Tommy Lee Jones built Great Wall of China, pyramids, according to Japanese TV ad

Bet you didn't know that Tommy Lee Jones built the pyramids at Giza or the Great Wall of China! Thankfully, this recently-released Japanese television commercial for a sweetened, canned coffee beverage sets history straight. YouTube Video (via Danny Choo)

• [Anonymous]

  anonymous #7 – you can get boss coffee varieties at most local asian grocers. I go every couple weeks and stock up on ramen bowls and canned coffee (and sometimes pocky)

• [_OM_]

  …This is nothing. When Brian Boitano built the pyramids, he also beat up Kublai Khan.

• [Anonymous]

  Sweet, Utada Hikaru’s cover of Moon River for the background music.

• [Anonymous]

  I wish we could get boss coffee over here.

• [VagabondAstronomer]

  American advertisers know precisely dick. These are great!

• [tem dmindu]

  For a while – they’ve changed them now – there were ads on most of the Boss vending machines that were just: BOSS (picture of Tommy Lee Jones next to it, looking tired).

  Best ad ever.

• [Anonymous]

  Noone plays a good tired man like Tommy.

• [benher]

  The “undoukai” (exercise day?) one is the best!

• [Anonymous]

  “The story is actually that Tommy Lee Jones is an alien anthropologist sent to study humans on Earth”

  Ok, you´ve sold it to me. Let´s petition Chris Columbus to expand this into an imax 3d feature, pronto!

• [Itsumishi]

  These are just too good!
  I quite like the 1970′s cop one.

  Couldn’t find the Undoukai one, or the Pyramid one with subtitles unfortunately.

• [Zadaz]

  I’m so happy to see they’re still making more of these. I saw the first ones in probably ’05 or ’06 and they were very simple, understand, and fantastic. Everyone one they’ve made since then has been better than the last. (Though they clearly they left the “simple and understated” behind.) And the subtext that Tommy Lee Jones is slowly learning to become the perfect Japan man is a surprisingly powerful ad strategy.

  (Is Calorie Mate still hiring Jack Bower to sell them? Those commercials had much higher WTF-ness.)

• [donna brown]

  That is nice video of how Great Wall of China Build. I am very glad to see this video (or making of Great walll of China).This in the 7 Wonders of World.

• [nnguyen]

  Xeni, that youtube account is suspended. I haven’t been able to find another version.

• [Felton]

  Hahaha! So he’s given us two wonders of the world and many fine film performances. Take note, Nicholas Cage. He’s making you look bad.

• [Anonymous]

  Uh oh!!! Looks like Chuk Norris has some competition! I would’ve had Chuk doing these things.

• [kmoser]

  I was hoping to see a billboard in the background of Bill Murray hawking Suntory.

• [Matt Deckard]

  These commercials are great. They’ve been running for a few years in Japan (I first noticed them when I was there in early 2008 and they had already been running for about a year at that point), and I’m surprised and delighted to see that they’re still making new ones. It seems like Jones really has fun with them.

  You can check out YouTube for some translated versions. The story is actually that Tommy Lee Jones is an alien anthropologist sent to study humans on Earth. The tagline at the end translates to something like “For this terrible, beautiful world”

  • [ZippySpincycle]

    Just watched all 19 of the ads on Youtube…strangely poignant for advertising, really; my guess is that the concept was pitched by a Vonnegut fan. I can’t imagine an American advertiser using the tagline “for this terrible, beautiful world.”

• [Matt Deckard]

  These are two of my favorite:
  Delivery and Revenge.

• [danma]

  I saw them when I was in Japan in October 2006 so they’ve been running for over three years now. They can’t get enough of Spaceman Jones…

  Boss Coffee is my favorite Japanese canned coffee, as much for the Stalin-esque man on the can as the coffee itself.