'Pushing Daisies' Promo Gives Chance to Revisit Daisy Pushers

There's something strangely appealing about this simple promo for ABC's Pushing Daisies. Developed by True North Inc., Plant a Daisy lets you write out a name and a question for your beloved (or detested?) deceased, then plant a daisy. The field of daisies gives way to a teaser for the show, which walks a line between funny and touching in some sad way.

The show premieres tomorrow.

Nielsen Triples, Monster Consolidates, NBC Cheats, Slingbox Chats

- In an effort to more accurately capture true television viewership, Nielsen has announced it will triple the size of its national people meter to 37,000 households and 100,000 people. 100,000 to 300 million? Well that's better than before.

- Monster.com has consolidated its $155 million North American media buying responsibilities with Mediaedge:cia.

- For Heroes, NBC is taking advantage of a Nielsen loophole which allows the network to add ratings from this Saturday's repeat of the premiere back into Monday's premiere. The loophole states re-airings with the exact same content and advertising can be counted together.

- The Slingbox Guy is back and this time he's doing what TiVo should have done when it first launched: tell people what the product does.

Firebrand Thinks People Will Actively Seek Commercials

We really wonder if people do their homework before launching what they believe will become something akin to the next YouTube. The idea of commercials as content has been done many times before and has failed each time. However, the recently launched Firebrand doesn't seem to care and believes its offering of the "coolest" commercials served up MTV VJ-style will connect "consumers directly with their favorite brands in an integrated environment." How many billions of time have we heard that before?

We tried really hard not to laugh when Firebrand CEO Roman Vinoly said, "We program TV spots like a DJ spins music in a club. There is a rhythm and flow to it." In an attempt to spin Firebrand as something other than a massive database of commercials, Vinoly adds, "On Firebrand, you'll see more car chases, explosions, gags, drama, heroes, Oscar-winning actors, directors and producers in an hour than in a month of HBO." Right, dude. They're still fucking commercials. Not The Sopranos.

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Oregon Human Society Threatens to Kill Us with Cuteness

Leopold Ketel & Partners have created a campaign for the Oregon Humane Society to encourage the last 1/3 of the petless Oregonian populace to adopt. Campaign imagery reads, "End Petlessness: a pet for every man, woman and child." More prints here and here.

And if you have :30 seconds to burn on something that will make you go "awww" for as long as you can exhale and make noise at the same time, watch the TV spot, which looks like it would be more comfortable on CuteOverload.com than on gritty public TV.

Tila, MTV to Premiere 'First Bi-Sexual Dating Show.' And?

Taking pains to stay relevant, MTV and Tila Tequila join forces to give us the cheesy, farcically sexy, undoubtedly watchable A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, which the PR hounds are rabidly touting as "the first bi-sexual dating show!!!!!!!111"

To help address any confusion Tila might have about her revolving sexuality, MTV has decided to help her find love by throwing 16 straight guys and lesbians at her.

Finalists will move into her mansion (is this beginning to sound familiar?) and vie for Tequila's sunrise as she narrows them down.

The show premieres October 9th at 10 pm ET/PT. We'd say we can't wait, but that would be lying.

Nickelodeon Clutches Heartstrings of Suffering Quarterlifers

While conducting research for our last article, it came to our attention that there are a lot of bummed-out twenty-somethings sitting around making Nickelodeon tributes to shows they grew up with. (See more here.)

Why is no one -- least of all Nickelodeon -- exploiting this wellspring of self-obsessed nostalgia? If we saw Gumby or Inside-Out Boy pushing product at us, we'd be all over that in an irrational second.

And we'd possibly (though not probably) kill to see a marathon of Salute Your Shorts or something SNICK-like. We'd even revisit Hey Arnold! if we had to. Man. Remember when TV was good? Remember TGIF? WTF happened to TGIF?!

We Are As Dumb As We Were Thirty Years Ago

We just thought it was interesting to note this video clip from the movie Network is even more relevant than it was thirty years ago when the movie debuted. This is the movie that gave us the famed line, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" In the clip, Peter Finch rails against the public which has been dumbed down by television and don't read books or newspapers any longer. Sound familiar?

Television is not the truth Finch tells us. "It's a goddamn amusement park." TV will tells us anything we want to hear and it will lie to deliver. Combine that with the rest of the media business's insanity and the our fixation with celebutards and the world depicted in the recent movie Idiocracy seems completely plausible.

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ACS Turns Everyday Struggle into Public Plea for Aid

This ad is for the American Cancer Society. It tells the story of Kathy, a woman who's come across some hard knocks, not least because she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

Yup.

The voice over adds, "This is what a health care crisis looks like to the American Cancer Society. People with cancer, but without insurance. Countless others with insurance, just not enough to cover something as devastating as cancer."

Sounds like an economics problem that, well, isn't uncommon. Good to know the ACS is looking out.

Yup.

With HD Magic, Stardust Turns Pontiac into Dream Machine

You know, this is probably the coolest ad ever to sport a Pontiac. It actually made us want to look at one.

Directed by Stardust for Pontiac, via Leo Burnett, Detroit.

'Big Bang' Flips with (Too Much) Ease from Smart to Banal

We're not sure how or why, but while trying to steal a Rich Media ad off MySpace we ended up downloading a widget for CBS' The Big Bang Theory.

After contemplating the widget for awhile we decided to look up the show. That quest brought us to this trailer, which is really less a trailer than a three-minute hard sell with a laugh reel and every cliche imaginable, strangely coupled with Bill Gates philosophy and new media name-dropping.

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