Slow Learners

[billroper]

Some of you may recall the story of the never-broadcast commercial that the Chiquita Banana folks filmed many years ago. It involved lots of dark, moody lighting as Miss Brazil performed an extremely sensual dance with the banana, concluding with her peeling it and inserting it slowly into her mouth. According to the story, one of the executives saw the finished commercial and sadly shook his head saying, "We've just filmed an obscene banana commercial."

On the way home, I was listening to the radio and heard a commercial from Chiquita Banana extolling the health virtues of the fruit, concluding with "Eat a Chiquita every morning for a healthy start to your day."

Well, yes, I suppose so, if my high-school Spanish is still serving me well. But perhaps not in the way that they had in mind.

Comments

Mmmmm....Chiquita........

[poltr1]

Brazil is a little more.... um.... uninhibited when it comes to their TV and commercials. Years ago, a colleage of mine was telling me about the time he saw the Brazilian version of Xuxa.
Muy bueno!

The folks who started Chi-Chi's restaurants also win a "Lost In Translation" award. Of course I didn't learn it in Spanish class, but Chi-Chis means something else altogether.

The Hispanic population in Cincinnati's gonna love that when it hits the airwaves. (Little-known fact: Chiquita Brands has its HQ in Cincinnati, and its owner, Carl Lindner, owns the Reds.)

ay, caramba!

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

Ahora yo tengo mucho hambre!

two words

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

CHEVY NOVA.

Re: two words

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Is it really true that "coca-cola" means "bite the wax tadpole" in Mandarin?

Re: two words

[madfilkentist]

There's a Chinese and a Taiwanese in our office. I can't find the mainland Chinese one right now, but the Taiwanese says that the current transliteration of Coca-Cola in Taiwan means "delicious and joyful drink." My understanding is that there are a lot of options in transliterating to Chinese, and originally they made a less auspicious choice.

Incidentally "Sierra Mist" means "mountain dung" in Spanish + German.

Re: two words

[madfilkentist]

Further info from Snopes, which is generally very reliable.

Re: two words

[billroper]

Thanks. That's where I was going to check, but you beat me to it.

Re: Mmmmm....Chiquita........

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

If we're talking about Brazil, where the usual language is Portuguese, what one says is not "Muy bueno!" (Spanish for "very good") but "Muito bem."

Nate Bucklin

Not really about this post

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

Bill, you should know that Louie and I went back to do our second recording session ("The Road," off *The First Overnight Guest*; *Look at the Light,* by Howard Ashby Kranz, a special favorite of Juanita Coulson's, which I got a lot of mileage off after playing at the 1989 worldcon; and "Hold On To Yourself," which I haven't played in years, even after making the finals of a big songwriting competition in Los Angeles). They sound considerably better than I thought they would; apparently I am so fussy about my acoustic guitar parts as I lay them down that I don't realize that they sound a lot better than I thought. Other stuff is in progress; we're probably going to do some recording every Monday until we're done.

Nate

Re: Not really about this post

[billroper]

Great! I'm glad that you're back in the studio and happy with what's hitting the tape.

Now, I've just got to get back in the studio myself. :)

Re: Mmmmm....Chiquita........

[poltr1]

Good catch. And yes, I don't know Portugese.

Re: two words

[poltr1]

Only when it was translated phonetically.

BTW, Pepsi didn't fare much better. When they first tried to enter the Chinese market, their slogan was "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation". Translated into Chinese, it became "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead." Not a good thing to say to a culture that reveres its ancestors.

And I'm sure Snopes has something to say about this too.