September 15, 2004
Yes, I know supplies are limited, unless you're selling sand, drops of water, or anything else that might outnumber the population of the globe.
Stop, just stop, creating commercials portraying the happily married couple, comprised of the thin, pretty, responsible wife, and the fat, unshaven, childish husband. Fat, unshaven, childish husbands belong with fat, unshaven, childish wives. That's how it works, and that's how it should be. Since media feces apparently imitates life, it disturbs me to know that these commercials are created by the fat, unshaven, childish executives of the world. Yeah boys, don't forget to gas up the car on the way home tonight, before sitting down to that delicious margarine supper.
Who decided on Joan Cusack for US Cellular's spokesperson? She's had way too many whacks to the head and certainly can't speak without pulling a neck muscle. And now, Richard Pryor for Sprint! Stephen Hawking for Nike! And now, Muhammed Ali will show us all why the only brand he trusts is Ginsu! Oh oh, um, lil' help? Someone call Chef of the Future. Can it core "a" apple? Jeez, we've gone from Smith Barney's John Houseman campaigns to Joe Walsh slobbering as he sells us fencing.
I'm reasonably happy that the idiot who does the voiceovers for movie commercials is now catching parody-flak for starting every commercial with "In a world..." I know it isn't his fault, but the poor guy has to be the voice of the stupidist "creative minds" in the country? I usually steer clear of poking fun at Hollywood in general, they're too pathetic to merit any real criticism anymore. Seeing them produce bad movies is like watching a four-year-old run off with plans to build a nuclear submarine using his soon-to-be-swallowed lego pieces.
And the next time someone uses James Brown's "I Feel Good" or Aretha Franklin's "Respect" as a bed for another movie commercial, make no mistakes - I will find the 46 year-old bonehead responsible for this decision and literally have him/her sucked through a military jet's turbines. Twice. Sing it Aretha : "T - U - R- B - I - N - E... what that engine did to me..."
It's somewhat unsettling to still hear jingles on the radio. Isn't this from a bygone era?
I laugh when I hear the ghetto, hip hop approach that McDonald's uses in many of their campaigns. Are we pandering to our best customers? How long until we change our name to "MackDonalds"?
It's always funny when a prescription drug commercial comes on. They spin together a majestic, convincing pitch, then completely negate it with 10 seconds of mentioning the possible side effects. And for that matter, I'm seeing a lot of young males in these Viagra clone commercials. They never seem fat, unshaven or childish. Where's the justice?
I'm fairly sick of one of those "Back to School" commercials from Dell, in which they show a person's Dell being dropped, dripped on, or assaulted by various "wild" activities in a dorm. I can't sufficiently express how irritating this commercial became. First, at a party, this dreadlocked ignoramous is apparently trying to attract (presumably) a girl by dancing and shaking his stupid hips, and in doing so, bangs into a table to the point where a Dell laptop falls right to the floor. I would have, at very least, rammed that idiots head through many walls. Then some asian-american boy, meticulously stamped from the overused boilerplate of all second generation asian-american college kids, is shown swinging at a golf ball, which smacks into a person's computer. "Fore" he sheepishly announces. Funny stuff. Again, if that happened to me, that painfully typical punk college kid would've received a painfully typical 8 iron to his nether regions.
Our local grocer, Jewel, always makes deplorable attempts to attach current events to their routine sales events.
"Arbor Day means ice cold Canfields creme soda. Only 79 cents for a 2 liter bottle. Quell those election day hunger pangs with Farmstand radishes, only 19 cents a pound. Kick off that Super Bowl gathering with Corn King bacon, only 79 cents a package!"
Then for New Year's Day sales, they always peddle idiotic, G rated stuff like deli-sliced corned beef or Tyson whole fryers. They should pitch it this way:
"Clean up your pools of puke with Bounty paper towels, 2 for 99 cents. Ease your New Years tensions with EPT pregnancy tests, only $16.99 for a limited time."
Commercials for diapers, tampons, toilet paper, and the like are always funny. They have to use persuasive, descriptive rhetoric without cutting to the chase. Some day they'll just cut to the chase... "When it's a hot muddy mess, Charmin toilet paper is best!"
Instead we suffer with concepts of softness, freshness, leak prevention. C'mon boys, prove it - get some demonstrations going, with real people and nasty graphic examples. I wanna see these products really work.
Local company owners: stop, just stop, appearing in your own commercials, unless it's for less than 5 seconds. I can't believe people still do it, but yep - some vertical cadaver with his hands in his pocket, explaining his crazy sale, where he's out of his mind and all his cars must go. He'll stand there, not moving a muscle, with all the affect of Jack Webb, talking about how wild and nutty things are going to get. Drop a hundred extra bucks and pay some starving young actor to do something more appropriate.
No more commercials for athlete's foot, or itching, or rashes. Just stop, I eat in front of the TV, ok?
Puppies and little kitty cats are cute enough, so leave things as is. Can advertisers do that? No, they have to do that creepy computerized mouth animation thing, so it looks like they're really talking. It's outright haunting and certainly not a good thing for anybody out there sitting through an acid trip. When are the plants going to start talking too? Frank the Fern says "Me want Jobe's plant spikes."
There's so much painful overacting in commercials for restaurants. It's the same routine - person takes a bite, tastes the festival of flavors, then apparently climaxes from this culinary happy ending. C'mon, is there someone under the table when they film these bits? I'd have to think so...
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