Those viral marketeers start EARLY

Yeah, I know, I know -- this site hasn't been getting a lot of attention lately. But if it makes you feel any better, it's just a reflection of how full my schedule has been these days. I've got a backlog of comics I haven't touched, a backlog of movies I haven't seen (I really want to catch Ratatouille, Sicko, Rush Hour 3, and The Simpsons before they disappear from the theaters), a new game I've barely touched, and a zillion other things I've had to put on hold for the time being -- though, hopefully, not for too much longer.

Anyway, in a rare moment of spare time, I was bopping around the intertubes, catching up on the time-wasting gossip I've been missing in the last few months, and I stumbled across this super-slick (and bandwidth-intensive) site:

Buy n Large

For those not in the know, it looks like Yet Another Retail Outlet Web Site™. However, a second glance lets you identify the tells which reveal it's a fake, such as the privacy notice -- "In order to help provide our services, we occasionally provide information to ourselves on our own behalf." -- or the overabundance of labor-saving robots and unabashed pro-consumerism slogans.

As it turns out, Buy 'n Large is a major facet of Pixar's animated movie, Wall-E -- coming to theaters in summer 2008 -- and the web site is their effort at laying some early promotional groundwork for the film. You won't find Wall-E here, but you will find his ancestors, Sall-E, Nanc-E, Gar-E, and Wend-E, as well as a truckload of articles, press releases, mission statements, and other fictitious corporate jibber-jabber (now with extra snark!).

I don't know about you, but considering the depth of the content... well, I'm pretty darn impressed that someone went to all this trouble for a movie won't be out for another eleven months.

But then again, I've always enjoyed a good parody...