You Have a Collect Call...From "The Sensible Alternative" · 9:46am January 9th
Or: Marmy's Got a Weird and Ironic Relationship With Her Insurance Company.
History time, buckle in, I'm gonna melt your brains with sheer boredom.
The "Bob wehadababyitsaboy" commercial has transcended generations. Your mom knows it. Your dad knows it. We all have quoted it in real life at least once (though never tried it because...I mean...look, the commercial put out a disclaimer disguised as a "don't commit a crime and get arrested" warning, and we all abided by it). But the hilarious thing is, no one knows where it came from. Everyone has different guesses as to what company put out such a legendary commercial. You'd drop dead at how many people think it's for 1-800-COLLECT just because the primary focus of the ad is collect calls.
One of the most popular Mandela effects, and one that is one of my favorites, is the ever-classic "does George have a tail" mystery. As someone who watched the cartoon series as a child and as someone who is just a tad familiar with the books, I can confirm that he does not, and has not, had a tail. But there are people who, of course, believe otherwise.
Take that, and put it on a far less serious level. You got your perfect Mandela effect.
And may I present to you the origins of the commercial...Spike, drumroll!
Ah...ahhhh...wait for it...waaaaaaait for it...
There it is! Cloth pulled off! Et voila!
(If you listen closely, you can hear the sounds of hundreds of jaws hitting the floor in beautiful "how much is this going to cost me not in car insurance, but in health insurance" harmony.)
Yes, that's right -- it's a GEICO commercial. Specifically, a GEICO commercial from the days when insurance companies decided they had to slap "Direct" at the end of their names so they were called GEICO Direct.
According to the GEICO Wiki -- which, like Fandom overall, is absolutely not a trustworthy source, but I'm rolling with it because it's about the closest thing I got -- the commercial originated in 2000, only a sparse year or two after the Gecko made his debut (voiced by Kelsey Grammer of Cheers and Frasier fame, though there's been talks about whether the Gecko actually sounds like Grammer or if it's someone else voicing him). It stopped airing around 2002, but made enough of a lasting impact to come back to the airwaves 16 years later as part of the company's "The Best of GEICO" contest alongside other iconic ads and receive a stinger that, at least as far as I can tell, had never aired on TV before. Unfortunately, it lost in a sea of 1.5 million votes overall to the "Hump Day" ad, though given how well it aged with the advent of cellphones and the near-complete disappearance of...well, yeah, collect calls (really, is anyone collect-calling anymore?), the loss has some justification. It's nice to know even the company that made the "Bob Wehadababyitsaboy" ad is well-aware of how much of a Mandela effect it is, though.
I've had You Had a Collect Call in my drafts for a long while. As it says in the description, it was originally an entry into the second iteration of the Thousand Words Contest, and was set to be entered into the Comedy category. As I sat on the idea, though, I began to realize that pulling off a Mandela effect of such iconic magnitude, especially where the Mane Six were all involved, couldn't fit into 1000 words in a way that wouldn't make people comment with something along the lines of "this is way too rushed" or "did you ever think of not hitting the Publish button?" So I held off on it, decided to submit The Master of the Meta Deck instead, and figured I would expand on it when I got around to it.
Well, times change...and apparently so does my motivation, even if I have to beat the absolute hell out of it as a course-correction measure.
Also, finding cover art of Pinkie using a phone that wasn't from PONIES: The Anthology was a really hard feat. That too.
Coincidentally enough, this isn't the first GEICO-related ponefic I've made. Over a year ago I published The Filly and the Geckoning as a sort of Halloween treat, which was based on my true childhood fears of the company. While I look back on it with disdain now -- really, it's not all too stellar, but have you ever seen worse? -- it was fun to take something that had terrorized lil' ol' kid me and inject poni into it. Who knows, maybe I'll take another crack at the concept one of these days. The true fear, after all, is me making you all cringe. You should have seen my Wild Kratts fanfics from back in the day. Struck fear into the hearts of entire armies before I tore that all down and threw it all into the dump and said "no more." You're welcome in advance.
But I digress. Hopefully you all enjoy my first fic of 2024 to some degree or another. I've found a couple flaws in my overall writing with it that made me really open my eyes, so I'll try and work on those so I can improve for future stories. Rest assured, though...no more GEICO crossovers, at least for the immediate future. They're goofy and silly, sure, but they tax on me after a while.
