Two women chat as they hike together in the countryside.
“So Tom’s folks are in town,” says his wife.
“What happened to your big dinner?” asks her friend.
“Tom’s cooking,” she responds.
“By himself?” queries the hiker companion in slight disbelief.
“We got some help,” explains Tom’s spouse.
Cut to the kitchen where Tom is indeed playing chef, mixing some ingredients in a bowl.
“Can I get three eggs,” he asks his unseen helper.
From off camera, three eggs are thrown in his vicinity, each breaking on the kitchen countertop.
Unperturbed, Tom continues, “Oh, I need some butter.”
We then see the hired help: a giant bear (an actual bear named Muckaday) standing in front of an open refrigerator door trying to pull out a tub of butter but to no avail.
Next the bear and Tom are together at the counter. “Will you pass the milk?” asks Tom as the bear nuzzles up to him affectionately.
A voiceover interjects, “Last year, your lottery gave over $50 million to the environment.”
Meanwhile Tom continues to seek assistance from his oversized colleague. “Can I get the butter at some point?”
The counter then collapses under the sheer weight of the bear leaning against it with his paws.
The voiceover then explains why the bear is in the kitchen trying to help out. In reference to the aforementioned Minnesota Lottery money, the voiceover says, “Nature thanks you.”
An end tag carries the Minnesota Lottery logo, accompanied by the slogan, “When you play, nature wins.”
An audio element then adds to the humor. We hear a doorbell ring, to which Tom says to the bear, “Can you get that?”
Larry Shanet, a.k.a. Kranky, directed the spot via Drive Thru Films, Minneapolis, and Shooters International, Toronto, for agency Cole+McVoy, Minneapolis.
Mark Setterholm and Pamela McNamara executive produced, respectively, for Drive Thru and Shooters. Julie Hartley line produced the job, with Jeff Stonehouse serving as DP.
The Cole+McVoy team consisted of chief creative officer John Jarvis, executive creative director Mike Fetrow, group creative director Dave Keepper, copywriter Brian Ritchie, art director Dustin Black, head of broadcast Ramon Nunez and producer Lisa Thotland.
Randy Kramer of Fischer Edit, Minneapolis, cut the spot. Online editor/effects artist was Bob George of Drive Thru Post, Minneapolis. Dave Sweet of Pixel Farm, Minneapolis, was the colorist. Music composer/sound designer/audio mixer was Carl White of BWN Music, Minneapolis.
Supreme Court Seems Likely To Uphold A Law That Could Force TikTok To Shut Down On Jan. 19
The Supreme Court on Friday seemed likely to uphold a law that would ban TikTok in the United States beginning Jan. 19 unless the popular social media program is sold by its China-based parent company.
Hearing arguments in a momentous clash of free speech and national security concerns, the justices seemed persuaded by arguments that the national security threat posed by the company's connections to China override concerns about restricting the speech either of TikTok or its 170 million users in the United States.
Early in arguments that lasted more than two and a half hours, Chief Justice John Roberts identified his main concern: TikTok's ownership by China-based ByteDance and the parent company's requirement to cooperate with the Chinese government's intelligence operations.
If left in place, the law passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in April will require TikTok to "go dark" on Jan. 19, lawyer Noel Francisco told the justices on behalf of TikTok.
At the very least, Francisco urged, the justices should enter a temporary pause that would allow TikTok to keep operating. "We might be in a different world again" after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on TikTok, also has called for the deadline to be pushed back to give him time to negotiate a "political resolution." Francisco served as Trump's solicitor general in his first presidential term.
But it was not clear whether any justices would choose such a course. And only Justice Neil Gorsuch sounded like he would side with TikTok to find that the ban violates the Constitution.
Gorsuch labeled arguments advanced by the Biden administration' in defense of the law a... Read More