Quickly! To the Rhinoceros Stables!

December 6th, 2004 Posted in News and Reviews

I just watched a Nikon commercial where a rhinoceros rampaged through the backyards of a suburb, flattening fences and scattering swingsets like toothpicks. Our hero of the commercial manages to scoot out of his house in time to take many crisp photos of the lumbering beast with his trusty Nikon
camera.

Here’s the crazy part: while the rhino goes nuts, the commercial flashes a warning at the bottom that what you’re watching is only simulated.

Eventually it occured to me that Nikon was simply hoping to avoid complaints from extremely dim animal rights activists. (”What? Jurassic Park? This is no time to discuss Michael Crichton novels, man! We’ve a rhino to save!”) But my first assumption was that Nikon was hoping to dissuade anyone from copying the stunt, as most commercials involving high-octane action-packed selling usually state.

How many rhinos does Nikon think we have? I wondered. And assuming we had one or more, why would this commercial necessarily be the lynchpin to one of us snapping and launching our rhino at an unsuspecting populace?

It was a nice commercial, I guess. But really, if I had A) a rhinoceros, and B) a long-standing ax to grind with my neighborhood, I can’t imagine it would have taken me this long to put two and two together on this. “Rhino… smashing through backyards…? But that means… OF COURSE! To the rhinoceros stables!”