"They write the lies but I tell the truth"

June 11, 2014 8:41 AM

I have no idea how much of this is staged vs actually going off script, but either way Tom Hanks at CES 2009 is pretty entertaining.
posted by kmz (10 comments total)

Dang that's satisfying.
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:20 AM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

This was really fun once it got going. Not sure how much was staged, but from a comedy standpoint, his getting barbs in by pretending he was reading them off the teleprompter was just perfect.
posted by Mchelly at 10:27 AM on June 11, 2014

Man oh man Hanks just eviscerates the whole formality of long-form product introduction and marketing. He woke up on the no-bullshit side of the bed that day.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 11:10 AM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

11:56 had me laughing me pretty good!

"Look, I apologize! I don't want to live under Sanyo's rules anymore!"
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 11:35 AM on June 11, 2014

From now on, Tom Hanks is required to be the speaker for every TED talk in the future.
posted by littlesq at 3:03 PM on June 11, 2014

Did Howard Stringer write all of it, not just that one bad joke? Because the script was genuinely terrible, and I can understand why no one would want to deliver those lines.
posted by johnofjack at 6:45 PM on June 11, 2014

It looks to me like he was already dragging his heels, pissed about the Sony Pictures contractual obligation and the early A.M. appearance. Then, walking onto the stage and seeing the TEN TELEPROMPTERS scrolling that truly inane blather just launched him into an inspired delirium of righteous indignation.
posted by General Tonic at 6:53 PM on June 11, 2014

It was a dare. Tom Hanks couldn't be a asshole.
I believe Tom is the new Jimmy Stewart.
I want to see a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, with Tom as Rupert, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brandon, Joaquin Phoenix as Phillip, and Martin Freeman as David. There's a movie!
posted by QueerAngel28 at 6:55 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

That was wonderful, no matter HOW you slice it. Hanks is savvy enough to know that by going off-script he can generate Sony more attention than they would have gotten otherwise (like the fact that we are watching/talking about it now) WHILE he gets some genuine barbs in there.

PS... His son Colin is wonderful in the movie Orange County and now in the great, GREAT FX version of Fargo (90 minute finale to the first 10 episode segment next week. CAN'T WAIT. It's the only television I watch.)
posted by spock at 9:02 PM on June 11, 2014

I saw Hanks on Letterman talking about playing rouch football under the Washington Monument. letterman asked if he was afraid of being arrested, and he said he could always drop the H Bomb. The H Bomb?

"I'm Tom Hanks, I can do whatever I want."

The fact that he uses this power to tear up intros and play touch football makes me respect him more.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 7:16 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]