Classic Car Commercials: Chrysler Once Made a Town & Country Commercial Starring “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius”
The ten-year-old advertisement used a somewhat obscure cartoon character as its spokesperson, even after his television series was already cancelled
Jimmy Neutron always seemed like a better spokesperson for Dairy Queen, given the hair
Exactly 16 years ago today, Nickelodeon released Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, an animated film about an adolescent inventor who must stop an invading force of egg-shaped aliens. The film was an overall success, raking in $103 million at the box office, and even received a nomination for the very first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, ultimately loosing out to Shrek.
Evidently, Chrysler was impressed by the innovative prowess that Jimmy showcased during his titular movie and eventual spin-off television show. To show off the exciting new features of the 2008 Chrysler Town & Country, the automaker even developed a commercial starring Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.
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During the commercial, Jimmy presents his latest invention, the Neutron Dimension-ilizer, to his friends, Carl and Sheen. The exact function that the Dimension-ilizer serves is to replace objects in Jimmy’s animated world with objects from our own world.
Jimmy starts by replacing a cartoon tree in his front yard with a real-life tree, doing the same to an animated squirrel, who proceeds to chase Carl. However, when he uses it on the family car, it is transformed into the 2008 Chrysler Town & Country.
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The boys proceed to explore the interior cabin of the Town & Country, enjoying features like the Sirius backseat television system and Swivel ‘n Go chairs. The commercial points out that 35 of these features were new to the minivan segment at the time when the commercial first aired.
You can watch the ad in its entirety down below:
The choice to use characters from Jimmy Neutron, as opposed to a franchise like SpongeBob SquarePants, seems somewhat odd. Jimmy Neutron, while moderately successful, was never Nickelodeon’s most popular property. Even more odd is the fact that the television series was cancelled in November of 2006, roughly an entire year before the commercial was first released.
Regardless of Chrysler’s intent in choosing Jimmy Neutron as a spokesperson, the commercial did present the Town & Country’s features in an innovative way. Still, if Chrysler really wanted a pair of effective spokespeople to get customers ecstatic and excited about its new minivan, then it probably should have gone with SpongeBob and Patrick.
Zachary Berry currently resides in the Dayton, Ohio area. However, he enjoys traveling from place to place, as he was born in Oklahoma City and has also lived in Albuquerque and Orlando (such is the life of a military brat). Zachary graduated from Ohio University with a major in Strategic Communication, which is fancy talk for advertising and public relations. Beginning his career at The News Wheel as a lowly intern, he was able to climb his way to the top, eventually claiming his place within the last cubicle on the left. Other jobs that Zachary has held include driving around a safari truck at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. When he’s not putting his nose to the grindstone, Zachary enjoys watching and critiquing movies and television. See more articles by Zachary.