Paramount+’s TV Spots Are the Best Crossovers Since Avengers: Endgame
Endgame brought viewers an emotional team-up, but has nothing on Paramount+’s Dora the Explorer and Beavis and Butthead collaboration.
CBS All Access is being rebranded as Paramount+, providing a streaming platform for content from the myriad of ViacomCBS networks. Starting March 4, CBS, Nickelodeon, ComedyCentral, BET, MTV and even The Smithsonian Channel will all be available through the hub of this new streaming service, along with live sporting events and CBS All Access originals, including Twilight Zone, Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery. More interesting than the streaming service itself, however, are the Paramount+ TV spots that advertise the upcoming platform.
The earliest ads for Paramount+ introduce a team of travelers trying to make their way up Paramount Mountain, the snow-covered peak featured in the company’s logo. The group is made up of characters from a wide cross-section of the networks included in Paramount+, with sports stars, talk show hosts, fictional heroes and even cartoons joining together on the journey. Their collaboration may be the most epic team-up since Avengers: End Game.
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The strange amalgam of intersecting storylines is enough to make the first commercial interesting, including one moment that frames Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ Spock and Beavis and Butthead in the same shot while the authoritative narrator speaks of “intellects.” The characters poke fun at themselves and at each other, playing up the tropes they’re known for in a near-parody format. The characters feel true to themselves even in the oddly composite world of their mountain quest.
But the commercials go further than just blending content. Each ad builds on the previous to tell a cohesive story of the journey up Paramount Mountain and how the team contends with the obstacles in their path. The series of TV spots has a definitive order based on how far up the mountain they’ve climbed, and contributes to the overall narrative, but can stand on its own as a funny bit of advertising.
Sometimes they even backtrack, telling the same moment with two different emphases. One commercial features Star Trek: Discovery‘s Burnham warning the team that an upcoming ice bridge won’t bear their weight. This leads the rest of the team to fight over who should remove their shirt in order to reduce their weight, expelling Reno 911‘s Lieutenant Dangle. In a different version of this, Burnham warns the team that the ice bridge has a crack in it, leading Beavis and Butthead to giggle about the double entendre.
Telling the same story but highlighting different characters makes these commercials even more compelling. Not only does it feel like better storytelling than a marketing campaign deserves, but it also showcases the different content that Paramount+ will feature in a way that could bring different audiences to the platform without having viewers feel like the message was shoved down their throats.
As all good quests eventually come to an end, so too do the Paramount+ stars eventually reach the peak of the mountain, where things only get weirder. In a 90-second commercial slated to air during the Super Bowl, Patrick Stewart in a dapper tuxedo is waiting for them at the summit, sipping drinks served to him by Stephen Colbert. He is revealed to be the narrator throughout their journey and the omniscient being responsible for bringing them all up the mountain.
The ending is surreal, leaving a slew of disparate stars inadequately dressed for the winter stranded together at the peak of Paramount Mountain, wondering what to do next. Stewart tells them that this is their home now, meaning metaphorically that their shows are all available on Paramount+ but literally that these characters must stay at the summit.
With nothing left to do, they throw a dance party, started by none other than Sponge Bob Square Pants. The strangeness of this ending doesn’t go unnoticed — when Colbert summons the subterranean Sponge Bob to begin the dance party, he dryly remarks, “Sure, let’s make it weirder.” It’s a wild ending for a wild ride of a marketing campaign, but its self-aware nature and weird, surreal content make a compelling case for the streaming platform.
The Paramount+ TV spots do a remarkably good job of telling a cohesive story in small, amusing bites. Each commercial highlights a different cross-section of CBSViacom properties, serving as effective advertising for Paramount+’s content while allowing fans to witness favorite characters interacting in ways that only fan-fiction previously provided. While these commercials were no more than a metaphor for the streaming service — a fact that the characters are explicitly aware of — they’re also entertainment in their own right.
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