Rejected Gametap TV Commercial (Mega64 Vault) (Patreon)

Our run of TV commercials created for the video game service Gametap may carry our biggest ratio of "biggest opportunity" to "least desire to reminisce about." We had a long history with the Gametap service- when it was founded by Turner Broadcasting, we were among the first to be approached to provide video content for the service (which ultimately never happened due to disputes over ownership of the segments). 

Years later, Gametap was sold to a different (French) company, who reached out to us once again in 2009- this time, to make a series of TV commercials to be aired on Adult Swim. We couldn't have been more excited for this project- we felt as though our years of doing promotional videos online had finally prepared us the big leagues: real commercials on actual TV! We were also told the president of Adult Swim would be reviewing them himself, which to us was a great foot in the door for maybe doing even more for the network in the future. We were absolutely determined to blow them away. In a fairly short timeframe, we wrote out a handful of the most insane commercial concepts ever- time travel, helicopters, clowns in a hockey rink, monsters destroying a grocery store- almost everything that has ever existed in the universe was in our pitches (and probably exploded at the end of them). 

But when we submitted our ideas, only one particular concept caught their eye- a really simple one where some guy accidentally grabs a computer mouse at the same time as another guy. We thought it was (at the time) a funny, quiet "awkward" contrast to our other more explosive concepts. But the ad crew we worked with saw differently, and determined that ALL our commercials should be just like that one... essentially "awkward office moments." We couldn't believe that was the favored direction after all the effort and creativity we put into the other ideas, and it was kinda crushing. We were able to wiggle a couple of the other commercial concepts out of being inside an office,  but the other two (out of four) were stuck there- the last of which was one we weren't particularly proud of. 

We wrote a super quick "awkward office moment" because it was insisted upon, and just had Derrick awkwardly stare at our friend Nicole. They approved the first cut of all our other commercials, but we were told this one was simply too creepy. Nicole was one of our longtime friends so we didn't really think that way when we shot it, but watching it objectively we could see how it came off that way (especially back then at a time where we kinda weren't particularly aware of how things could be interpreted). We totally agreed and offered to recast Nicole with just one of the other guys here. However, they also insisted we replace Derrick. We couldn't get an answer why- and to this day, we don't know. But with the impending release of "Mega64 Version 3" looming and our desire to move onto finishing it growing more and more, we simply reshot it their way and moved on without ever looking back.