Ah, the celebrity endorsement of a car. Sometimes it works perfectly, like Tom Hiddleston for Jaguar. Sometimes it scratches heads, like Blake Griffin in a Kia. However, sometimes it reveals something you’re not entirely sure you were meant to see. That’s exactly the case with legendary bearded rockers ZZ Top for Honda.
Back in the 1990s, Western celebrities starring in Japanese television commercials was big business. Brands loved the star power, and celebs generally had a sense that these commercials would rarely be seen by North American or European audiences. Keep in mind, this is back when ‘getting the bag’ was still referred to as ‘selling out’ and thus somewhat frowned upon. Then the internet came along and preserved many of these commercials for future generations. Funny how that works.
Anyway, in 1998, Honda was getting ready to launch a wonderfully weird kei SUV with a bit of a throwback theme. Unlike pretty much all of its rivals, this thing was mid-engined with viscous-coupling all-wheel-drive, borrowing its engine from the Acty kei truck. However, instead of being entirely forward-looking, Honda borrowed a page from its past with both the styling and the nameplate: This new machine would be called the Honda Z and visually harken back to the original Honda Z of the early 1970s.
To whip up the public’s appetite for the Z, Honda needed a bit of glitz, something era-appropriate, and also a jingle. The choice was obvious: ZZ Top. The car-crazy rockers from Texas. Put any car next to Billy Gibbons, the late Frank Beard, and the late Dusty Hill, and it instantly becomes cool. Not that the Z needed it, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
However, there’s something weird going on with the song that ZZ Top wrote for the commercial, “ZZ Top on the Z.” Now, I do have to preface this by saying I am Canada, and Canada has something I like to call Radical Z Anarchy. Officially, it’s Zed, but I’ve heard it both ways for cars like the Datsun 240Z and Chevrolet Camaro Z28. A Corvette ZR1 is almost universally pronounced Zed-are-won up here, as it is in most of the English-speaking world outside of America. However, ZZ Top is Zee-Zee Top. Don’t mess with Texas and all that.
Despite this, because the Honda Z uses the rest-of-world pronunciation of Z, ZZ Top seems to refer to themselves using the same rest-of-world pronunciation in the jingle. That’s weird enough to throw my entire brain for a loop, re-weave the fabric of my reality, and make me question linguistics. Then again, what are ZZ Top if not slightly weird?
[Editor’s Note: It’s funny, I wrote about this incredibly weird and wonderful little Honda and their alliance with the fuzzy guitarists of ZZ Top way back in 2013. I included the lyrics to the song then, and I feel they should be included now, too:
Honda Z! Z! Z!
You’re fine, drivin’
Guys make a noise drivin’!
I’m dying to make you mine
I’crazy for Z!Try it, now! try it, now!
You’re too cool Z!Honda Z! Z! Z!
You’re strong, do no wrong
Beat everything shinin’!
You slip along, and leave me lone
But I won’t give up Z!Hold it now! Hold it now!
I want you so bad Z!(Guitar Solo)
Thank you. – JT]
That Texas sort of weird, the kind that spawned the Butthole Surfers and DJ Screw. There’s a certain eccentricity to blazers and beards and hot rods, and if Zed fits in the instance, who would I be to question it?
Anyway, ZZ Top’s cool, the Honda Z’s cool, and this commercial’s a bit kitschy but still cool. Really, did you expect anything else from a mid-engined, all-wheel-drive kei SUV that was eventually available with turbocharged power? Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get this jingle out of my head.
Top graphic image: Honda
I prefer the ad for the Honda City with Madness.
It’s the heavy heavy Honda sound!
The nuttiest sound around!
There was a short lived cover band around Ottawa bars call Zed Lepplin. They should have used them.
On another note: 1998. Mercedes do you have one of these on order yet?
I can’t be 100% sure at that particular image quality… but that drummer don’t look like Frank Beard to me. Maybe he couldn’t be available for the commercial shoot.
Seconded. Maybe it was his cousin Harry Moustache?
oh jesus christ the song keeps going after the first 28 seconds and just what the what?
As an Aussie colour me confused by the Zee vs Zed pronunciation due to Pulp Fiction soundtrack CD that I played a lot in 1995 which had a bit of the dialogue including the gimp dungeon scene (fabulously parodied in the Simpsons best episode (um, a ‘kids’ show?)) Which included the line “Zeds dead baby, Zeds dead”. So now I learn that Americans only pronounce Zed when it’s a name?
As an Aussie who moved to the US when I was 8 years, I have been on both sides of the zed vs zee fence. When I first moved here, hearing “Nissan 300 Zee Ex” sounded so wrong after being used to “300 zedex.” But now “Zed Zed Top” sounds horribly wrong.
Hey now! Let’s not forget Joe King Carrasco! The only person known to have jumped into the San Antonio River and survive.
Wait, wtf? Some people actually pronounce Z as “Zed” and not “Zee”? I’m decently well-traveled, I thought, and even have a brother living in Canada, yet have never heard anyone pronounce it that way.
Somebody doesn’t watch Top Gear:
https://youtu.be/g4CPBfpnye0?t=266
Also, mmmmmmmmmmm, barbacoa!!! I hope you serve yours without teeth, though.
The majority of English speaking countries use Zed, not Zee.
A little research since you piqued my curiosity shows that English got it from the French Zède who got it from the Greek Zeta
As a Canadian, I think I do go with zed most often, but I doubt I’m consistent. I blame that on learning the alphabet using the alphabet song, in which (the presumably American) writers intend for Z to rhyme with V. You can sing it Canadian-style if you want, but it’s not as good musically.
Zeds dead baby, Zeds dead.
And some have a horizontal stroke in the center of the Z.
I don’t know if there’s a correlation.
I am also ignorant of whether the American ZZZ for snoring ???? is pronounced zed zed zed elsewhere. Do people say “catching some Zeds?”
And, what about Inspector Clouseau?
But Zed Zed Top? Really?
In British English it’s always zed.
I’d usually call the band ‘Zee-Zee Top’, but if you asked a random Brit who’d never heard of them, they’d pronounce it zed.
Hey now! Let’s not forget Joe King Carrasco! The only person known to have jumped into the San Antonio River and survive.
He of the ludicrously long guitar cable?
I remember a few times when he would leap into the audience tangling audience members up in the cord. Once at CBGB he made it all the way out the door and was playing on the Bowery.
Even weirder than how they’re pronouncing “Z” is how they’re pronouncing “Honda”. It sounds like “how-oon-da”.
Easing down the highway in a new Honda Z
I had a geisha in front, I had three more in the back
They sporting kimono dresses, wearing geta sandals
They smoking Kiseru and wearing white socks too
‘Cause we bad, we’re nationwide
Yeah, we bad, we’re nationwide
I think it lost something in translation…
Some Rush should help with that: try listening to Y-Y-Zed.
I was thinking those were some pretty funky shaped guitars when I saw the video, but the bottom still shot of them both being a Z shape? Totally awesome.
I’m richer for having experienced this, thanks.
Maintaining a beard is expensive.
I always found it funny that their drummer, the one without the beard, is named Frank Beard.
He already had one beard, he didnt need two.
Wait, what about a gay ZZ Top cover band with only one member with facial hair. The others have heterosexual partners to keep up appearances. As long as everyone has a beard in one way or another, it’s legit.
ZZ Bottom?
COTD!
RIP