ToothBrushed
2022 · 1m
Directed by Christopher Wells
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic
A mock in-house commercial for a motel's public-access channel advertises the Travel Toothbrush by Tandon to its captive visitors.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A 60-second commercial for a product that doesn't exist, framed as real public-access filler—it's the kind of premise that sounds like nothing and somehow becomes everything. Wells nails the tonal whiplash between genuine motel-commercial sincerity and the slow-dawning wrongness of what he's actually selling.
The film demonstrates disciplined restraint in its formal language, using the established grammar of low-budget cable advertising to subvert expectation rather than overthrow it; this is satire that understands its source material's visual and sonic conventions deeply enough to trust the audience's recognition.
The entire short hinges on one choice: treating the absurd premise with complete deadpan earnestness, letting the copywriting and delivery carry all the comedy while the image stays boringly, faithfully real—it's a $0 effect that costs everything.