Flashback Monday: Reston: The Teevee Commercial

In past Flashbacks, we've looked at some of the sweeeeet advertising Reston placed in various publications of record in hopes of attracting sideburned 70s twentysomethings, pastel-wearing 80s yuppies, commuters, and clowns to our favorite earth-toned community. But this is apparently an advertisement that aired, presumably on a teevee station, at some point. It's... eerily cinematic.



As we stare at a pile of boxes deposited in front of a fancy lakefront home, a narrator that would have been right at home in the trailer for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre solemly intones: "Today a family is moving into a neighborhood of beautiful homes, golf courses, tennis courts, and over 400 acres of lakes, parks, and open space...."

But as the camera pans out, giving us an aerial view of... well, mostly trees, we realize that the next line is not "...until they realized they had disturbed an unspeakable evil..." Well, unless they leave those boxes out in the yard, in which case the DRB will fill that role quite nicely.

Our POV, as the kids in the movie industry probably don't say, continues moving upward, as an angelic chorus swells, until we see the Reston skyline at the time, at least if one black mauvescraper counts as a skyline. And then the voiceover continues: "If your family is looking for a nice place to live, this place probably sounds like heaven. It's not. It's Reston."

True, in so many ways.