About
LifeCall Informercial Parodies are a series of short sketch videos on Vine and YouTube spoofing a well-known 1980s TV commercial for LifeCall, an American personal emergency response service mainly geared towards senior citizens with mobility problems, in which an elderly woman named Mrs. Fletcher uses the LifeCall pendant device to call for paramedics by yelling “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” after having fallen in the bathroom.
Origin
The LifeCall commercial which features the line “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” was first aired in 1989, and first uploaded to YouTube by YouTuber HauntedGeorge[1] on August 10th, 2007. As of July 2014, the video has gained over 1 million views.
On September 12th, 2013, a parody of the commercial titled “Ghetto Life Alert!” was uploaded by YouTuber DashieXP[3], as of July 2014, the video gained over 380,000 views.
Spread
The first LifeCall parody uploaded to Vine was posted by Viner rham[4] on February 27th, 2014, which has gained over 190,000 loops as of July 2014. In less than six months over 6,000 Vines[6] have been tagged #lifealert.
On April 7th, 2014, Funny or Die[7] uploaded a video titled “Life Alert Remix” which featured the original commercial autotuned to sound like a club song. As of July 2014, the video has gained over 40,000 views.
On July 31st, 2014, AdWeek published an article titled “Kids on Vine Are Weirdly Obsessed With Spoofing ’I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up’ Mrs. Fletcher would be proud.” On August 1st, The Daily Dot[5] published a post titled “Teens love spoofing the ‘Life Alert’ commercial on Vine” which featured a roundup of the Vine parodies.
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1]YouTube – Haunted George
[2]The Daily Dot – Teens love spoofing the ‘Life Alert’ commercial on Vine
[5]The Daily Dot – Teens love spoofing the ‘Life Alert’ commercial on Vine
[6]AdWeek – Kids on Vine Are Weirdly Obsessed With Spoofing ’I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up’ Mrs. Fletcher would be proud
[7]Life Alert – Life Alert Remix