{"id":665,"date":"2017-12-29T17:22:32","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T17:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.giacomomiceli.com\/blog\/?p=665"},"modified":"2021-11-17T03:46:09","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T03:46:09","slug":"just-call-apeldoorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/2017\/12\/29\/just-call-apeldoorn\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Call Apeldoorn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The small city of Apeldoorn is home to one of the most successful Dutch insurance companies: Centraal Beheer. The company built a reputation creating tv advertisements that prove in 30 to 60-second the importance of being insured. In each ad, some kind of disaster looms (but is rarely shown) and the historical slogan reminds viewers since 1986 to Just Call Apeldoorn &#8211; in Dutch &#8220;Even Apeldoorn Bellen&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The ads are remarkable for a number of reasons. If you have about an hour and are remotely interested, just watch them all in this playlist. They are arranged from most recent to oldest.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P4AL7DPVGnA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The number of references and cinematic styles packed in those ads is truly impressive and it&#8217;s so much fun to go about and find tropes and references in each one of them.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=g-IbysLDE-A\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paard<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=trozs74zfGc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Getuige<\/a> reference Mafia movies ala Goodfellas. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=R7hjdVRXrk4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Koekoek<\/a> reminds in theme and music the Horror of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=brU9o5lBNlo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Needful Things<\/a>. While anticipating the joy and pain of self-driving cars, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eu2ewxZ9IbY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">De zelfrijdende auto<\/a> (2014) uses the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wilhelm_scream\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wilhelm Scream<\/a> a sound engineer in-joke.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s even space for sci-fi (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=smwd8b0ycBg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">UFO<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bgsGQvjkkyU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Augurk<\/a>) and Historical movies with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hSl-m5vGLDs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Abilene<\/a> (Western), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KsRcMWZynVk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Krant<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kK11q3Zj4sw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Box<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But probably the peak for an overspecific genre is reached with two ads that have the point of view of an animal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XsHSc8D0-xs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wesp<\/a> (Wasp) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4-bm_Awbqao\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Muis<\/a> (Mouse).<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s very little Dutch-ness in those ads. Except perhaps <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xetZc5UyYr4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Caravan<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BL1ZBuzAirk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Balletje<\/a> that show traits and scenes very familiar and typical of that wonderful culture.<\/p>\n<p>But apart from that, the majority of the ads show the quintessential Dutch virtue: they are exquisitely international and welcome with open spirit many languages. Just take a look at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=O01hZ6-Iv00\">Ambulance<\/a> (in Finnish), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=azVk78HPfy0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Overval<\/a> (in French), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VqNJ1dnGdYY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Schoonmaaksters<\/a> (in Brasilian Portuguese) or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xIDO0Kx9pPQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Schotland<\/a>, which is set quite obviously in Scotland.<\/p>\n<p>But of all the nations represented, Americans and the US are by far the most represented. Some of those ads are so American that they could easily be broadcasted on PBS and probably fit right in. See for instance <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3r7mIDycJsE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NASA Phoenix Marslander<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IQfZY5rvXX0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Birdie<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AgBSv9kmGkI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Most of all, the Even Apeldoorn Bellen ads are fantastic at capturing the spirit of a decade. My personal favourite three are representative, either in style or mood, of the 2000s (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=D5iu8u0aVWs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Acupunctuur<\/a>), the 90s (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_wkyTaSIotY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Museum<\/a>) and the 80s (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DKtaEq9uA3c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ski<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The small city of Apeldoorn is home to one of the most successful Dutch insurance companies: Centraal Beheer. The company built a reputation creating tv advertisements that prove in 30 to 60-second the importance of being insured. In each ad, some kind of disaster looms (but is rarely shown) and the historical slogan reminds viewers &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"understrap-read-more-link button button-black\" href=\"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/2017\/12\/29\/just-call-apeldoorn\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,6,78,12,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3323,"href":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions\/3323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamez.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}