Originally published Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 12:00 AM
Meat Loaf's cellphone ad proves rock is the new family value
If one adjective (besides "gigantic") adequately describes Meat Loaf, it's "game. " Rock's operatic jester has tried plenty of angles in...
Los Angeles Times
If one adjective (besides "gigantic") adequately describes Meat Loaf, it's "game." Rock's operatic jester has tried plenty of angles in his surprisingly long-lived career: He's acted in the Broadway production of "Hair," served as John Belushi's understudy in "The National Lampoon Show," helped make history as part of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and huffed oxygen to keep going onstage back when the album "Bat Out of Hell" made him a star in the late 1970s.
So any accusations that he's sold out by participating in an AT&T ad are just silly. Mr. Loaf never had any pure ideals to protect; that's one of his best qualities.
"Paradise by the GoPhone Light" promotes AT&T's prepaid wireless service by turning one of the Loaf's most recognizable hits — a hilarious mini-epic in which our boy attempts to seduce a date while the late, legendary commentator Phil Rizzuto calls the play-by-play — into a father-son duet about the teen's need for a cellphone.
Former '80s mall sweetheart Tiffany plays Mom, while the actor Adam Cagley, who looks like a mini-Loaf, steals the show as Junior (Isaac Young ghost-sings his part). The New York- and Atlanta-based advertising firm BBDO created the spot.
Kids might like this ad, but it's really meant for their folks, and the turn it takes from previous GoPhone ads (made for Cingular, before that company merged with AT&T) says something interesting about intergenerational rock. Let's face it: Mainstream rock is the new parlor music, passed down via toddler-sized Ramones T-shirts, daddy-and-me dates to Lollapalooza and self-esteem lessons at Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls.
BBDO's previous ads for the program played on the cliché that, as Will Smith once rapped, parents just don't understand. The spots twisted the truisms of the generation gap to show that the right service plan can help families rekindle the love adolescence can destroy.
"I never hated you, and I never will!" a daughter petulantly shouts at her mother in one ad as she stomps up the stairs with her new GoPhone. "You are the most grateful little... ," Mom replies to the dust her girl has kicked up. (It's no accident that the spot's actors look like cleaned-up versions of Holly Hunter and Evan Rachel Wood in every mom's favorite horror flick, "Thirteen.")
The Meat Loaf ad also presents the GoPhone as the solution to discord, but it operates on the principle that harmony is the family's natural state. And that peace comes through music. When Junior asks the Loaf for a phone, the singer simmers for a moment, then agrees by breaking into song. Junior joins him, as does Mom — they all dig rocking out to the sound of the 1970s. Classic rock bridges the gap the tech-soaked age of video games, Facebook and hip-hop has redefined.
The clip's domestic bliss continues classic rock's drift away from rebelliousness and toward family fare, despite the best efforts of third-generation stripper-lovers Buckcherry, who nostalgically long for the dirty days of Axl and the Crue.
Maybe Ozzy wrecked it all on the Emmy-winning "The Osbournes" by showing that even a drug-damaged bat-decapitator can be a No. 1 hubby. Now KISS king Gene Simmons, a more cogent paterfamilias, has his own mom-and-pop reality show, and Twisted Sister drag queen Dee Snider's son Jesse has a chance of winning it all on the celeb-spawn show "Rock the Cradle." The Meat Loaf ad simply follows in this pattern of mildly spicy metal middle age.
And none of these projected dreams would resonate if they didn't seem right in the real world. The counterculture has utterly fragmented; rebellion is old hat. Rock, made for big crowds and sweeping statements, works best these days as a means of communicating the all-American values of independence, personal flash and weekend-warrior partying. Meat Loaf really is Ward Cleaver — or at least Homer Simpson. The release his music offers is good, clean fun.
And as his TV son sings as he anticipates that cute little mobile, for that we'll love him 'till the end of time.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
UPDATE - 12:19 PM
Concert review: Indigo Girls take Seattle fans through rollicking, reflective set
UPDATE - 12:19 PM
Concert review: Perky Katy Perry finds sweet spot between rock and R&B
Concert review: Sarah McLachlan still has the goods at Ste. Michelle
Adele's '21' breaks record, passes 1 million digital downloads in U.S.
Campbell shines in 1st show since Alzheimer's news

general classifieds
Garage & estate salesFurniture & home furnishings
Electronics
just listed
American Bulldog pups NKC
Solar Panel Super Sale
***Stunning Akc POMERANIAN baby girl W/ FUL...
More listings
POST A FREE LISTING
- Lakewood cop accused of embezzling $150K meant for slain officers' families
- 3 big health insurers stockpile $2.4 billion as rates keep rising
- Agency set to investigate handling of 911 call about Josh Powell
- Quick decisions: How Washington hired its new football staff
- Historic day for gay marriage as another fight looms
- Justin Wilcox's versatile defensive style is the right fit for Huskies | Jerry Brewer
- It's Terrence Time: Enigmatic Ross leads Huskies
- Social worker recounts minutes before Powell fire
- $25B settlement reached over foreclosure abuses
- Club promoter convicted in brutal 2010 murder of Des Moines prostitute
- Gay-marriage bill passes House, awaits Gregoire's signature
448 - Historic day for gay marriage as another fight looming
350 - Sheriff's office unhappy with 911 dispatcher in caseworker's call
283 - 3 big health insurers stockpile $2.4 billion as rates keep rising
238 - Source: NY, California to sign mortgage settlement
227 - Wanted in Seattle classrooms: more teachers of color
206 - Oregon live game thread
155 - Pac-12 picks ... including the UW game
140 - Council members get briefing on arena proposal, minus details
93 - Worker: Josh Powell told son he had 'surprise'
88
- State Medicaid program to stop paying for unneeded ER visits
- 3 big health insurers stockpile $2.4 billion as rates keep rising
- Wanted in Seattle classrooms: more teachers of color
- One man's audacious pursuit of sailing history
- Darren Berg gets 18-year sentence for Ponzi scheme
- $25B settlement reached over foreclosure abuses
- 'Gauguin and Polynesia': dazzling mix-and-match | Art review
- A wandering gene's destructive path | Book review
- Economy, blogs give survivalists new reason to look to Northwest
- Navy fliers' love-hate relationship with water-crash survival class
