Another year, another round of PETA’s “Great Ape Pledge” PSA campaign which aims to bring awareness of the plight of primates that suffer physical/psychological abuse at the hands of the entertainment industry. BBDO New York, which has taken the “Pledge” before with its nifty auto-correct effort from two years ago, joins forces with PETA once again for the spot above, which also features VO services from Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and VFX/production work from The Mill. If you stick around for the end, you’ll see that no real ape was used in the above PSA, which reemphasizes PETA’s whole purpose for launching “The Great Ape Pledge” in the first place.

Instead, the parties involved hammer home the message that primates shouldn’t be used as actors by creating  a photo-real CG chimp that’s seemingly at its wit’s end. If the stark message touched a nerve or inspired you to pledge (it’s perhaps a bit more effective than auto-correct messaging), you can go here. Credits after the jump.

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Nearly three months after 72andSunny introduced us to “The Replacer”–aka Fargo baddie Peter Stormare–in its campaign for Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Revolution trailer, the agency has brought back the character, now with sidekick JB Smoove in tow, for its Black Ops II – Uprising promo. Jesus, how many entries are in this franchise? Anyhow, the newly formed dynamic duo embarks on several replacing adventures from serving as weatherman to fixing cable, with Stormare being his usual, somewhat menacing self and Smoove giving us the fast-talking delivery that we first came to know and love in Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

We’re not sure what the budget is here, but as the Black Ops franchise expands, so do seem the timeframe and scope of the clips promoting it. But, if you have the patience for it (it is lunchtime on the East Coast, after all), don’t let us stop you from taking in this slightly entertaining, slightly grating clip. Credits after the jump.

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No, it’s not the ass-whooping you’re thinking of that he received back in the day. We can’t really expound, though, except to say the timing is perfect with this latest EA Sports spot from San Francisco-based Heat for the former’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 installment. Woods, if you didn’t know, won his eighth Arnold Palmer Invitational title yesterday in his home turf of Orlando and reclaimed his throne as the top-ranked golfer in the world in the process. Not sure if he’s doing his own stunts or that his sports star acting skills are on par with his good pal, Roger Federer, but we’re sure those are Arnie’s knuckles cracking. Credits after the jump.

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Fresh off of winning Olympic gold, Oklahoma City Thunder teammates Russell Westbrook and James Harden are among a few Team USA basketball athletes to star in a new round of spots from BBDO New York for Foot Locker. ESPN’s Darren Rovell is already raving that “Tear Away” (above) could be the “commercial of the year,” though we’ll stop short of that for now. Still, considering Team USA’s success in London and the fairly entertaining ideas put forth here, we can consider this a win-win for BBDO, which picked up creative duties for Foot Locker last fall. While “Tear Away” has Rovell gushing, we were just as amused by “The Melo’s” (below) starring Harden and Westbrook’s Olympics teammate Carmelo Anthony, who perhaps is taking a knock at his own inflated ego. Credits and one more spot starring, Westbrook, Kevin Love and the Miami Heat’s Chris Bosh after the jump.

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As a longtime follower of the Halloween mythology, I was somewhat struck when Rob Zombie decided to overhaul the series, but probably more so when he subsequently took his talents to Woolite. But, it doesn’t veer from the man’s vision and neither does this spot starring Ron Howard‘s brother Clint, who plays somewhat maniacal in this effort from Saatchi & Saatchi New York for the ant-killing brand, Amdro. It’s only thirty seconds, but damn, did those pesky ants have it coming to them. Credits after the jump.

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If you happened to catch any NFL games since the season kicked off on Thursday night, you probably saw any one of three or four FedEx ads that’s part of a new brand campaign from BBDO NY, which aims to emphasize its client’s “customer solutions including healthcare, automotive, small business and sustainability.” The spot called “Hollywood” (above), which boasts FedEx’s ability to, yes, deliver bovine heart tissue in time for surgery, seemed to get the most airplay from our point-of-view. But maybe it was the one below or either of the two after the jump that deserved more rotation–though none of this year’s FedEx spots really elicited a chuckle or two like last year’s “Exchange Student” effort that also launched during the NFL’s opening week. Check out two more from the 2011 campaign (wait, is that Bodie from The Wire as the FedEx guy in the spot called “Two-Sided”?) as well as credits for the various spots after the jump.

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Meet Smutley the Cat, a sex-crazed cartoon feline that humps just about everything in sight. If an animal has a pulse, Smutley will have sex with it and totally ignore using protection. It doesn’t even look like Smutley asks for consent most of the time, but somehow he roams the streets free from police.

Of course, Smutley is fictional, and unsafe sex is exactly what this spot from AIDES, the French association tackling HIV and AIDS, and the creative folks at Goodby are trying to fight against. Goodby partnered with multiple illustrators and animators for the above online spot, which definitely would not fly on U.S. broadcast television. This isn’t the first time AIDES used a somewhat shocking campaign. If you recall, just last year, AIDES and TBWA Paris released a spot titled “Graffiti” which featured a cartoon penis chasing around bathroom stall sketches of women and vaginas. Truly, Europe’s sense of sexual humor is bit different than what we consider appropriate for PSAs here in the States.

AIDES’ YouTube page states that the organization’s challenge with the spot was to “de-dramatize the somewhat embarrassing, if not plain awkward, moment when ‘rubber protection’ needs to be discussed.” Well, perverted anthropomorphic cartoons cats everywhere may have found their calling and a use for their nine lives. Credits after the jump…

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