?

First of all, is much easier to sell advertising on a website, especially when the rates are based totally or partially on click throughs. Second of all, you might not make a huge profit off these internet ad sales, but you can probably at least offset the cost of printing placeholder ads. Third of all, the number of visitors to your site can be used as statistical proof of the effectiveness of your billboards. You can use these numbers to make future sales.

I know that billboards are about as old school as you can get in the advertising world, but they are still a big business (not meant to be a pun). If you work for one of these companies, go into your bosses office and tell him this idea. Yell it at him if you have to. Here is a good mantra to use at all the meetings and focus groups that will probably result from your initial suggestion: Let's STOP wasting that space.

P.S. I subscribed to Ideas By Chuck today, and it was amazing.

P.P.S. I made another appearance on TBTL hosted by Luke Burbank. Click here to hear me on the radio.

Home Grown

Being a man and a great thinker, I am constantly thinking about two things, sex and the environment.

Recently there has been a good amount of turmoil in the global economy triggered by the pop of a housing bubble glistening with fraud and the fact that our economy is based on a good number of imaginary machinations, so confusingly laid out that people believe in them, kind of like the theory of relativity. Saving the economy could be as easy as bringing Tinkerbell back from the dead. We just have to believe.

But, I am babbling now. Let's get back to the point.

I started thinking about housing, the housing market, houses, and how they could be better, because if there are better houses out there, people will want to live in those, and we can start blowing up a new housing bubble.

New and environmentally friendly houses...


Here is the idea: living, growing houses.

If you are a biotechnologist, get to work on this. I have a feeling that I am not the first to think of this, but I really am upset with all of you that you haven't made it happen yet. I am pissed that my house isn't alive.

I would start with Bamboo. Certain strains of bamboo can grow up to four feet in a day and it is strong, really strong. Yeah, it is stronger than you. I don't care how much you can leg press. Yeah... no. That's not even impressive. No... Most people can leg press that much. Trust me... No, that is not impressive. I know 12 year old girls that can leg press that much.

Imagine, houses that are growing, living structures.


Now, I know that some of you probably hate rattan and bamboo furniture. Deal with it. I don't like that kind of furniture either.

Also, some of you are probably going to tell me that bamboo doesn't grow so well in Wisconsin. True, but it does grow well in places like Louisiana. Hmmm. I don't think that bamboo is filled with formaldehyde, but maybe they can do without the formaldehyde. Those crazy Cajuns.


I could go on and on with different advantages and thoughts that I have on this idea, but I don't want to bore you guys. Just think about this. Humans have been manipulating plant and animal genetics for thousands of years. We have created square watermelons, can grow a human ear on the back of a mouse, clone sheep, and transplant hair (this hair restoration plug brought to you by Bosley Medical Systems). We should be able to figure out how to grow a house.

Don't let the Smurfs make the human race look stupid. I know Papa Smurf is smart and all, and they have been outsmarting Gargamel for years, but come on.

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P.P.S. Cheer up. The only people who could stand to gain from the entire world economy being in the dump are aliens looking for cheap real estate. Just keep on trucking, and maybe look into getting the new Gold-Pressed Latinum card from Visa.

Get Together

This another one of my more socially conscious ideas, so if you are looking to get rich quick off of this one, you might as well stop reading now.

I am sick of the whole Red State/Blue State country divided 24 Hour News Channel marketing scheme that is actually doing as much to polarize Americans than any of the real issues. People are buying into the idea that the 300+ million people who live in our country can be broken down into the limited color pallet of a box of crayons from IHOP missing several colors, lost to a bowl of grits and a four year old Willy Wonka wannabe.

Of course it isn't just maps that are creating this disconnect, this divide between small town and small apartment, homegrown and homeboy, urban and noodlin, but the maps are important place to start if we really want to come together as a country. If you look at a map of the 2004 election not drawn up by Fox News or CNN's Best Political Team On Television®, you will see that our country is still essentially purple. Plum and mauve are much harder colors to rally around. Most people don't even know what mauve is.

We need to return to maps that actually reflect what is going on in this country, maps that don't discount people and try to break things down into absolutes, black and white, red and blue.

Write to FOX, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and any of the others that might have left out. Tell them to keep the Red and Blue maps in the closet, at least until election night.

The truth is, we are all much more alike than we want to admit, both inside and outside of the voting booth, so don't cling to a color before or after this election. Instead, remember that we are stronger indivisible than divisible, and none of us should be invisible(sorry, I couldn't resist).

The place for blues and reds in our country is on our flag, together. After all, if these colors did run, more people would know about the color mauve, and we would get even less respect around the world.

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P.P.P.S. Commenting on Ideas By Chuck is still easy. You don't have to give any information, and I welcome, with open arms, ridiculous and insulting commentary on my ideas. Plus, I might be able to help you with your own personal problems... just nothing to do with bodily functions or mental health, please.