New Philly Tourism Commercial Is Laughably Bad

It's Ben Franklin versus a cheesesteak in an epic battle for… tourists.

Let us first say that we have great love for the work that Visit Philadelphia (formerly Visit Philly, formerly the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation) does to bring much needed tourism dollars to our great city. Generally speaking, they do a fantastic job. But once in a while, like the rest of us, they don’t quite achieve their potential.

We wish we could have been at the meeting where someone said, Hey, wouldn’t it be awesome if a gigantic version of Ben Franklin had a Godzilla-style battle with a gigantic cheesesteak amid our beautiful skyline, and the cheesesteak attacks Ben Franklin with Cheez Whiz and Ben fires death rays out of his eyes at the cheesesteak while pretty people in a local restaurant feel the tremors from their assault and people on the street cower in terror? Because if we had been at the meeting, we would have set them straight.

I asked my colleagues what they thought of the new Philly tourism commercial, since opinions are like you know what. “I don’t even have time to make fun of this shit,” replied one. “How lame is that Visit Philly TV spot? Let me count the ways …” said another. And they’re right. There’s so much wrong with this, that we figured we’d just let the commercial speak for itself.

What do you think?