Fun fact: Jorma Taccone, one-third of comedy troupe The Lonely Island, whose Saturday Night Live digital short "Dick in a Box" won an Emmy, directs AT&T's kid-infused "It's Not Complicated" TV commercials that are performing well on YouTube.
"I've been working with children on these spots for the past year and it's awesome," Taccone, who previously directed the comedy film MacGruber, told Mashable. "No severed genitals in the AT&T spots was a big difference between directing MacGruber and the TV commercials.
The ads for AT&T's 4G and 4G LTE networks pair children with adult Beck Bennett, who asks the kids such questions as, "What’s better: Bigger or smaller? Faster or slower?"
"With the AT&T spots, the entire day is improv," Taccone said. "We have scripted lines, too, but those hardly ever make it to the final product."
Taccone and Bennett initially teamed up with children in March 2012 for the "Brackets by Six-Year-Olds" campaign (video below)— the predecessor to "It's Not Complicated." First-graders offered advice to people filling out March Madness brackets.
Two commercials for "It's Not Complicated" even subbed out the kids in favor of NBA legends Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
No immediate end is in sight for the "It's Not Complicated" ad series, which comes from the minds at agency BBDO. It's already been extended six months longer than originally planned. And AT&T said it's happy with the social media buzz the ads are attracting.
"You can never tell when things will get exhausted," Taccone said.
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