Our friends at Screenjunkies just sent over this adorable video of what’s supposedly an elementary school production of Scarface.  Between the way they use a mound of popcorn to stand in for cocaine, say “motherfudger”, and use stick-figure drawings to represent Tony Montana’s security cameras, it’s all pretty cute.  But get real, people, no way this is real.  It’s too clever, the “amateur” camera work is too good, and the whole idea is just a little too Rushmore to be believable.  Nonetheless, pretty well done.  Enjoy it for a day or two before we find out what it’s selling.

“First ju get da money, den ju getta power.  Den ju get da women, den you getta cooties.”

[give it a Digg if you enjoy it]

When Seth Green’s “on-set freakout video” hit the web the other day, I like many others, dismissed it as fake and promptly ignored it.  Then they released “security cam footage” a couple days later supposedly showing the mugging he was pissed about, and the mugging looked a little too clear, and the freakout still seemed a little too cliché, but I wondered if maybe I was just jaded from too many lame viral videos.  Turns out, not.

[From YahooFinance via videogum] Nestlé USA today announced the launch of “Dude, Where’s My Bar?” an innovative online narrative game for consumers to help solve the mystery surrounding the October 2 theft of Green’s vintage Butterfinger bar. The “lite” alternate reality game starring Seth Green will call upon the clever, irreverent thinking of Butterfinger fans, as they compete to find and solve clues that could lead to the return of Green’s missing bar and a one-of-a-kind grand prize: a solid-gold Butterfinger bar worth $10,000.

Green collaborated with Butterfinger to produce “Dude, Where’s My Bar?” using comedy and the real world as a platform [comedy and the real world? how innovative!]. Dubbed an “alternate reality game lite” (ARGL) [!!!], DudeWheresMyBar.com propels fans into an entertaining storyline created by the comedic genius of Green and the one-and-only iconic candy bar brand.

Oh man, there’s no surer sign of marketing genius than faking a violent crime to sell candy bars!  Hey, did you see Jennifer Love Hewitt getting brutally raped on the set of Ghost Hunter the other day?  PSYCHE!  Turns out they just wanted her Hot Pocket!  So disband your lynch mobs and send them on over to Albertson’s for our new gangrape gruyere, you hungry vigilante you.  Seriously though, I wish these people would all die in a car fire.  Join me after the jump for an awful PR quote circle jerk party.

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The above video has been making its way around the internet, supposedly as viral marketing for Cloverfield 2, or possibly as a publicity stunt, possibly related to this other video that references Cloverfield and may have been Cloverfield 2 marketing.  Bottom line, we don’t really know much about it at this point.  But I will say this for it, the whole time I was watching it I was hoping the girl in it would fall down unconscious, and she totally falls down unconscious.  Now watch as I attempt to remove the cat fur from my underwear using only my mind.  Dang.  Still didn’t work.

The Cove is a documentary about the attempts of activists to document the brutal dolphin hunt at Taiji, Wakayama, Japan, and the selling of dolphin meat passed off as whale. (Gotta love Japan. “They’d never buy it if they knew it was panda meat, so I told them it was unicorn.”).  Naturally, to promote the film, the company behind The Cove made this series of comedy videos featuring a guy in a dolphin suit.  He raps, does stand up comedy, fights crime, poses for a sexy photo shoot, and plays beer pong.  It’s kind of funny, and possibly the strangest promotion ever.  It’s like one of those bad PSA segues from the 80s. “I hope you enjoyed the magic show, folks, but now I’m going to take a few seconds to talk to you about child rape, which is no laughing matter.”
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So apparently, the marketing geniuses behind I Love You, Beth Cooper were trying to create some “viral buzz” for the movie’s release. So they did what any rational person would do: they paid the valedictorian of an L.A. high school $1,800 to recreate film’s titular moment in her valedictory speech.

“I cannot let this opportunity just pass by,” said 18-year-old Kenya Mejia. “I love you, Jake Minor!”

A few weeks before the June graduation season, an employee of the Intelligence Group asked members of a focus group to help find valedictorians. The company regularly polls thousands of teens to identify consumer trends. One panelist was a friend of Ms. Mejia and approached her with the company’s proposition: It would pay her $1,000 to $1,500 if she would mention the movie by name and say its trailer inspired her to make her own confession of love. Fox hired another firm to videotape the episode in a style that emulated a home movie.

“First they were just saying that I had to share a secret,” Ms. Mejia recalls. “But then the next day they said it had to be about my crush. I was like, ‘Oh that changes things a bit!’”  She ran the plan past her boyfriend — not Jake Minor — who endorsed it. [WallStreetJournal]

Meanwhile, the movie bombed ($13.5 million on an $18 million budget) and the YouTube video has less views than Sexman talking about the dump he just took.  And you can tell the same idiots behind the movie were behind the stunt. It wasn’t enough just to have her copy the confession, they actually made her say in the speech, “I recently saw the trailer for the movie I Love You, Beth Cooper, opening this weekend from Fox studios, starring Hayden Pan…”  Not to mention they needed a focus group to find a valedictorian, and had to hire a team of professionals to shoot a video that looked unprofessional.  But despite the failure, it was enlightening for everyone involved.  Prior to this, the execs involved thought a valedictory speech was when Kevin Dillon walked up to the podium and shouted “Valedictory!”, Entourage-style. Marketing people f*cking love Entourage.

[props to Videogum for finding the video]