00:37 Apr 17 2009
Times Read: 885
The strange allure of the Progressive insurance girl
What makes normal people fall so hard for the cute and perky pitchwoman known as 'Flo'?
By Chris Garcia
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, October 20, 2008
She's bubbly and beaming, high-volume, with a flip of dark hair and a face like a lollipop. She irks as she endears, bemuses as she bewitches. She's a bundle of energetic contradictions, bursting here, retracting there. Her expressions blink and change like a neon sign. Her eyes are popping globes. And she just sold you a bunch of car insurance.
Flo is her name. She's the spokeswoman for Progressive Auto Insurance, lighting up televisions in a series of commercials in which her perky cashier pitches the money-saving merits of Progressive to customers. She works in a sterile, all-white big-box store, and her florid makeup stands out like paint spilled in snow.
First she caught our eye; now she's snatched our heart. Viewers are smitten. They're crushin'. They want to know: Who's that girl?
From a recent blog at HoustonPress.com, with the headline "The Cult of the Progressive Car Insurance Chick":
"Am I the only one completely and totally enamored of the woman in the television ads for Progressive car insurance? You know, the ones starring that babelicious brunette named Flo with her 'tricked-out name tag' and her '60s style eye makeup and her kissable red, red lips?"
No, sir, you are not. There's more where that mash-note came from, out there in the blogosphere's infinite confessional space: "She's hot." "She's weird but, God, she's fine!"
Others have naughtier ideas that they're perfectly comfortable sharing with the world, even if we can't do so here.
"It's so weird," says Stephanie Courtney, the actress who plays Flo.
We spoke to Courtney because we had to. We had to know if she was real or just a cartoon character. If she was at all like the effervescent Flo. If she really wore that much make-up and, hey, who does your hair?
Courtney, 38, has been playing Flo for about a year, and was recently signed to do 12 more Progressive ads. Which makes her the face and voice of Progressive, a peer of the Geico gecko (do they ever hang out, compare rates?) and the Verizon guy. She follows in a heady tradition of corporate mascots, from Palmolive's Madge to Tony the Tiger.
It's been quite a ride for Courtney, a senior member of famed Los Angeles improv troupe the Groundlings. (Courtney and the group performed in September during the Out of Bounds Improv Sketch Comedy Festival in Austin.)
It began with a simple audition for a commercial last fall. She showed up in a polo shirt and ponytail. She did some improvisation.
"They wanted someone with a lot of personality," Courtney says by phone from her Los Angeles home.
They liked her and signed her.
Then, the look. That look.
They cut her hair, gave her bangs. They subjected her to two hours of hair and make-up.
"They tease my hair, spray it and stick the headband in it," Courtney explains.
"And the makeup is like painting a portrait on my face," she says, laughing. "It's insane. It totally changes things on my face. It's like having a mask on."
One of Flo's best-known lines is: "Wow! I say it louder." (You had to be there.)
Courtney has popped up in the movies "The Heartbreak Kid" and "Blades of Glory," and was one of four leads in the smart adult comedy "Melvin Goes to Dinner," which won the audience award at South by Southwest in 2003. She also has a recurring role as a gossipy switchboard operator on the hit show "Mad Men." And you can see her doing yoga in a new Glade commercial.
How much is Courtney like flamboyant Flo?
"It's me at my silliest," she says. "You start off with a script, but at the end they usually let me put a little zinger in there. We put a little mustard on it. That's when it gets fun.
"Flo could be one of my improv characters, always on and sort of cracked in a weird way."
But who is Flo? What is she? People wonder ...
Like this blogger: "Is it her fabulous comic timing, her over-the-top facial expressions, her cute-as-a-button retro flip? Or is it the slight hint of a bad girl that lies just under the surface? The promise of a tattoo under that checkout girl uniform? The possibility of a motorcycle parked out back?"
Her character has been compared to a vintage Vargas pin-up girl, '50s burlesque dancer Betty Page and, adds Courtney, a "fetish chick."
"I don't know what it is," she says. "The way I play her, she's pretty much the most asexual thing on TV right now. I think the Geico lizard puts out more sexual vibes than Flo does. But I do think the cavemen are totally crushable."
Though Courtney is engaged to a sixth-grade teacher, Flo appears alluringly single. So pine away, in the same brunette-crush way you did with Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island" and Velma on "Scooby-Doo."
Because things couldn't get much stranger than they already are for Courtney. Top this: People are dressing up as Flo for Halloween.
"That makes me so happy. But I do have to warn them that it takes two hours in hair and make-up," she says. "I wish them luck."
http://www.austin360.com/tv/content/tv/stories/2008/10/1020progressive.html
Some random info for everyone :) I actually like the chick and commercials which is odd because I usually hate commercials because they are so unbearably 'blah'.
18:18 Apr 13 2009
Times Read: 1,046
Just because it took me a moment to write here is my answer to his accusation that I have "no" sources. And fyi this is a very small number of sources etc. So now, my thread post:
~~Dabb - With every chance you get you always manage to put your foot where your mouth is, regardless of topic. If anyone must have an internet link for anything to make it "truth" then they have serious issues.
It's not that I can't provide links it's that it isn't necessary for intelligent individuals. Now after this I AM NOT going respond to anything in this thread because the topic IS NOT "prove Jesus was real" or anything like that.
First:
"In his speech at the annual conference
of the National Advertisers Association, Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, said that, from the data recorded by the search engine, it seems that, at this specific moment, the Internet is made up of 5 million terabytes.
Even Google, which is considered currently the best search engine ever, has succeeded to index only 170 terabytes up until now, Schmidt said.
Google has been indexing information for 7 years, and if you want to have an idea on how fast this process is, it seems that, in order to index the 5 million terabytes of data, the search engine would need 300 years. And this would be valid only if nobody posted new content on the Internet..."
http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-Big-Is-the-Internet-10177.shtml
According to Douglas Coupland there is so much information that it could not be all stored in the minds of every human on Earth. If thats the case then take the following info into consideration:
"The human brain contains about 50 billion to 200 billion neurons (nobody knows how many for sure), each of which interfaces with 1,000
to 100,000 other neurons through 100 trillion (10 14) to 10 quadrillion (10 16) synaptic junctions. Each synapse possesses a variable firing threshold which is reduced as the neuron is repeatedly activated. If we assume that the firing threshold at each synapse can assume 256 distinguishable levels, and if we suppose that there are 20,000 shared synapses per neuron (10,000 per neuron), then the total information storage capacity of the synapses in the cortex would be of the order of 500 to 1,000 terabytes. (Of course, if the brain's storage of information takes place at a molecular level, then I would be afraid to hazard a guess regarding how many bytes can be stored in the brain. One estimate has placed it at about 3.6 X 10 19 bytes.)" - Random bit of info that can be found by doing a few Google searches.
The total memory of all humans alive today is around 1,200 petabytes (conservative estimate).
The total possible computer memory today is only around 750,000 terabytes.
http://www.lesk.com/mlesk/ksg97/ksg.html
http://www.merkle.com/humanMemory.html
All this means is that the Internet isn't the end all be all of information. Relying on the net or links for knowledge is like going to any square metre of Earth, looking at whats there and then determining the make up of the entire planet. According to my memory of an article I read (which may or may not be online) the net only holds around 1% of all human knowledge.
Next, here are a series of searches for you to do, links, books etc. I'm not going to spell everything out because most of this is for the sole benefit of a single person and I'm not going to spend any more time on it than I must. Although it may provide a lot of interesting reads for many people on here.
1) The Hyksos Expulsion
2) The Ahmose stele
3) Ahmose I
4) Serabit el-Khadim turquoise mine
5) Grave Circle A in Mycenae depict the parting of the Sea of Reeds
6) Tempest & Exodus, a book by Ralph Ellis
7) Act of God written by British historian Graham Phillips
8) Cornelius Tacitus, a respected first-century Roman historian, wrote: “The name [Christian] is derived from Christ, whom the procurator Pontius Pilate had executed in the reign of Tiberius.”
9) Suetonius and Pliny the Younger refer to Christ
10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_archaeology_(excavations_and_artifacts)
11) "With few exceptions (such as Robert M. Price), virtually all scholars in the fields of biblical studies and history agree that Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Galilee who was regarded as a healer, was baptized by John the Baptist, was accused of sedition against the Roman Empire, and on the orders of Roman Governor Pontius Pilate was sentenced to death by crucifixion" -Wiki
Other sources of info:
THE NEW ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA states: “These independent accounts prove that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus "(1976), MACROPÆDIA, VOL. 10, P. 145.
Altogether classical MSS (manuscripts). are but a handful compared with Biblical. No ancient book is so well attested as the Bible.”—The Bible From the Beginning (New York, 1929), P. Marion Simms, pp. 74, 76.
The Jewish Antiquities, Josephus, Book XX, Sec. 200
The Complete Works of Tactus (New York, 1942) "The Annals" Book 15, Part 44
The "Bible" was created some 400 years after Christ's 'resurrection' the manuscripts that make it up however have never been seriously questioned by the intellectual community at large and were written before, during and or soon after Christ. The only real "question" is that of divinity, miracles etc not persons, places, event realities and so forth.
I am not just some random internet personality who goes around talking out of my bum. I have graduated through out the years with 3 degrees and many other diplomas, certifications and have a resume with no less than 15 admin. positions. I know what I am talking about and have no problem discussing, debating or proving anything when done in a respectful manor. I do have a problem with being told that unless I have a link then what I say is false or the like.
It's not my job to hold anyone by the hand and educate them. All I have to do is say something. If it's an opinion then I say it is and you can take it or leave it, if it's a fact then I'll say it is... and you can take it or leave it. For goodness sake this is VR, a place for discussion and civil disputes not a place for an online university of (insert topic here) or a place for long lasting theological conversations.
Thank you for your time everyone and I hope I at least contributed to the thread in some positive way.~~
COMMENTS
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ThothLestat
02:02 Apr 17 2009
(she's totally hot)
Sinora
08:27 Apr 17 2009
Wow....does this mean....you are starting to dig the chicks ???? lol
xxPAYNExx
11:19 Apr 17 2009
Awwww PlayPretty...You disappoint your bride to be *snickers* This chick is creepy as hell*shudders*
moonkissed
14:12 Apr 17 2009
so this is what i am missing not watching tv?
*flips back to the hulu window
xxEmaeraldxx
22:55 Apr 30 2009
lol Sinora! you think so... Well Zav?? ;)