2007 / Video / Faux energy-drink commercial and extreme-ad parody
Powerthirst
A fake energy drink promised “menergy,” lightning, and more babies than any sensible commercial could contain.
The original is off-site. HAHrchives preserves the story and a route back to it.
What was this?
A rapid-fire clip-art advertisement sells a fictional drink through impossible athletic feats, absurd pseudo-science, and deliberately terrible puns. Every new promise is louder, stranger, and less useful than the last.
Why it spread
The original YouTube upload moved quickly through Funny Or Die, CollegeHumor, I Am Bored, Break, YTMND, and soundboards. Its phrases and format invited repeat viewing, quotation, and follow-up parodies.
What happened
A rapid-fire clip-art advertisement sells a fictional drink through impossible athletic feats, absurd pseudo-science, and deliberately terrible puns. Every new promise is louder, stranger, and less useful than the last.
Where it came from
Canadian sketch-comedy troupe Picnicface uploaded the Powerthirst faux commercial to YouTube on May 28, 2007. Narrated by comedian Mark Little, it treated the most aggressive energy-drink advertising clichés as a reason to make every claim wildly less believable.
Why it mattered
Powerthirst is a clean early-web parody of advertising language itself: an independently made comedy short that looked enough like a viral commercial to travel like one, while making its own escalation the joke.
How it spread
The original YouTube upload moved quickly through Funny Or Die, CollegeHumor, I Am Bored, Break, YTMND, and soundboards. Its phrases and format invited repeat viewing, quotation, and follow-up parodies.
Keep going
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