Never Give Up

I'm up way too late on this early Tuesday morning because I had to see if the US men's gymnastics's team would win a medal or not. Not much was expected from this team, which included two alternates, but they surprised everyone by winning the bronze medal. At one point, they actually led the competition. This is why the Olympics rock. Never say never and never give up! Nothing is guaranteed.

Though Michael Phelps may prove that sometimes there are guarantees. He grabbed another gold. He's three for three and now ties athletes such as Carl Lewis and Mark Spitz for the number of gold medals won by an athlete.

It's been strange to watch this much television. Since Heroes went off the air around the time of the writer's strike, I stopped watching. Granted, the Disney Channel and Nick Jr are occasionally on, but the ads there are different than prime time. I guess companies treat the ads during the Olympics like the ones in the Super Bowl. Some ads were actually Super Ads which means the commercials have been pretty darn good! That hasn't been a good thing since I've been trying to write my new story during ad time.

At least now they are starting to repeat so I can ignore them and get more words on the page. I've pretty much had it with the ads for the upcoming NBC season (with the exception of Heroes.) By now I can guess exactly what happened in every NBC show I've never watched just by the trailers. And did you know Noah Wylie is returning to ER? Funny, but he was on it the last time I watched that show!

My fave commercial so far is this Budweiser Super Bowl ad featuring the Dalmation dog training a Clydesdale horse named Hank to the tune of Rocky.



I was glancing at a screenwriting book the other day (been trying to work on the craft of writing ever since the RWA conference) that said good commercials are like mini-movies and have a beginning, middle and end (i.e. a three act structure). I hadn't really known since I'm not a TV watcher, but after watching the last four nights of Olympic coverage, guess what I discovered? It's true!

The Hank commercial not only has a story structure, but it's even got a HEA! No wonder I like it.

So what's your fave commerical you've recently seen?