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Life Alert 911 and Freedom Alert Commercials Provide a Showcase for World Class Acting

These TV commercials for Life Alert 911 and Freedom Alert have a lot in common: They both sell devices that allow senior citizens to easily call for help in an emergency; they both feature low-budget production and incredibly hokey dramatizations. Yet each commercial has its own outstanding moment that makes it distinctive.

First is the commercial for Life Alert 911, the latest product from the people who gave us the famous “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” catch phrase.

The best part comes at 0:18, when the dispatcher puts on some kind of scary voice to tell the burglars, “This is Life Alert! You have been detected! Leave now!” You almost expect him to say, “I am the great and powerful Oz” and start playing thunderbolt sound effects.

The Freedom Alert is a similar product, but it allows the user to phone a loved one as well as a 911 dispatcher. The best scene starts at 0:29:

I am absolutely stunned at how beyond calm the bleeding mother and her son are during the call. They politely discuss a serious injury in a tone less urgent than they would use if talking about which kind of cookies to pick up at the grocery store. If that woman told her son that her leg had been cut off he probably would have just taken a nap. They must be from the mid-west.

The Freedom Alert commercial is pretty much non-stop bad acting. Don’t miss the stage craft of the “fall” that occurs at 1:19. Maybe they should use the tag line, “I’ve fallen and I CAN get up.” At least we know they used real senior citizens for the commercial and not trained actors.

Comments

  • 11 Responses to “Life Alert 911 and Freedom Alert Commercials Provide a Showcase for World Class Acting”

  • Anyone want to go in with me on an idea for a “Death Alert” bracelet? I monitors your heart, and sends the meat wagon to get you while you’re still fresh. Nothing nastier than “finding’ a corpse after a week or 2.

    Comment by Al Frank on March 26, 2010 at 2:48 pm

  • Goofy commercials these days! I just thought of something about that lower product, what if it goes to someone’s answering machine/voicemail? That’s still a pick up and therefore it wouldn’t continue to dial 911…

    Comment by TimNRA757 on March 26, 2010 at 4:45 pm

  • Holy lord that’s some bad acting – even for an infomercial or whatever the hell this is. That “fall” @ 1:19 was hilarious! I can’t tell if the film was actually being run in slow motion or if that woman just “fell” that damn slow.

    Comment by Olivia on March 28, 2010 at 12:52 am

  • I wonder how many pervs are hired by life alert to “monitor” the “activity” of the nations old lady bedroom community?

    Comment by Al Frank on March 29, 2010 at 2:49 pm

  • The 911 dispatcher from Life Alert looks like one of the guys from the long-running Extenze infomercial. I think he was on the street being interviewed by Brigetta.

    Comment by Daniel on March 29, 2010 at 7:48 pm

  • The dispatcher is from the Extenze commercial.

    Comment by Richard Simmons on April 8, 2010 at 5:22 pm

  • In that first clip, I almost felt like I was watching an episode of 24.

    Comment by Ken on April 26, 2010 at 11:16 am

  • If the freedom alert gets an answering machine it will hang up and dial the next number. The receiver of the call needs to press a 5 on the phone to tell the system a human answered, an answering machine or voice mail will not fool the system.

    Comment by Steve on May 4, 2010 at 12:19 pm

  • I personally enjoy the son identifying himself to his mother. Clearly, this woman has about 39 kids and cannot recognize the voice of her son.

    Comment by Jeremy on June 20, 2010 at 10:43 am

  • That Freedom Alert commercial just might have had the worst acting I’ve ever seen — and I’ve seen plenty of these awful ads.

    Comment by Jordan on January 9, 2012 at 10:49 pm

  • The script on Freedom alert is epic:

    – “I think I hit the table and I’m bleeding. Can you come over?”

    – “Oh mom, that is terrible. I will be there in half an hour”

    Comment by John Smith on March 17, 2013 at 4:54 pm