A commercial for Kleenex that aired in Japan during the 1980s became the focus of an urban legend. Derek Bassett last year described the legend on his blog Mohora:
So the story is this commercial for Kleenex tissues was shown on Japanese TV back in 1986 or so. It features an actress in a white dress sitting next to a child made up to look like a baby ogre. There is a really creepy song in a foreign language that when researched, is actually an old German folk song with the words “Die, die, everyone is cursed and will be killed.” Soon after the debut of the commercial, alot of people complained that it was creepy, or 気持ち悪い, and it was quickly pulled off the air. Soon after though, accidents started to befall the actors and crew of the commercial, including the child playing the baby ogre dying of sudden organ failure, the actress being committed to a mental institution where she is either still there, or at some point hung herself (depending on the version of the story).
Here's the commercial, which Derek uploaded to YouTube.
The ad is kind of creepy, but as you can hear, the song is not an old German folk song, but rather "It's a fine day" by Jane & Barton. Derek also notes that there were no strange deaths associated with the commercial. The woman in the ad, Keiko Matsuzaka, is still working as an actress.
There was also an "angel version" of the commercial that aired at the same time as the "demon version," and Derek has uploaded this to YouTube as well. (via The Home of Ads)
that was the weirdest commercial i've ever seen. i don't understand the point. lol
Posted by Nikki on Mon Oct 01, 2007 at 07:13 PM
I kept imagining the little boy sitting behind me on my bed while I tried sleep- like the meowing kid from the Ring. It was just a bit unsettling. Curse the Japanese and their curses!
Posted by Jackie on Tue Oct 02, 2007 at 04:20 PM
How exactly does one reach "Die, die, everyone is cursed and will be killed"? I don't mean how do you end up with that starting from "It's a fine day", because they obviously didn't have a point of reference (would they have had one, they would never needed a translation in the first place). But how do you reach that starting from NOTHING? I mean, you hear some words you don't understand in a song, so, obviously, what could they possibly mean other than "Die, die, everyone is cursed and will be killed", right?
Posted by Gutza on Wed Oct 03, 2007 at 04:45 AM
I actually think the angel one was creepier. What was up with that music? And at the end it sounded like someone screamed.
Either way, they both look like something you would see on a horror movie. Like the main character is watching TV, and suddenly that baby ogre snaps it's head up and starts talking to them or crawls out of the TV.
Posted by Sakano on Thu Oct 04, 2007 at 07:31 AM
There's another version of the ogre ad, with the ogre playing with the kleenex.
The baby Oni, which could be translated as demon or ogre, is a pastiche of the character Ten from the popular Anime comedy series Urusei Yatsura, which was running at the time as the Kleenex commercial.
Posted by Mark on Mon Aug 18, 2008 at 07:19 AM
Spammers are becoming more and more cryptic.
Posted by Sakano on Wed Dec 02, 2009 at 01:13 PM
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Either way, they both look like something you would see on a horror movie. Like the main character is watching TV, and suddenly that baby ogre snaps it's head up and starts talking to them or crawls out of the TV.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ppTrUaH1LWw&mode=related&search;=