If Michael Scott Owned a Carwash

Most of us could use a good laugh these days. After all, the daily grind and pressures of business can be downright taxing. Despite signs of economic recovery, the lack of consumer spending in many retail segments is a constant reminder of how difficult it can be to work our way back to a point of comfort and collective exhale. Humor, though, can be an excellent, temporary distraction, and the best medicine is to find ways to laugh at ourselves.

Finding the absurd in the familiar helps us to not take ourselves so seriously. It’s OK to lighten our load with a chuckle, particularly if it’s suitably self-deprecating. This includes good-natured pokes at the carwash industry and our occasional overzealous ambition to improve the wash process.

With the launch of carwashTV.com, producer and founder Kyle Doyle not only has set out on an ambitious quest to chronicle the industry with a series of informative video interviews and profiles, he wants to entertain viewers. To that end, Doyle wrote and directed a comedic video about a fictitious carwash owner who goes a tad overboard in his commitment to service and quality.

Among the oddities at this particular carwash, the owner uses a pre-rinse of real human tears, deploys actual fine-tooth combs on floor mats and applies cooking spray on tires.

“It is amazingly shiny, and it leaves a convenient no-stick coating on the hubcaps,” the carwash owner says in explaining the cooking spray application.

The video works as a spoof of the television sitcom “The Office,” with the carwash owner loosely based on the Michael Scott character played by Steve Carell. Actor Dallas Stevenson does a nice turn as the quirky carwash operator. The video has some nice touches, including a detailed fake label on the pre-rinse drum containing human tears harvested from college students.

The debut of carwashTV this week includes six other serious videos with industry-related content, including some product highlights from Car Care World Expo. The average length of each spot is about three minutes. The videos are presented in a documentary style and shot in high definition. The site is definitely worth a look.

It will be interesting to watch the content evolve, and I hope Doyle continues to mine his creativity for the occasional off-beat presentation. It can be refreshing to laugh when times are tough, even if the butt of the joke is a fictitious buffoon who dries his customers’ cars with bunnies.

Check out the comedy clip below:

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