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JERRY BECK (LA)
AMID AMIDI (NY)
Jim Carrey hawks Horton
March 15, 2008 9:20 am


No, it’s not Jerry Seinfeld in a bee costume – it’s Jim Carrey dressed as an elephant shamelessly cross-promoting Horton Hears A Who! on Fox’s American Idol last week. Carrey, no stranger to looking and acting silly, seems almost embarrassed to be hawking the kid flick on this show.

Carrey comes in about 1:15 and his shtick ends at the 2:45 mark.

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Corrado (Anthony) says:
03/15/08  9:54am

Like I said in the other Horton entry, this was bad as the overpromotion for Bee Movie. Although I don’t think anything from that topped this crap.

It is going to get very worse with each animated film coming out. The stunts will get more and more obnixious. Except I don’t think Pixar will stoop to anything like that.

And speaking of Horton, I don’t think the great June Foray was in the imdb credits for Horton. I’m shaking my head at that, that’s for sure.

 
Mr. Semaj says:
03/15/08  10:24am

Did it have to be on American Idol? :(

 
classicparamountcartoons says:
03/15/08  10:52am

Off-Topic: I voted through those busy landlines on this Idol episode or a later episode, can’t remember which one

On-Topic: I am probably going to see the Horton movie if I feel like it, because I want to see the jokes and gags that happen in Whoville.

That’s the reason Popeye is funny to us animation fans, because even though it’s almost the same thing happening, it’s the gags and mumbles that really get the entertainment.

 
Corey says:
03/15/08  11:12am

That’s the first time I’ve seen him act awkward and uncomfortable like that, yikes!

 
Joe says:
03/15/08  11:31am

Good now maybe stars will think twice about voicing an animated movie.

 
Douglas A. Puthoff says:
03/15/08  11:51am

What this plug had to do with a musical talent show, I’ll never know.

 
awd! says:
03/15/08  12:13pm

…Wow… I actually feel sorry for Jim…
I like how he slips in “contractually obligated to do this” in his shtick. POOM!

 
Steve says:
03/15/08  12:31pm

This is nothing like Bee Movie, Bee Movie made you sit through 4 minute ads for weeks before the movie came out during NBC’s thursday night lineup. Its one bit, get over it

 
Big Nerd says:
03/15/08  12:45pm

Did it have to be on American Idol? Well- now half the country is going to know about it. Thank goodness they didn’t put it on something scripted….then nobody would know anything. ; )

 
Steve Gattuso says:
03/15/08  1:32pm

Well… At least you can’t accuse Fox of not trying to promote their animated movies. Given a choice between that and what WB did for most of their productions (activate “Iron Giant” Rage mode), I can put up with Jim Carrey in a silly suit.

 
Dustin says:
03/15/08  2:39pm

Man, his career has taken a turn of the worse.

 
Jessica Plummer says:
03/15/08  4:08pm

What’s bothering me more are the poster promotions. Why does Horton have to lean and smirk like he’s the creepy drunk guy at the bar watching you all night? John K did a post once on the overused “‘tude” in animated character poses, and now I see these awkward poses everywhere.

 
Larry Levine says:
03/15/08  4:11pm

The Horton outfit is a whole lot better than the time Jim Carrey appeared on the VH1 Awards wearing nothing but a fig leaf.

 
Steve Gattuso says:
03/15/08  5:42pm

Poor guy, showing off his shortcomings like that…

 
Richard says:
03/15/08  7:50pm

I thought this was funny.

I went to the movie and I enjoyed it. That’s right, IT WAS GOOD!
Too bad my sister fell asleep during it – although she thought it was okay.

 
TDolce says:
03/15/08  8:20pm

Big deal. Yeah it was stupid,..but hey,..we’re not curing cancer here anyway. Personally I wonder perhaps if he’s planning on trying out for the part of the “Big Fig Newton” character for the planned return of those commercials from the 70’s.

 
Mike Russo says:
03/15/08  8:32pm

^^Yeah…that poor, poor multi-millionaire.

 
robcat2075 says:
03/15/08  8:51pm

yeah, at least he’s trying. I remember Harry Connick Jr. showing up on Letterman just before Iron Giant opened and he didn’t mention it once! And it wasn’t a repeat.

 
FP says:
03/15/08  9:07pm

This is the guy who wore the GRINCH suit. Since when did he earn the right to feign indignity? He’s paid millions of dollars to dance like a crap-covered monkey for us poor folk. Too bad for him. I weep.

 
Richard says:
03/15/08  10:06pm

Crap-covered?

Hey, he picks his own movie roles. If he wants to play monkeys – its his choice!

 
Max W. says:
03/15/08  10:30pm

I don’t get it… what’s so bad about this? It’s just advertising.

Are you all protesting the film itself, or the fact that they are trying to get people to see it…?

 
James B. says:
03/16/08  5:26am

Yeah I mean realistically, if you are fox, and you have a big movie coming out , you wouldnt advertise on your most watched show, stop taking this to some high art realm where your above trying to advertise a movie. The movie needs to make money so they can make more money so they can make more movies and we all win with more jobs available. And like someone else said, its 1 ad, whats the big deal.

 
Gary Pearson says:
03/16/08  5:50am

Here’s my protest that is always going unheard….advertising is everywhere and non stop! You can’t watch a program like Idol without seeing a Coke logo or a guy showing up in a elephant costume to do an ad for a movie. When you watch TV, the ads are supposed to be in the commercial breaks but more and more over the past few years they are soaking all the way through TV shows too. It isn’t like they don’t have enough time set aside for commercials. Watch a Star Trek epsisode from 1967 and you get 48 minutes of entertainment. Watch a drama from today and its barely 40. I stopped watching Alias a couple of years ago despite enjoying it because it had a huge blatant plug for a compact car in the middle of it that made no sense to the story and was jarringly out of place.
This kind of crap has to stop and the agencies in charge of broadcasting that dictate how much advertising a show can have should step in and stop it. It really bothers me while I’m trying to enjoy my Lucky Charms, now with Rainbow bits. Oh my God! Its even happening here!

 
SeinfeldFan says:
03/16/08  9:46am

I too don’t get it.

What is wrong with promoting your wares so more people go see your movie. I mean seriously when Pixar or Disney puts movies out they do their fair share of promoting and it never gets this level of criticism.

I don’t believe this but I’m beginning to wonder if sites like this aren’t owned by Disney and the name of the game is trashing the competition regardless of whether it is good or not.

 
dcuny says:
03/16/08  12:19pm

I think there’s some small irony to this. First, Jerry Seinfeld appears in a bee costume promoting The Bee Movie, and people complain they’d rather see a film with Jerry is a suit than an animated film. Then Jim Carrey does the same thing, and people say how horrible it is.

The bit turned out to be less painful that I feared, especially since Ryan voiced most of my thoughts, and Jim acknowledged them:

Ryan: “This wouldn’t be a FOX film, would it be?
Jim: “Yeah, it’s a movie with Fox. When you do a movie with Fox, you obligated to do a certain amount of that, y’know.”

Given there was no real connection between the film and the show, I thought this reference wasn’t bad:

Jim “I love the contestants… All of them deserve stars upon thars.”

 
Tennessee says:
03/16/08  3:27pm

My pal Rob Saunders made the Horton suit for Jim Carrey – they had about three days notice – so this must have been a last minute thing.

 
Andrew says:
03/16/08  5:30pm

Someone mentioned this on a previous post, but I thought he was kidding!

 
Dave says:
03/16/08  8:20pm

Thought it was all right. If you’re doing a movie you’re going to go all out to promote it, and Carrey will definitely fulfil that part of the deal.

BTW, the expression of the woman sitting next to him is priceless.

 
Zekey says:
03/17/08  1:43am

Don’t worry! The movie was a HECK of alot better than that bit.

 
GeeVee says:
03/17/08  2:24am

Seems like a slow news day.

 
Olive L. says:
03/17/08  5:17am

the same way I couldn’t help laughing when the class clown was goofing around at school, I can’t stop laughing when Jim Carrey plays silly on a Fox show. American Idol is just as bad anyway so at least it made me look at the show for once

 
Azz says:
03/17/08  5:59am

That seemed…awkward. Poor Jim.

 
Anne says:
03/17/08  10:02am

“Here’s my protest that is always going unheard….advertising is everywhere and non stop! You can’t watch a program like Idol without seeing a Coke logo or a guy showing up in a elephant costume to do an ad for a movie.”

I hear ya Gary! When I started seeing ads on the floor of the grocery store in the mid 90s, I knew something evil was afoot. Now, for better or worse, everything is a marketing tool. *sigh*

 
Lamprey says:
03/17/08  1:57pm

It’s just a warm-up for the appearance of Masturbating Elephant on Conan.

 
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