Cobra Commander as Nice Guy ^{<small>tm</small>}.  Genius.  Love the closing line, too.

You should have ended more sentences with “also”.  But otherwise, brilliant.

That was awesome.

Durn it, I can’t watch the video from work.  :(

But I will take this opportunity to point out that I’ve been “amusing” my coworkers for months with my dead-on Cobra Commander impersonation.

Whoever played Cobra Commander made an admirable attempt to sound like the late Chris Latta. I don’t think he succeeded, but then again who really sounds like Chris Latta? (Would anyone actually want to?) I liked the Nice GuyTM portrayal, and that ringtone was pure win.

As for Amanda, looks aside she’s just not plausible as Palin. Too much savvy, not enough folksy. Her demeanor is too self-assured and lacks that certain OMG,aren’tIjustcuteasabutton?!? quality that Sarah (like most beauty queens) has in spades.

Still, all in all, a very funny short.

*glances up at Scott’s comment, shifty-eyes*
I guess someone does want to. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
. . .
How’s your Starscream impression, Scott?

At first I thought it was a flat impression of Palin, too, but look how Amanda’s voice shifts over to folksy when she answers the phone. Nice touch.

I guess my Starscream is alright. It’s the same guy doing the voice in the cartoon, right?

I never actually saw either of these cartoons—I was already in high school by the time they started. But for some reason, Cobra Commando’s megalomania is great fun to play with. He’s like a less-articulate Dr. Doom.

CC: “GIJoe?! HERE??? But who could have led them to us?!? ... DESTROOO?!?”

Destro (in Lenny from “Of Mice and Men” voice): “Daah, wasn’t me, Boss.”

CC: “BARONESS?!?”

Baroness (in faux Southern Belle): “Wasn’t me, shug.”

I guess I should start working on a Sarah Palin accent—she’d probably make a pretty good fit as the Baroness…

vervain—

Not to kill the joke by explaining it, but let’s put it this way: When Bush originally ran for governor of Texas, he spoke with a Connecticut accent and walked small, yappy dogs. His opponents seized on this to ridicule him as being a carpetbagger and not a “real Texan” and he lost the race. He vowed to his friends he would never be “out-Texaned” again. Within a year, he had his Texas accent and down-homeisms taken care of.

Now consider, it is very easy to give a pass to evil if it is dressed up in stupid. Imagine if Bush hadn’t choked on the pretzel, or fallen off the Segway, or had entire calendars devoted to all the stupid bullshit that came out of his mouth. Imagine how much more quickly the tide of public opinion against him would have turned if the first adjective that people used to describe him wasn’t “idiotic.” We were all too happy to dismiss all of his rank corruption, croneyism, and warmongering as just “well, it’s not like he knows any better,” and I believe that the administration capitalized on this. It’s possible to be too busy laughing at the dummy to be outraged at the criminal.  (Ted Rall wrote a great cartoon about this a few years ago that I wish I could find).

Sarah Palin may be a complete nunce unable to string two sentences together to form a coherent thought, but I doubt this. Instead, if her whole plan is to energize the base and to further divide the Republicans from the Emm Ess Enn, she’s doing a great job. She’s projecting an image that both plays to her base (like a fake Texas accent), and also lowers the expectations of her own capacity (like having your opponents just dismiss you as being stupid).

I’ve always done a crack “Fargo” accent, which has made me uncannily good at the Sarah Palin verbal shtick.  However, since for once I do not have shoulder-length brown hair, I cannot dress as her for Halloween or otherwise parlay this into YouTube stardom.  Though I have enjoyed cracking people up with the “You betcha! Pew Pew Pew!” and “In what respect, Charlie?” banter.

Oh, and for what it’s worth while I agree that she affects a certain role or character in campaigning, I don’t think hers is nearly as pronounced and fake as Bush’s is.  Bush is not at all a Texan, period, despite all the posturing.  Palin really is a version of what she claims she is, she just hams it up for the camera.

Oh, and I definitely think that she really doesn’t know shit about shit—that, unfortunately is NOT a put on.  I know that the currently trendy line of thought about her is that she’s really secretly super smart, and I thinks he is probably more intelligent than she lets on (she reminds me a lot of the high school cheerleader/jock types who got straight A’s but valiantly pretended to be stupid in class to throw their friends off the scent), but no, I don’t think she’s Cheney in Michelle Bachmann’s clothing.  The title of Palin’s biography will be The Banality of Evil.  One can be both stupid and evil at the same time, you know.  Especially if one has powerful backers and advisers throwing their own evil into the mix.

That.  Was.  Great.  oh my god.

I used to read GI Joe comics, and creating subprime mortgages to ruin the economy and then buy up big financial firms on the cheap is, exactly, the kind of thing COBRA would do. 

Bravo.

Ponygirl-
I’m quite certain that it’s all an act as far as Palin is concerned. The makeover she was given before stepping onto the world stage didn’t stop with hair and wardrobe. When I watched the first VP debate I marveled at her performance—she came across as so gosh-darn reasonable and likeable, dontcha know. My criticism, if you could call it that, was that Amanda didn’t pull off the phony act as well as Palin does. Actually it was intended as more of a sly joke/compliment (no one would buy that Amanda is stupid) but I guess the tone was too subtle for text. Oh well.

The Opo—or it might be that she’s both a) not terribly bright but also b) not as dumb as she’s putting on. There’s no doubt that Bush is not exactly a brilliant mind—Yale C student etc. But I also don’t think he’s AS dumb as he pretends to be. And I’m inclined to say the same thing of Palin.

Ponygirl, that’s pretty much how I feel, really.  It’s a put on, but it’s not cut from whole cloth in the way that Bush’s is (I would honestly doubt that Bush is any less intelligent than anybody else in Washington, to be honest). 

Palin’s smarter than she’s letting on and less Salt Of The Earth than she’d like people to think, but she’s still not too smart and ultimately is just a nobody from nowheresville (she didn’t have to make that part up).

The Opo—or it might be that she’s both a) not terribly bright but also b) not as dumb as she’s putting on. There’s no doubt that Bush is not exactly a brilliant mind—Yale C student etc. But I also don’t think he’s AS dumb as he pretends to be. And I’m inclined to say the same thing of Palin.

I think you might be giving both of them way too much credit.  Granted, they are politically shrewd and have high level social skills to manipulate in spades…..but that’s not the same as having some intelligence.  What do you think was a factor in causing the collapse of all those wall street investment firms…..

W’s performance as president is proof positive of that….and from what I’ve heard from an uncle who attended Yale around the time W did, W(Y’68) was part of the last classes who were admitted totally on legacy and socio-economic privilege while my uncle’s class(Y’70) was one of the first to admit people mostly on the basis of academic merit. 

Moreover, if what he and other friends who attended Yale, Harvard, and Princeton told me is true, one really has to make a deliberate effort to screw up to graduate with a C- average….with the possible exception of those majoring in the natural and technical sciences. 

Though we don’t have Gov. Palin’s academic reports, the fact she attended 5 different colleges in 6 years would be considered by most corporate managers/graduate admissions officials I knew as a sign the student concerned wasn’t being very serious about his/her studies at the very least….and a possible red flag that s(he) may have gotten herself into enough trouble to be “encouraged” or forced to leave the other institutions. 

Even if the above weren’t the case, they’d usually look askance at someone who kept transferring to institutions that weren’t a good fit for them after the first time as it tells them the student/candidate concerned continued to fail to deeply self-evaluate and research to avoid having to keep transferring schools multiple times.

Actually, I didn’t find the change of accent too subtle at all. I thought it was brilliant.  It seems to me that the issue isn’t whether or not Palin is actually very intelligent or average, but that she knows how to disarm people with her charm (the accent is a big part of her charm for some people).  One underestimates her charisma at their own peril, I think.  One-on-one interviews with the media are a poor showcase for her interpersonal skills, but she has demonstrated time and again that in-person she CAN dominate a crowd and make them like her despite her abhorrent views and personal qualities.

Wow; you’re *really* good in front of the camera.

Amanda et al,

Did you have a chance to ask Cobra Commander what his platform was or tell him what you thought of the following videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WM2o_qSpaA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0tTlwC94mk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-edqQl0pZw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxHohUXgnzc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHsEpC0FZNY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djjRmM7L76E&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkes1YzoLdY

Also, any plans for followup videos with him…especially after the election?

Amanda has competition!

That was pretty damn funny.

Hilarious.

Marc is clearly a very smart and good man.  Though I often wonder how careful he needs to be, mostly I hope he knows how good he has it.

I’m jealous.

I found it very amusing.

Marc is clearly a very smart and good man.

Oh please—the way he treats her?  She deserves someone better.

Amanda, if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here for you…

hilarious!

being sarah is addictive and exhausting!  i’ve been ordered by my office to stay in character all day (we are dressing up at work today) and i tell you what, it’s a challenge and i’m not even drinking yet.  also, keeping this much makeup on is way more trouble than i thought.

colin, i wish i lived in sf so i could have been in that shot.