'Care Bears meets Black Hawk Down'

Found another reason to feel old today when I ran across this news release:

"Homicidal Teddy Bears Hold Top Slots on iTunes in First Month"

Battle Bears has been downloaded more than 800,000 times -- at 99 cents a pop -- since it launched Aug. 31.

"The object of the new game: kill cuddly pink teddy bears before they commit 'huggacide' with deadly embraces to OLIVER, an advanced robotic teddy bear with a lot of attitude. When OLIVER annihilates the hug-crazed bears, rainbow colored blood beams from their necks or splashes across the moving touch screen. But the homicidal teddies multiply, and each of 20 levels of play leads to more advanced battles, cut scenes and surprises featuring new weapons, including the 'Bearzooka.'"

But, no worries. This is all accomplised with "adorable animation," a phrase written in the same breath with a reference to "intense bear-on-bear action," whatever that means.

Again, maybe I'm old and need to lighten up. This app reviewer calls the Bearzooka "totally cute" in this YouTube clip.



Writer/director Benjamin Vu (whose company produced the animated "CORALINE")describes it as "Care Bears meets Black Hawk Down."

BATTLE BEARS went to Top Ten Apps on iTunes in its first week and remains the No. 1 Action/Adventure Game and No. 3 on the All Games list, according to those who want to sell it.

Judge for yourselves. There's a sample. And then you tell me.

Baby, oh baby

If you haven't seen the Evian baby rappers ad, you should. It will make you smile. I've posted it below.

And just below that is a behind-the-scenes video about the making of the commercial. It gives you a sense of the technical expertise poured into such a short piece of video.

They're both going viral. The Evian ad itself debuted in the No. 2 spot on Advertising Age's most recent Viral Video chart with more than 1.8 million views.

A bite of viralness

Hitting the No. 1 spot on Advertising Age's Viral Video Chart:

Vodafone's ad featuring Zoozoos. I don't know exactly what a Zoozoo is, but apparently the company has a whole ad campaign built around them. This one's pretty funny.



If you search YouTube for Zoozoos, you'll find more.

And if you're a really big fan, there's a Facebook page with downloadables.