Will merger squeeze out Orange cinema ads?

The merger of T-Mobile and Orange has prompted British filmgoers to ask whether the curtain will finally fall on the increasingly tiresome Orange cinema ads. It's bad luck on American actor Brennan Brown (above left), but the nine-year-old joke is wearing very thin.
 
When it was launched in 2000, the Orange campaign quickly established a reputation for giving A-list actors the chance to send themselves up, long before Ricky Gervais's Extras or Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm offered similar cameos.

Running at a rate of around four a year, they have starred a string of Hollywood names, including Patrick Swayze, Anjelica Huston, Rob Lowe, Ewan McGregor and Carrie Fisher.
 
The premise involves a hapless Hollywood star trying to pitch his or her own, deeply earnest project - usually an attempt to break out of being typecast - to the 'Orange Film Board', a bunch of shallow marketing suits. Inevitably, the pitch is destroyed as the board opts for shameless product placement.
 
Early adverts - originally made by the trendy London advertising agency Mother until Orange swapped to Fallon last year - seemed fresh and funny. Memorable ones included the late Jaws star Roy Scheider's exasperation at the determination of American executive Mr Dresden (played by Brennan Brown) to film his black & white cop movie in 'Film Orange' rather than film noir and Spike Lee's contempt at the suits' failure to understand his pitch about the first black baseballer in the major league. "Of course," says Dresden's sidekick Mr Eliot (played by Little Britain comedian Steve Furst, above right), "this film is about colour... we're Orange."
 
But at cinemas today, the screening of an Orange ad is as likely to draw groans as laughs. Last year's ad starring rapper Snoop Dogg saw Mr Dresden and Mr Eliot do an embarrassing rap with their Orange "housies" while this year's commercials starring a downtrodden Emilio Estevez (above, centre) and furious Juliette Lewis have been lacklustre.
 
New Statesman film critic Ryan Gilbey recently defended the campaign on his film blog for the Guardian, but was instantly shot down by readers. "I hate the Orange ads and feel like punching anyone who laughs," one complained in response to Gilbey's assertion that the ads were "daft but often delightful" and still "unusually savvy" in the way they reference famous films and ridicule both the A-list egos and the misguided marketers.

Another reader argued that the ads were becoming "progressively even more lazy". Another added: "The Orange adverts are painfully unfunny, especially after you've seen them dozens of times."
 
No one from Orange was available for comment.  A press release about the merger with T-Mobile says that the two firms' brands "will be maintained separately for 18 months after completion of the transaction" before a "new branding strategy" is developed. With new ads starring Sigourney Weaver and Danny Glover already in the pipeline, it looks as if it will be a year and a half before Orangephobes can celebrate. ·