On the upside, we finally have a bank ad that makes you pine for the much-maligned 1990's ASB robot.
But whatever you think of the ANZ commercial, you could not call it, "The Worst Idea of All Time" - partly because the name is already taken.
In my recent attempts to round up the best NZ podcasts, the one that is called The Worst Idea of All Time turns out to the best.
There are other contenders, and Jeremy Wells as Mike Hosking is certainly going off right now, but it's part of a radio show. The Worst Idea Of All Time, is a pure podcast, and could only exist as such.
This is the thing. Up and coming local comedians/broadcasters Guy Montgomery and Tim Batt have set themselves the task of reviewing the film Grown Ups 2 once a week, until they can't.
They began this journey in February and are still going strong. Grown Ups 2 is an Adam Sandler film, so no surprises that it's puerile as heck and comes packed with a star-studded cast and a CGI moose.
It received the most nominations of any film at the 2014 Razzies, the Oscars of crap films. But it was beaten out by the execrable Movie 43, and deservedly so.
As Batt and Montgomery have detected, Grown Ups 2, bad as it is, somehow comes alive via repeated viewing. It's terrible but compelling. Also, I suspect the insanity of forcing themselves to watch and review every week is akin to the madness suffered by people who decide to kayak the Tasman or rollerblade the length of the country.
Guy Montgomery and Tim Batt. Photo / Supplied; HOS
Thankfully they're not pretending that they are doing it for charity. They're doing it for podcast fame, and it seems to be working.
In the half hour installments the pair riff on all matters relating to the movie, reliving the worst scenes, like "Steve Buscemi giggling after Salma Hayek kicks his wife in the jaw".
This is followed by a ramble about their own lives, and, occasionally, politics. According to Batt, John Key would make the better drinking buddy as "Cunliffe just seems too guarded".
After hearing episode one I happened upon the movie, and the podcast began to come alive. By episode 20 the pair seem just as appalled as they were at the beginning. They are clearly trapped in a torture chamber of their own making, like performance artists in a glass box.
In the latest installment Montgomery is calling in from London where he "got up at 7.30 this morning to watch Grown Ups 2 on my own - how sad is that? We'll get to talking about London later, but let's talk about the movie". "Must We?" Batt mutters.
Through the weekly updates - which are finding an audience around the world - we learn a lot about the movie and a little about the hosts. Montgomery is possibly the bigger Adam Sandler fan, "Happy Gilmore and The Waterboy blew my mind as a kid".
Batt is constantly looking for the door. "Is there a purpose to us doing this? No. I don't think there is a point." The point is beside the point. "It's the journey, numb-nuts" Adam Sandler might say.
Apparently the film was chosen as the subject for this comedic exercise after considering Con Air, which was rightly said to be "too good". This is a controlled train wreck, about another train wreck. A double down of crapness that Batt and Montgomery somehow make into compelling entertainment.
As I write this I hear that trans-Tasman kiwi kayaker Ross Donaldson has had to throw in the towel just a few kilometres from Taranaki. His epic - some would say insane - journey is over.
On The Worst Idea of All Time it won't be a freak wave or hypothermia that gets them, it will be themselves. But which one will crack first?
"I feel like I'm going insane", admits Batt, sounding as if he can't go on. "I know a guy who did too much nutmeg and f***** himself and had to move back in with his mum".
* Listen to The Worst Idea of All Time here.
