This Ad Is a Viral Hit: 'Say NO to Crack, Say YES! to Roller Skating

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A commercial going viral on YouTube tells kids to say "no" to crack and "yes" to a Nevada roller rink.

The 90-second spot was developed for Roller Kingdom in Reno by comedy duo Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. It had nearly 240,000 views on YouTube by midday Friday, four days after it was posted online.

The campy video features a drug dealer offering pills to a boy, a man trying to lure children into a van with candy, and gang members inviting kids to spray paint bridges.

The children tell the bad guys they'd rather be roller skating.

Roller Kingdom owner Brad Armstrong tells KRNV-TV that the duo offered to produce the commercial for free so they could show it on their cable TV show, "Rhett and Link: Commercial Kings."

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Ready or not -- here is the actual ad:

The commercial was the idea of self-proclaimed internetainers Rhett and Link whose TV show, “Rhett and Link: Commercial Kings” debuted on IFC a year ago. Rhett and Link actually approached owner Brad Armstrong and offered to do this commercial free of charge so they could feature it on their TV show.

 

 

“I’m kind of an out of the box guy myself. So I was all for it. I was like yeah, let’s do it,” says Armstrong.

Local Reno resident, Michael Swift, says this creative commercial is something he would expect from Armstrong.

“I think he’s a big kid on the inside so the commercial comes out to be so creative,” says Swift.

And the anti-drug message is sinking in, but it’s only a part of the message.

“Roller skating has been a very beneficial part of my life. Not only am I in the business now, I probably avoided a lot of things they portrayed in the commercial by roller skating,” says Armstrong.