This Starburst commercial makes me laugh every time I watch it. I tried to use it in a research presentation, but it didn't go over so well. I blame that mostly on the fact that I couldn't run the video and so I had to explain the bagpiper-zombie exchange through still photos. I'll be honest, it's not the easiest thing to narrate and starting off with "a Scottish-Korean bagpiper* and a white-collar zombie meet on a bus" is a risky venture.
However, I think it was also partly that the audience wasn't all that receptive to the assertion (as light and comical as I tried to make it) that only on a bus would a slightly naive and good-natured Scottish-Korean bagpiper meet and be forced to have an ongoing exchange with a snarky, cynical zombie. Oh, you transportation planners, I wanted to show you via a weird candy ad that buses are unique mobile public spaces, but all I heard were chirping crickets. Well, at least now I know what it's like to be a comic bombing on stage.
In any case, I think Zach Woods (Gabe from The Office and Erin's ex-main squeeze) is the zombie here, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. For some reason, I especially love his sarcastic "uh, everything's a contest, SIR" comment, even more than "you are boring me back to death."
* The Scottish-Korean bagpiper explains his ethnic identity in another commercial - though I never thought this was a good example of a contradiction of the solid-yet-juicy variety.
