Here’s Natalie Martinez’ full report from NBC5 Chicago last Tuesday. (Thanks to Lalo at the 2sb IT helpdesk.) Here are the links referred to in the story, thanks to Natalie for including 2strokebuzz in that list, and for including some legal and safety advice in her story.
Category: TV/Movies
Sightings on TV/Radio/Movies/Music Video
“Scooters in the City” (promo)
Here’s the promo for Natalie Martinez’ scooter story “Scooters in the City” from NBC5 Chicago News last Tuesday.
Moped Takeover
OK, I’ve been waiting for this day for years. between Hollywood Holt’s “Throw a Kit” video (featuring Chicago’s Peddy Ca$h club) and Andy Samberg’s Hot Rod movie, mopeds have officially taken over the hipster market and are finally positioned to become ubiquitous in television commercials and otherwise overexposed and boring, allowing scooters to fade back into obscurity so I can buy them for $800 again. Take note, hipsters, there soon will be folks showing up at moped rallies wearing fanny packs. And not Pac-Man fanny packs from Ragstock, either, I mean actual unironic fanny packs.
That said, “Throw a Kit” is awesome, and the first rap song to ever rhyme “Garelli” with “Minarelli”
Decepticons?
More PR about the Vespa/”Transformers” promo tie-ins. “Scheduled for theatrical release July 3rd, “Transformers” is already generating buzz as a hot summer blockbuster.” It is? I thought the buzz was that “Transformers” was yet another expensive plotless Michael Bay nostalgia vehicle that, if the producers are lucky, will be popular with a handful of repressed action-figure collectors. His future projects include a remake of “THE BIRDS” (seriously!) and like six sequels of movies based on video games. Please, make him stop.
Woke up this morning…
I’m really freaking sick of hearing about the Sopranos (even NPR wouldn’t shut up about it this morning). I didn’t watch it and I don’t care what happened, but I noticed this got a lot of hits this morning, so I’m relinking it out of civic duty. Also, remember when James Gandowhatever crashed a Vespa last May? And it was national news for a week? It always amazes me what passes for news, that every media outlet has basically decided to cover American Idol, the Sopranos and P– H– (I won’t say her name) 24/7, when we have this evil lying fascist regime screwing over our country. Oh, by the way, the Lake Erie Loop didn’t go quite as planned, details at 11.
Vespa “Transformers” open house
Vespa’s planning a dealer Open House June 14-24, 2007, featuring a “Transformers” cross-promotion. Something about “Transforming Transportation”? Yeah, we’re not really getting the connection either. That said, I guess Spiderman and 7-Eleven don’t have anything to do with each other, but that hasn’t stopped us from drinking a schload of Spiderman Slurpees.
This month’s Piaggio news
We haven’t done a news roundup in about a month, so we’re breaking it down by company. Here are some late-February/early-March news stories about Piaggio and Vespa:
- Vespa’s anime-porn-styled pre-Valentines-Day ad on Yahoo is red-flagged by personal security experts. (Little do they know PiaggioUSA have never figured out how to spam.)
- In Mid-February, a PiaggioUSA press release explains that a new study (financed by Piaggio) has solved New York’s traffic and environmental woes. The press takes their word for it (the study isn’t included in the press release) and the story makes news nationwide.
- On February 22, Piaggio announced big plans for foreign plants and 1 million vehicles annualy by 2010. The plan includes regional manufacturing and distribution to facilitate the growth (from 2006’s 850,000 vehicles).
- Vespa and Piaggio scooters are now available down the street from the Bluth’s Banana Stand.
- “All I could think as I rode the Vespa GTV250 in unseasonable rain along Cape Town’s Atlantic coast was: ‘Who on earth will lay out [$9400] for a scooter?'” Motoring.za test-rides the Vespa GTV250.
- The PR-fluff-boilerplate “Police on scooters” story meets the MP3 era as Savannah cops test the three-wheeler on St. Patrick’s day. Intrepid!
- On Friday, March 16, Piaggio announced 2006 profits were up 10.4% over 2005. A 0.03-euro dividend to investors has been proposed.
“A Date with the Undead”
Zombies and gin don’t mix. I should have known this, but I learned it the hard way on my first date with a hot and moody scooter rider…
This dating horror story from Time Out Chicago has got to be about someone we know. I’d bet on Chad, but no one would ever describe him as “hot.”
Scooter games
Four scooter video games at vespa.org.uk.
007 clogs Vespa searches
Actress Eva Green plays a character named “Vesper Lynd” in the new 007 flick, already misspelled “Vespa” by several news agencies. Not since Spaceballs was released on DVD have I randomly deleted “Vespa” Google News alerts without reading them first. Isn’t “Eva Green” sort of a better name for a Bond chick anyway? Ironically, Ursula Andress, who played Vesper Lynd in the original Casino Royale, posed with a Vespa 90 for a Vespa Calendar in the Sixties.
MTV Italia’s “Pimp My Wheels”
We reported in March that MTV in Italy was preparing “Pimp My Vespa” on the heels of the American success of “Pimp my Ride.” Turns out (thanks, Ryan!) the show’s been on all summer (it’s called “Pimp my Wheels”) and you can view video clips and photos on MTV’s site.
Scooter reality in Cambodia
In one of those wire stories that’s too vague to seem real, yet too mundane to be made up, Cambodian Television Network is now casting CTN Coffee Shop, Cambodia’s first reality TV show. The participant best able to cope with the stupidity of existence on a reality show for three months wins a brand new scooter. Somewhere, the PR director of a Cambodian factory that makes knockoffs of Vietnamese knockoffs of Chinese knockoffs of Indian knockoffs of Honda Super Cubs is complaining that the one wire service that picked up his story didn’t include the make or model of the scooter.
Time Out on “Vintage Treads”
Time Out Chicago’s preview of Mods vs. Rockers. (Thanks, Jason)
Les Nessman Scooter Crash
Chad comes through for us again: Les Nessman’s scooter crash from WKRP in Cincinnati. They don’t show the crash (that would have been expensive to shoot), but Les vividly describes it. I think another episode shows him riding over one of Cincinnati’s many bridges on a Vespa, maybe that will turn up someday.
“You can probably see that we’re pretty tough”
Another of Chicago’s greatest moments in televised scooter crashes: Wild Chicago’s segment on DeathScoot 2000 (Slaughterhouse VI), YouTubed for your pleasure, just this minute, by Chad. Ignoring the fact that every voiceover describes the exact opposite of what is being pictured, it’s still a classic. Goodtimes!