Burt Bacharach gets hit in the rear for GEICO

Burt Bacharach is an award-winning American pianist and composer. He is best known for his many pop hits from 1962-70, with lyrics written by Hal David, many of which were recorded by Dionne Warwick. As of 2006, Bacharach had written a total of 70 Top 40 hits in the US, and 52 Top 40 hits in the UK. In late 2006, Burt Bacharach appeared as the celebrity in a Geico auto insurance commercial, where he sings and plays the piano. He translates the customer’s story through song (“I was hit. ..in the rear!”).

There are also GEICO ads that feature stories from GEICO customers about situations in which Geico assisted them, but narrated by celebrities such as Charo, Burt Bacharach, Little Richard, Don LaFontaine, Peter Graves, and Verne Troyer. D.C. Douglas was also featured.

In a world where Don LaFontaine does a commercial for GEICO

Donald LaFontaine (born August 26, 1940 in Duluth, Minnesota), is a legendary voice actor famous for recording over 5,000 movie trailers, television commercials, network promotions, and video game trailers. Due to the sheer volume of trailer voiceovers LaFontaine has recorded, he has become identified with the phrase “In a world…”, which has been used in movie trailers so frequently that it has become a cliché. He has also parodied this cliché several times, more recently in a commercial for GEICO insurance.

Trailers or previews are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term “trailer” comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film programme.

[GEICO] commercials use a variety of fictional characters such as Speed Racer and Bill Dutchess as well as real people such as Tony Little and Don LaFontaine spoofing themselves.

Chevy Chase won’t fall for Aflac

Aflac Incorporated sells supplemental health and life insurance in the United States and Japan. In the United States, Aflac is known for its policies which “pay cash” to supplement or replace a policyholder’s income when an accident or sickness prevents the policyholder from working.

One of [Chevy Chase‘s] early, and most memorable trademark moves were his pratfalls during many of the show’s opening skits, which often poked fun at President Gerald Ford. Chase opened most SNL shows with “The Fall of the Week,” after which he would exclaim “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”. It was during one of these skits (during the second season) when he was injured on an unpadded podium, which bruised a testicle and forced him to broadcast two of the show’s segments live from his hospital bed.

GEICO Knight & the Pips

GEICO was founded by Leo Goodwin and his wife Lillian Goodwin in 1936 to market auto insurance directly to federal government employees and their families. Goodwin was inducted into the Insurance Hall of Fame due to the success of the company.

Gladys Knight & the Pips were an R&B/soul musical act from Atlanta, Georgia, active from 1953 to 1989. Best known for their string of hit singles from 1967 to 1975, including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (1967) and “Midnight Train to Georgia” (1973). The longest-lived incarnation of the act featured Gladys Knight on lead vocals, with The Pips, who included her brother Merald “Bubba” Knight and their cousins Edward Patten and William Guest, as backup singers. As of 2007, the Pips appeared in a commercial for auto insurance company Geico.

“It’s so easy to use GEICO.com, a caveman can do it.”

GEICO Cavemen are popular pitchmen in a series of well-received advertisements for the auto insurance company GEICO. In 2005, GEICO began an advertising campaign featuring Neanderthal cavemen in a modern setting. In these commercials a GEICO spokesman explains that using geico.com is “so easy a caveman could do it.” This slogan offends cavemen who are shown to still exist in modern society and are, in fact, quite urbane.

Stereotypes are ideas held about members of particular groups, based primarily on membership in that group. They may be positive or negative prejudicial, and may be used to justify certain discriminatory behaviors. Some people consider all stereotypes to be negative. Stereotypes are rarely completely accurate, based on some kernel of truth, or completely fabricated.

Ameriquest expands into pest control

Ameriquest is one of the United States’s leading wholesale subprime lenders. Ameriquest was founded in 1979, in Orange County, California, as a bank, Long Beach Savings & Loan. The bank moved to Orange County in 1991 and was converted to a pure mortgage lender in 1994, renamed Long Beach Mortgage Co. In 1997, the wholesale part of the business (funding loans made by independent brokers) was spun off as a publicly traded company, called Long Beach Mortgage; the retail part of the business was renamed Ameriquest Capital and remained private. (In 1999, Washington Mutual purchased Long Beach Mortgage.) Ameriquest Mortgage is a private company held by ACC Capital Holdings, which is owned by Roland Arnall.

Defibrillation is the definitive treatment for the life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. Defibrillation consists of delivering a therapeutic dose of electrical energy to the affected heart with a device called a defibrillator. This depolarizes a critical mass of the heart muscle, terminates the arrhythmia, and allows normal sinus rhythm to be reestablished by the body’s natural pacemaker, in the sinoatrial node of the heart.

Manual external defibrillators are used in conjunction with (or more often have inbuilt) electrocardiogram readers, which the clinician uses to diagnose a cardiac condition (most often fibrillation or tachycardia although there are some other rhythms which can be treated by different shocks). The clinician will then decide what charge (voltage) to use, based on their prior knowledge and experience, and will deliver the shock through paddles or pads on the patient’s chest. As they require detailed medical knowledge, these units are generally only found in hospitals and on some ambulances.