Harrah’s Southern California Resort in San Diego County recently officially declared that the 30 acres the casino occupies on the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians reservation is the city of “Funner.” It brought long in the tooth former TV action star David Hasselhoff onboard as its first mayor.
In nearby Valley Center residents have been scratching their chins in puzzlement at a series of remarkably realistic looking faux highway signs that have appeared on private property informing motorists that “Funner” is just down the road.
Funner was the marketing brainchild of San Diego-based marketing agency i.d.e.a. They created 30-second TV spots featuring Hasselhoff as the first mayor. The agency’s founder and creative officer Ryan Berman declared “Who’s funner than ‘The Hoff’? He’s the quintessential first mayor.” The TV spot is running in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties.
Hasselhoff, who was the star of the 70s, and once set a Guinness Book of World Records record as “Most watched man on TV,” appeared for years in “The Young and the Restless,” and later in “Knight Rider,” where his virtual sidekick was a talking car, and perhaps most watched of all, in “Baywatch.” This month he made a momentary cameo on “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” and has done voiceover work on “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.”
Addressing potential English language sticklers preemptively, Berman added, “ ‘Funner’ isn’t a word. It’s a place. We don’t want our resort dwellers to simply experience fun. We want them to have ‘funner.’ It’s the actual promise of the property.”
The name change is actual an official act of the Rincon Tribal Council, which voted to renamed the land occupied by the casino. Apparently, the U.S. Postal Service will also deliver mail to Funner, California, according to Berman.
