Clownfish TV: Audio Edition
Zombie Toys "R" Us Gets Backlash for CREEPY AI Commerical...
Toys "R "Us is kinda sorta coming back, as stores within bigger stores. To promote its deal with Macy’s, NuTRU dropped an AI commercial that was created 100% with Sora. And social media is FURIOUS about it... ➡️ Tip Jar and Fan Support: http://ClownfishSupport.com ➡️ Official Merch Store: http://ShopClownfish.com ➡️ Official Website: http://ClownfishTV.com ➡️ Audio Edition: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qJc5C6OkQkaZnGCeuVOD1 AI technology in the creative industry, particularly in the Toys "R" Us commercial, is sparking backlash and concern about its potential impact on entertainment and the replacement of human actors and creators. 00:00 Toys "R" Us faces backlash for AI commercial and treatment of employees as they attempt a comeback after bankruptcy. 03:00 Zombie Toys "R" Us faces backlash for AI commercial, sparking concern about the rapid advancement of AI technology and its potential impact on entertainment. 04:54 AI technology creates realistic and scary commercial for Toys "R" Us, sparking backlash from viewers. 08:16 Toys R Us commercial faces backlash for creepy AI portrayal of zombie toys, sparking nostalgia for the store experience as a child. 11:13 A deer broke a window and caused damage in a Hills store in Pittsburgh. 12:49 AI technology has advanced rapidly, with some commercials looking good while others appear lifeless; Disney is now focusing on AI for content creation, and there is an increase in people using and paying for subscriptions for video games and TV. 15:35 People are upset about AI replacing human actors in the Toys "R" Us commercial, sparking controversy and predictions of celebrities selling their likenesses for future use. 18:00 AI is causing backlash in the creative industry as it replaces people in sound, animation, and toy creation, advancing faster than expected. About Us: Clownfish TV is an independent, opinionated news and commentary channel that covers Entertainment and Tech from a consumer’s point of view. We talk about Gaming, Comics, Anime, TV, Movies, Animation and more. Hosted by Kneon and Geeky Sparkles. Disclaimer: This series is produced by Clownfish Studios and WebReef Media, and is part of ClownfishTV.com. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of our guests, affiliates, sponsors, or advertisers. ClownfishTV.com is an unofficial news source and has no connection to any company that we may cover. This channel and website and the content made available through this site are for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. These so-called “fair uses” are permitted even if the use of the work would otherwise be infringing. #ToysRUs #Hollywood #News #Commentary #Reaction #Podcast #Comedy #Entertainment #Hollywood #PopCulture #Tech
Hey guys, this is the audio edition of clownfish TV. If you guys are unfamiliar with clownfish TV, please check out the video versions of these episodes on the clownfish TV YouTube channel and also on the clownfish gaming YouTube channel. Please subscribe for more podcast. Check out D-Res, that's our other podcast. The episode will begin in a couple of seconds. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hey guys, welcome back to clownfish TV. This is neon. I am here with geeky sparkles. - Hello. - And we're gonna look at this commercial for Toys R Us. Have you seen this? Have you guys seen this? - I've seen it. I thought you meant me. - Oh, I mean you and other people watching. - I can't tell you're talking to me. Go ahead. - I am. We're gonna talk about this. 'Cause this is crazy. This was done with OpenAI's Sora, which we talked about, which can generate video footage from prompts. Now, it's uncanny. It looks weird. - It looks really weird, yeah. - It looks really weird. - Like weird as far as looking realistic, mostly. - Yeah, but I guess my takeaway from this is the technology is almost there to be able to create video just whole cloth from AI. - I thought it was funny when they're going through the toys and they're like not quite that brand toys because they don't wanna get in trouble. - Right, right. - I thought that was funny. - So we'll look at this commercial. I mean, this is so weird. Like you pointed out on Twitter. - Oh no, I was just saying, like they said, Toys R Us was a dream of Charles Lazarus and member Barry's Toys R Us kid. And I'm like, yeah, but the company filed for bankruptcy. And I remember when they did, they completely can't all their employees. And they just got like, you know, hey, you're fired, you're done. And closed a bunch of stores, liquidated a bunch of stuff, took the money, got out of bankruptcy. And now they're trying to move forward with it. Like member Barry's and all this crap, but they screwed over their employees. And I mean, that's corporate Toys R Us, not Charles Lazarus, but I'm just saying, they screwed their people over in the US anyway. - Yeah, and he died, ironically, he died a couple of days, I guess, after they shut down Toys R Us. Like it was like, it's crazy. But this whole thing they're talking about bringing it back is a potentially is a zombie brand. They had the, I remember they had the Toys R Us stores within a store. - Yeah, they had them in like different like, yeah, Macy's or something. - Yeah. And this is coming from the verge. They said the old Toys R Us turned into a hot, or turned to hot technology amidst his bankruptcy filing back in 2017, releasing an AR app to attract customers. And then they were gonna be, I remember an online store only and then that didn't work out. It said 2018 was the end of the road for the giant toy store, began closing or selling its final 800 locations. In the UK, they recently launched some dedicated toy stores under the brand, whoever as well, as outlets inside of the WH Smith stores. And they opened two larger Toys R Us stores in the US and they talked about doing as many as 24 this year. And this is probably also a part of that comeback. But yeah, this is like a zombie brand. - But then they shafted their employees. - Yeah. - And they sold the buildings off and shafted their employees. I'm sure the corporate executives got all kinds of money. And then now they're just like, oh, remember Toys R Us? Member Berry, shop Toys R Us. You love Toys R Us, right? No, I did. Toys R Us were one, their prices were always too high. But two, you screwed over a bunch of employees. And one of your relatives is one of them. - Yeah, so let's talk about this. The reaction is not good to this at all. People are, we have a lot of people that are just angry about the situation and being a zombie brand. And they're angry. - And they use an AI commercial on top of it, like, happily make this shit storm worse. I know. - How can we make it worse? But my takeaway-- - Who's now lighted on fire, too? - Light that shit on fire. My takeaway from this, though, is this has gotten scary, good, scary fast. And I know people are concerned about the future of AI and whether or not everything is going to be made by AI in the future. And they're like, oh, it looks kind of uncanny, Valium. Like, do you remember early CGI? Do you remember the Pixar baby? Yeah, look how far we've come. - I think it looks pretty. I mean, there you could tell CGI some places, but for the most part, it doesn't look not bad. I mean, and that's a scary, not good thing. - That's a scary, yeah. And we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about how consumers feel about AI and entertainment, because it's not going anywhere. - No, the people aren't very-- It depends. People in video games seem to be a little more accepting than people in TVs and film, and it depends on what it is. If it's something like generating character ideas, they're fine with it. But if it's like replacing people, they're not really down with the idea. - Yeah, and I joked about Tom Hanks never stepping down for movies, because they can just deage him or replace him with AI, and they're already doing it. - I know you did joke about that. - They have, that was like one of the last videos. - We're from South Park over here. - Yeah, I know, right? I said that if you can have Tom Hanks forever, why hire new actors? And they have a new movie coming out, it's called Here, and they're deaging him like 30 years throughout the whole movie. It's not just a flashback scene like they do in the Marvel movies or whatever. This is like the entire movie. It's gonna be 30 year old Tom Hanks. And it's kind of uncanny, but like, if you just show me that photo, be like, "Oh yeah, it's Tom Hanks from about like 1990-ish." No, it's all being done with AI and stuff. So let's talk about this before we get into it any further. Please subscribe for more pop culture news, views, and rants, guys. Yeah, woo-hoo, if you do. So we're gonna watch this. We're gonna watch this commercial. It's only a minute. We're gonna react to it. But it's scary how good this has gotten. In places, other places. Other places, very obvious. But the fact that they could create this, now I don't think it was entirely from prompts. They might have had some photo references or something, but it's scary. It's scary how quickly this is progressing. Now you gotta give a hat tip to culture crave that posted this, and it's, well, we're gonna leave the comments too. People are weirded out by it. Well, I think this might be in a photo prompt. Yeah, this looks like a photo. Did you ever wonder how Toys R Us and Jeffrey the Giraffe came to be? No. The son of a bike shop owner, Charles Lazarus, had a vision that would go on to change-- I mean, you can tell with the toys and stuff that it's AI, because like you said, they look like they're not quite real, like they're kind of sort of, but not quite. But the people, the hair, and the faces and stuff, like we're not getting like multiple layers of T-3. When they're focused on them and they're like, you know, they're moving, you can tell a little bit. A little bit. Toy stores forever. Like you can tell. If you know what you're looking for, yeah. But like his hair's, yeah, you can kind of tell like it seems like his clothes are kind of detached from-- [MUSIC PLAYING] All the off-brand toys. Yeah, all the generic toys. We got like, what is it? Like a brats, except it's a brat stall in the-- Brats, very short cake. Yeah, all of you-- Bratmo Bright. Bratmo Bright. Bratbro. Bratbro. That's the new one. Bratbro's. It's Bratbro Bright, guys. Bratbro Bright. It's the new modern version of, you know. It's very modern. Yes. Bratbro. It's the same person. Wink, wink. [LAUGHS] [MUSIC PLAYING] So is the music? Is the music AI too? Because it sounds really like-- I don't know. It's like, [SINGING] It's like Aaron Neville to sing it. Nobody's saying a little people song. Yeah, I remember the-- [SINGING] We used to watch, yeah, squinking. He had the little people. He loved the little people. He loved the little people. So we get the VHS tapes. Yeah, that's how it dates. But they would come with the toys sometimes, and then he'd watch the-- Like the clay nation. And he'd say, anyway, Aaron Neville would sing the song. It was a painful experience. Anyway, not quite my little pony. These are like the knockoff ponies you find at the dollar store. That's most-- that wasn't a little sore thing with eyes supposed to be like an iron giant's head. I don't know. I don't know. So that's where you tell. Like, it just looks like a bunch of like just stuff kind of piled, you know? That's when you can tell. But again, the fact that this was generated from prompts, we're going to have a completely AI-generated motion picture probably within the next year or two. I remember when people were like, well, the Toy Story came out. You know, you can't go see this movie because it's going to hurt your eyes. It's a fad. CGI is never going to last. Yeah, but here we are. Here we are. ♪ Maybe if I did ♪ ♪ I wouldn't be at all zeros ♪ Toys R Us was the dream of Charles Lazarus. May all of your dreams come true too. Well, the people that work there don't have the dreams now because you fired their ass at liquid date. The dream continues at Macy's, yes. He's on with the Toys R Us at every Macy's. Yeah, that's what they're doing now. This is Kmart and Sears all over. Yeah, pretty much. All right, so that's what they're doing with them. They're putting them in Macy's. Don't they have Sephora and Macy's or is that JCPenney? It was JCPenney. But look, look, you know, I love Toys R Us. I mean, when we were kids, I didn't get to go very often. Like, you had one by your house. Meeting had to go like two hours to go to Toys R Us or something, so we didn't get to go much. I do remember getting in the parking lot once 'cause my dad was looking for Super Mario Brothers too for my brother for Christmas. And we basically sat in the car where he ran in to ask. And I was like, but the Toys R Us is right there. You know, we didn't get to go with Toys R Us much, but we went when Squid King was little. And 'cause it was by the house we lived in, 'cause we moved to where Neon was from. And it was great, but the prices were high. But he loved it. Not as bad as KB. I worked at work at KB Toys. KB was like, well, I had to pay those mall rents, right? So KB was way more expensive. Yeah, KB was much worse. But I know Squid King and Pinky Boo, so they loved to go to Toys R Us. Yeah, I missed that. I missed having those aisles. I missed the commercials, yeah. The walls of toys. Like kids today aren't playing with toys anyway, but like-- No, 'cause they didn't see this shit and think that's how it was. Yeah, it's like, no, it was cool though. Like, back in our people, man. Back in our day. Back in our time. Like you would walk into these massive toy stores and there'd be like just a wall of Star Wars figures or wall of, you know, my old pony or wall of like, it was like-- - Monster high. Yeah, it was like a massive, like they would have a whole aisle dedicated to one or two toy lines. And even, like, my favorite was actually Hills when we talked about Hills. Hills, oh my God. I like Hills. Because it was a Toys R Us. Hills is the best. I don't care. We had a Hills. That was like 30 minutes away. A lot. We were always at Hills. Hills was like proto-target for the Northeast. Like they were mostly Pennsylvania and Ohio, I think. But yeah, they had a great toy section. I still remember the masters of the universe section and I remember the, you know, Star Wars and they were like entire aisles. It was great. It was great. I remember going there. Yeah, I remember like the Teddy Rux bit and Cap. And I mean, I was too old for Teddy Rux bit, but I remember it. And I remember going to the Barbie aisle and the whole aisle be just Barbie dolls and stuff like that. I also remember the stupid joke. I remember it was something like, you know, why do kids like Dolly Parton because Hills are where the toys are? Yeah. That was fun. Lots of jokes. Anybody that's from this area knows what I'm talking about. And it smells like a carnival because you go in there and they have the hot dogs and the popcorn. It's literally a truck in Pittsburgh that they brought back the hills. It's a food truck that they do. They do the hills, food court, the little food snack thing. Oh my God. There's a food truck in Pittsburgh. It does. Our hills a deer. I mean, this is a very Pennsylvania thing, but a deer got loose in hills. And. Yeah, it's never really telling me. Well, I knew where it was. And it was like right off the woods. It was literally near a hill. And I thought, I thought that it was called hills when I was a kid because it was near a hill. It was like literally at the base of a hill. It's like the base of a mountain. Into this, into the store. And yeah, so somebody opened the door. There's a deer in the parking lot. And somebody opened the door to come out or the doors open and it ran inside hills. They had to, it was made the news. They had to go get this deer out of the hills. It was in the food court area and it broke a window, I guess, trying to get out. I know, it probably got hurt. No, it took off. I remember. I was there. It wasn't hurt. But we were watching it. We're sitting in the car watching us go down. Are you in there when it happened? Yeah, is there what happened? 'Cause like, look, there's a deer. I need you to talk about it. I know you were actually there. No, that's why I remember so well 'cause we were there and we were going back to the car. And I'm like, oh, look, there's a deer coming down the hill by hills. Isn't that funny? Oh, wait, the deer's going into the hill. Oh, wait, the deer's in hills. Okay, we got in the car. We're like, okay, this deer's very angry and very confused. I'm knowing your grandparents. They probably sat there just to watch what happened. Yeah. That was very angry. I think it was raining. I don't remember. But yeah, I got loose inside the hills and it broke a window and it made the news and everything. It was crazy. Anyway, reactions here. Stephen Ford, straight up corporate boomer cringe. Poggs says, I think non-AI productions are safe for a long time. No, I don't think they are. This person is correct. You must be living under a rock if you haven't seen how fast it's progressed. It's progressing very quickly. Over the last year. Yeah, it's not even, we're not even talking like, oh yeah, and you know, five years. Like five years ago, AI was not even a thing anybody really thought about. And then the last, you know, two years, it just has escalated. People are making fun of how bad AI art was and how bad the writing was. And oh, this AI generated script. It's terrible, ha, ha, ha. Let's laugh at it to, oh my God, they're doing entire commercials. And then the next step, I mean, you can tell. You can tell in several places. The other places, it looks pretty good. But I think those ones are based on a photo. I think they have photos. Based on like, you know, they had a purse and they based it on or something. They had a kid or something. Probably a scanned face. 'Cause you can tell there's a big difference between some of the scenes and other parts. We need toys for us to go bankrupt again. Holy shit. They took a bunch of employees and fire them again. Looks incredibly lifeless and empty. And again, look, I'm not trying to freak people out and I'm not even defending AI usage. I'm saying people said the exact same things about CGI. They did. I was there. I remember there. I remember there being a review. And I was in the Bay Area at the time. And there was a review for Toy Story. And the reviewer said, yeah, it was a pretty okay movie, but it looks pretty lifeless. And I don't think the CGI thing is going to catch on. And it hurts your eyes. And I don't think people are going to go to movies two hours of CGI. It's just, we're not there yet. So can small doses like Jurassic Park, but we're not quite there where people are going to pay to sit through. And the movie was a huge hit. And Disney within five or six years pivoted everything to CGI for better or for worse, you know? It is what it is. And Disney's going all in on AI. But it's interesting. Variety had an article that they were talking to people about that they thought about genitive AI in regards to content. So you just go down to the charts. So they have different charts. We're talking about consumer interest and engaging with media content created with genitive AI. And actually, it's funny. The biggest one is no difference in video games and stuff, watching a movie. If you knew a lot of people were less interested, et cetera. But when they go down, you can just wear on some more. There's different ones here. They have this chart about who's using it and who's not. In relation to video games and TV. And things like the blue is used regularly, but don't pay. The gray is not interested. The red is aware, but don't use it. And you can see the numbers for those starting to use it. And actually, not even the black ones in the blue. They're starting to go up, but for people using them and have subscriptions they pay for. But when they're talking about aspects of film and TV down here, depending on what the topic is, depends on what's acceptable. Digital replica of a deceased actor. Of course, most people aren't OK with it. Digital replica of a human actor. People are about the same, not OK with it. Synthetic actor who's in a real person, people are about the same, don't want it. Now, as you go on, scripts in screenplays, well, we're a little more accepting of that. The seal is dubbed with AI voices. 31%, it's down. They think that's when it's OK. Original music score, they're thinking it's mostly OK. Et cetera. So you go down further, and then you get down here, sound effects. Are illustrations for animation or special effects? Or is it character designs? Now you're coming into the 50-some percent range. People are fine with it. So more people are fine with it on things like that, but it's still putting people out of work. But when you're talking about actually a whole cloth using AI to replace people, generate a commercial like the Toys R Us one completely, they're not into it. They don't like the idea. They don't want it. Well, this guy reminds me of the-- it was at the Coca-Cola commercial, where their brain-backed celebrities was a pretty scary-- Yeah, and they had like, Nat King Cole was in it. Nat King Cole was in it. And that was a whole controversy, too, where they had Nat King Cole singing with his daughter. But I think in that case was-- I mean, that's something I think he probably would have wanted. But just like reanimating dead celebrities. But the thing is, I think we're getting to that point where we already have celebrities making deals for their voices. Pretty soon, they're going to make deals for their likenesses. And like I said, you think I'm kidding about Tom Hanks being in movies forever. I'm not kidding. Tom Hanks are-- It was so funny you said that. And that's what they used-- He was wanting to use this example. It was, because he's always doing everything. You know, oh, he's going to pull Express again, too, isn't he? He's doing another one, I think. But I'm like, yeah, they're just going to deage and use Tom Hanks forever. And then they turn around like, here's an entire movie of deage Tom Hanks. It's true. And the next thing will be Harrison Ford. He'll just sell his likeness to like make this film or something. I don't think he's the-- I don't think he-- I don't think he would. But-- He never know. He might. People are going to do that, though. They're going to have-- you're going to have an iconic actor. And they're going to sell their likeness or sell their voice or whatever. And we're just going to use them forever, casey case. I know someone else is-- Shaggy forever. No one else is going to get a turn. You know what I mean? And that's not good. I mean, I'm not saying it's good, but I'm seeing those in the general public. I think AI has been, in just the last two years, has been injected into everything. Even your banking apps, your phone, your computer, your everything. And people aren't even aware they're using it. The people that are having the biggest fit about it, obviously, are creatives, because I think that's the most obvious example of it putting people out of work. But it's-- I think people are just going to accept it. And I'm sorry, I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying they're going to. A already seeing it. They're accepting of some things, others, in a matter of time. Like, the AI, especially when it comes to language or music, they're talking about if you use forward language from localizations, they're down here below. They're likely. They're more likely to do it than people that are less likely to accept it, because they can make it sound like the actor originally. But instead of hiring the actor, because they can't speak that language, they're just going to make it sound like the actor. It's going to replace people. And it's not good, but they're more OK with sound and audio and early concept stuff with AI than it is to replace people whole cloth. But it's still a foothold. It starts somewhere. It's going to keep creeping up and creeping up. And eventually, it's going to be accepted. And you're going to have a vocal minority of people that are like, I don't want anything to do with it. Just like you had people that were against CGI animation. I understand it, because 2D animation was how it was for decades. You can't find 2D animators. No. And that was a huge problem. I remember with the Mary Poppins sequel that Disney did, they actually had to pull guys out of retirement. And I don't think that's right. They actually pushed these guys out of the workforce, because they just made the decision like, yep, yep. 3D is where it's at. We're not going to do 2D movies anymore. That's it. You don't want to retrain. You're done. Yep, you're done. You're out of here. And they had to go back. They had to get on their hands, knees, and crawl back, and bring these guys back. And we're like, nobody knows how to do 2D animation at Disney anymore. I mean, that's sad. So I think we need to find a balance here. But they're trying to say, here are some examples of people being so outraged. The general public doesn't know. They might think it looks weird, or it looks off, or it looks uncanny valley. But the general public doesn't know how this stuff actually gets made. And they're not going to care. And I know it makes people angry when I say that. And I think I'm actually supporting AI. I'm not. I'm just telling you-- I support it on things that can make-- it could streamline or be used as a tool to help people that are employed, not to replace people that are employed. Well, but it's going to, because what's going to happen is even in the animation, you're not going to need in betweeners. The technology is already there. That's true, no matter what you do, is someone's going to get gone. Yeah, you can do keyframes, and it can just fill in the blanks. And you just clean the stuff up a little bit. But that just shaves off how many hundreds of hours on a production if you're doing 2D. If actors agree to it, you want to do a reshoot. Well, you just do it digitally if you want to, you know? But they are. Yeah, Wesley Snipes is going to be passive-aggressive on another blade moving. You would just use AI to-- you know, like he was in the last one. I thought it was funny when he was getting them snarked. But anyway-- I thought that was hilarious. I think he would love to do it now. But yeah, it's here, guys. I don't know what to tell you. It's moving so much faster than anybody could have predicted. And yeah, we're there. And again, I would say a year or two, we're going to have an entirely AI-generated movie. I think that's where we're at right now. Was it like Simone? Is that what it was? Oh, where she was-- yeah. Yeah, except that they're actually going to be able to do it. Yeah, yeah. So let's wrap this up. Please subscribe for more pop culture news views and rants. We'll talk later. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thanks again for listening. More news and videos are available on our website at www.clownfishtv.com and on our YouTube channel, ClownfishTV. You can buy official merchandise, clownfish comic books, and more at shopclownfish.com. If you like this show, please consider subscribing and leaving us a positive review on iTunes and other podcast platforms. If you're looking to help support this show financially, go to clownfishsupport.com. If you would like to sponsor an episode of this show, send us an email at business@webrief.io. This podcast is a production of Clownfish Studios' LLC and webrief media proudly made in Pittsburgh, USA. [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music)