Audi ramps up the loathsome meter

The guy in this ad who gives his wife/girlfriend a brand-new SUV, only to have her get distracted by a "better" car as it drives by a moment later- so soon, in fact, that she doesn't even have time to express the gratitude she doesn't feel for a gift that costs about as much as dinner for 10,000 homeless families at the town's shelters- really ought to just say "only kidding" and take the damn thing back to the dealer for a refund.

Then he should donate that money to those homeless shelters.  He won't, of course, because anyone who would buy one of these LookAtMeMobiles is a self-centered, self-satisfied, amoral douchenozzle who probably speeds up and looks at his Italian shoes as he passes Salvation Army kettles or those aforementioned homeless people.

Oh and by the way, the people who made this should all die horrible deaths.  Not to be overly negative, but there it is.

Three Quick Question for viewers of this Verizon Ad

Never mind all the Norman Rockwell-ish imagery that pervades this cloying nonsense.  Here's what I want honest answers to:

1.  If the parents had slipped each of their crying little brats a shot of whiskey instead of handing them an electronic drug to keep them occupied during the long drive to Grampa's, would that have been worse?  I mean, the whiskey would have just knocked them out and given them a nice nap.  The tablet encourages the use of a glowing screen as a babysitter/pacifier.  Plus, it can't be great for their eyes.

2.  If Verizon really wants us to shut our electronics off-- ever-- why do all of it's commercials celebrate the "miracle" of 24/7 "connectivity" and the "joy" of houses filled with people staring at their personal electronic best friends while ignoring those organic life forms who seem to exist to suck up data and deny them their share of broadband?

3.  Did anyone visiting you this holiday actually shut their phones off when they arrived at your house so they wouldn't be disturbed by the outside world and would spend their time actually enjoying your company and the company of other people in the same room?  And if you answered "yes," is there room in your family for one more?

Chrysler: Your place for really, really bad cross-promotion

Maybe I should be thankful that The Hunger Games didn't go with Arby's or KFC to pitch it's (thankfully) final chapter, which btw somehow takes the second half of the third and dullest book of the series and turns it into a full-length film in the service of making another billion dollars.  But using Chrysler doesn't make any sense at all, either- "if you're an unknown..." Chrysler is an unknown?  Huh?

The rest of this ad is just as awful- because it takes the opening failure to connect the movie and the car and just keeps trying to pound it into our skulls, like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that simply MUST be made to fit or a square peg that must be forced into a round hole, dammit.  The problem is that anyone with half a brain is well aware that a film about the final victory of a ragtag group of rebels over a brutal totalitarian dictatorship has precious little in common with buying an overpriced SUV.  Unless I'm missing something.  (I'm not.)

Oh, actually I am missing something- I'm not going to see this movie, either.  I read the books and saw the first two films in the theater and caught the third one on Roku.  As I stated above, the third book was a bore and the third film was an almost preposterously ponderous, obviously padded waste of time.  I'm not endorsing the current "string them along and then make the third book into two films" phenomena by shelling out $10 to see Katniss make the inevitable decision to be with that whiny, perpetually wounded and helpless dishrag Peeta (sorry for the spoiler, but geeeeeshhh....)  Not when there's a James Bond film playing in the same theatre.  Which reminds me, I'm thirsty for a Heineken for some reason.....

This isn't helping, either

If there are any people left in the world who don't already loathe Americans, it's only a matter of time before they see this commercial and it becomes unanimous.  Hell, after one viewing I wanted to punch myself in the face while burning a flag.

Yeah, these people look like they are really anxious to save 25%, Kay Jewelers

"For the woman who already has everything, including an impossibly enormous, almost cavernous mansion, a successful Eurotrash-wannabee husband, and 2.5 children:  Another F---ing Rock, courtesy of Kay Jewelers."*  At least we don't see someone drive off in a $75,000 SUV at the end of this crud.  Even without that, I don't buy the idea that the 25% sale was what sealed the deal for this guy.  Judging from his surroundings, I doubt he's noticed the price tag of anything for quite some time now.

Warms the heart.  Or turns the stomach.  Or has me reaching for the cyanide.  One of those.

Between Kay Jewelers, Audi and Lexus, it's going to be a long, painful rest of the year.

*You're trying to hard, buddy.  You bought her a long time ago with the house and kids. The repeated purchase of cheap jewelry won't bring her back if she's wandering, and won't change her mind if she's considering looking for an exit.  But again- you can afford it, and it's better to be safe than sorry.

Better warn Mom- this guy will be moving back in soon

...because he's proving in this ad that he's simply not ready to be out on his own yet.

I mean, think about it.  He's an "artist" obsessed with the need for a good couch (you know, buddy, if you spent more time actually working and less time reflecting on how badly you need a place to comfortably rest your butt, you might not have such crappy credit...)  He doesn't need a clean apartment, he doesn't need a good credit score, he just needs a good couch.  That will fix everything.  Uh huh.

Ah, but he's got a girlfriend ready to give him truly horrible advice- "just go to Aaron's- you just need first month's payment!"  Yeah, that's all you need- kind of like those "Sign and Drive" events where you can drive off with a car "for practically just your signature."  Next comes the other 35 payments you'll be making on the awesome couch you "needed" and which will end up costing you roughly five times more than you would have paid for the same couch at Penny's if you had just been willing to save for it.  Then again, if you had ever shown any inclination to save for anything, you wouldn't have that terrible credit score, would you?

Tip to couch guy:  That girlfriend is not your friend.  Tip to girlfriend:  Your "artist" boyfriend is in a big enough hole without you handing him another shovel.

Someone do this idiot a favor and introduce him to a few Aaron's customers- or Rent A Center customers (same people.)  Maybe he'll get a badly-needed education concerning companies which take advantage of people with crappy credit scores who want to pretend that they have the right to nice things like people who have good credit scores (or who just save up for the things they want, and know the difference between "wanting" and "needing.")

Maybe the same person can also do his mom a favor and encourage her to change her locks.  Because her idiot son is on the way back to her basement, this time with even more dismal prospects than before he moved out.

The Most Sexist Ad of All Time

"Hey Moms, if you have kids, does this look familiar?"

Um, I'm not a Mom, and I don't have Kids, and this STILL looks familiar.  Maybe because it's f---ing 2015 and even single guys do laundry these days.  This Good Housekeeping Better Homes And Gardens Betty Crocker crap really ticks me off-- and the comments underneath this YouTube clip don't exactly restore my faith in humanity; they are mostly "I hear ya!" affirmations from empty-headed clucking idiots almost as proud of the label "Housewife" as they are of their "MRS" degree.

Seriously what the hell is this? "Mom Hacks?"  Apparently it's a series of videos designed to help "typical moms" through what is supposed to be their "typical mom" lives- lives which involve preparing meals, cleaning, making beds, arranging and rearranging rooms, picking up after their kids and laundry, laundry and more laundry, all in a big cage--errrr,, house-- that hubby provided as his side of the bargain...err, I mean marriage.  When it comes to actually maintaining the home, I don't see a lot of input from Hubby-- oh, but I already forgot; he's out Making All This Possible by bringing home the paycheck.  He also gets to impregnate Mom every once in a while- that's part of the deal, after all.

A man doing laundry?  I think that would give the people who made these videos the vapors.

"Mom Hacks."  Because in someone's world, it's always going to be 1955.

One more Mom Hack- "don't keep a loaded gun near the washer, you might suddenly realize what your life has become.  Keep a bottle of Sherry behind the drier instead- you know, like your Mom always did."

Dear Mr. Thomson: This isn't helping

Do I really have to explain why this shucking and jiving act shouldn't have any place on television in 2015?

I mean, is that necessary?  Is this necessary?  Does it really sell movie tickets?  Even if it did, is it really worth it?

National's Actors Welfare Program is getting on my nerves

When this actor realizes that his acting career has been reduced to playing a character he portrayed on a sitcom which has been off the air for 20 years in 30-second bits in order to pimp for a rental car company, I suggest he be kept away from sharp objects and be lovingly guided to therapy.

In the meantime, why on Earth would any of this convince us to use this particular rental car company?  "Putty' didn't work for a rental car company on Seinfeld.  He was a mechanic (and later, for one entire episode, a car salesman.)  He was also an idiot.  So why are turning to him for advice on which car rental company to use?

Come to think of it- considering the arc of this guy's career, why does he need to rent cars anyway?

Thing is, there is no "In Between" Anymore

Unless it's to make us hate every single person who appears on the screen over the course of this twenty seconds of Obnoxious, I don't get the point of this ad at all.  I mean, it can't mean "this is the phone you want to have to share the moments in between the moments you are already sharing," can it?

Can It?

I know it's early, but can we as a civilization consider this for a New Year's Resolution:  To make 2016 the year we admit that 99 percent of our lives are really not worth "sharing," and to just cut back on the g-d-- sharing until we have something that qualifies as valuable?  Because this.....this is just wrong.  Man, I can remember thinking that everyone having blogs was Over-The-Top in the self-important department.  When you are recording yourself sipping from a water fountain or just walking....geeeessssh....man, what went wrong in YOUR life?

Axa* Commercial, Translated

"Here at Axa, we think that offensively condescending commercials are the way to draw upper-middle class couples away from Voya, Morgan Stanley, and all the other brokers.  Plus, those guys have already done ads with idiots stretching ribbons and carrying around their fantasy retirement income numbers, so this is pretty much what's left."

"In an interesting twist, we are going to throw in a ridiculous line about how investing money instead of spending it can be an 'enjoyable' experience."

*Axa?  Hmmm.  So not only were all the plausible ad ideas already taken, so were all the decent brokerage firm names?

The only thing "surprising" in this Nissan commercial is that no one died during it

Upon the fourth or fifth viewing of this ubiquitous junk, I figured out that what the guy wasn't supposed to be "expecting" was that he and this girl were actually going to be watching the game at the stadium down the street, and not at Buffalo Wild Wings, Hooter's or anywhere else he might have seen as more plausible.  Exactly why watching the game live is such a surprise, considering (as I've mentioned) the stadium is apparently just a few blocks away from where this guy lives (and only a few seconds when you're traveling with an idiot who is perfectly comfortable driving seventy miles per hour down urban streets while applying eyeblack) continues to escape me.

It's still a better explanation than my original take- that this guy didn't expect her to be able to spew generic bs anyone spending thirty seconds listening to sports talk rado could have picked up in their sleep.  Nothing she says is especially impressive, even when you consider that she's saying it while driving at least twice the speed limit over potholes (and, probably, lots of small animals and people) as she drives to the neighborhood National Football League stadium across town.  (Seriously- why is this guy so surprised again?)

Walmart demonstrates what can be done when you have zero shame

In this ad, Walmart tries to convince us it gives a damn about America's Veterans with soft music, "inspiring" images of a veteran out for a run, and a suggestion that we all show our apprecation for the men and women who put their bodies on the line by-- purchasing and using a green light conveniently available at Walmart.

Meanwhile the Walton family heirs deny decent salaries to their hundreds of thousands of employees (but do thoughtfully provide the paperwork to help them apply for food stamps, which they'll need if they want to survive on their Walmart paychecks) so they can continue to make more money every day than I'll make in ten years.  Meanwhile this same family happily hires the mentally ill and the elderly at sweatshop wages and fills their stores with Made-in-China crap so they can make Made In America a memory and add a few more billion to the pile they can't even begin to chip away at.  Meanwhile these blood-sucking ghouls feed off of the modern version of slavery operating in Asian and Middle Eastern factories to keep the shelves stocked, and the home-grown version called "minimum wage" (all you have to do is get three or four friends together and you can all rent a one-bedroom apartment.)

The idea that the Waltons give a flying damn about America's veterans- many of whom are among the cashiers, stockboys, greeters, and cleaning crews working their lives away for crap money so this family can buy one more yacht and take a little more time off from the vacation that is their lives- would be funny if it weren't so damned sad.  These vultures had plastic American flags for our cars at Buy One, Get One Free the weekend after September 11 and was the Go-To place for Support Our Troops bumper stickers and t-shirts five minutes after we invaded Iraq.  Now they hope we'll come in for green lights- and stay to stock up on jeans, cheap sneakers and beer.  A green light?  That and a decent job will help a veteran pay his bills.

As we walk out, they hope we'll tip our hat to the veteran who checks our receipt.  We can thank him for our Freedom, after all.

FitBit- because you need to have it hammered into your skull, apparently

Wow, I'm sure glad this is one of those double-down ads, which just replays itself to turn a commercial already annoyingly and unnecessarily long at 30 seconds an absolute ordeal at a minute flat.  Maybe the idea is to force us to turn off the tv and go outside?

I don't get this Esurance Ad

This troll is the ugliest creature I have ever seen on television- and I used to watch Star Trek.  He's not capable of being humilated.

And this woman not only is with this troll, but she had sexual relations with him.  So she's not capable of being humilitated either.

What am I missing here?

Or maybe Siri and Nissan just lost something in translation?

1.  "She said yes, you're the Best Man."  Um, did I miss something?  Back when I got married, it was customary for the GROOM to choose his own Best Man.  Who is the "she" who is informing this guy that he's the Best Man?

2.  "She said yes, you're the Best Man."  That's just odd phrasing- since this is 2015 and all contact no matter how personal or intimate is made through electronics these days,  I could almost believe that this guy asked someone to marry him and she responded with a unique way of saying no - by telling him that Yes, he's going to be an important part of her wedding, but it's going to be as Best Man.  It just came off as really weird, because....

3.  The look on his face suggests that this guy actually hoped the answer would be Yes.  He puts on that ugly, douchey little smirk and convinces himself "I've got this."  First, what guy wants to be Best Man?  Second, it's not like being a Bridesmaid.  The Best Man has precious little to do in comparison.  All the "this" we see this guy "has" is the ability to pick up the bride and groom on schedule and drive them somewhere.  Wow, thank goodness you've got that car, Eurotrash jagoff.*

4.  "You're the Man."  Um, ok.  Whatever.  I don't get that at all, but I suppose something thinks that's a good way to wrap up this ad.  He got a message that he's going to be Best Man, and he picked the couple up outside the church.  You're the Man, all right.  I suspect you're fortunate it doesn't take more than this.

*Am I the only person out there who wants to smash this guy's face in with a pickax?

I get you, lady. You are a techno-addled idiot with no taste in pizza

As near as I can tell, this stupid woman who I guess is famous for something and I'm supposed to know what it is just sent "pizza emojis" (god I hate this century so much) to everyone she knew until finally she sent one to Dominos, which responded by sending her a cruddy pizza, which I guess is what she wanted in the first place.

It would probably amaze her and other people to know that pizza delivery predates the internet and cellphones- that's right, boys and girls, even before the late-90s it was possible to get pizza delivered to your home.  You just used a phone with a cord attached to the wall and called the restaurant and what do you know, between thirty and sixty minutes later it showed up at your house (just like today, but more about that in a moment.)

The use of emojis to order pizza is just another way of streamlining the thinking process and making it less likely that you'll reconsider your investment of $20 on a pile of bland white bread, cheese and sugary sauce.  Making it easier to order means making it easier to make a dumb mistake- which means, ordering this crap.  Dominos has clearly figured out that the longer it takes to order one of it's bottom-of-the-barrel pizzas, the more likely the potential customer is to remember she's got leftovers in the fridge, or is already twenty pounds overweight, or ran out of money near the end of the previous month and doesn't want to make a habit of that.

But back to the whole point, click and buy concept being sold to us here-- anyone else notice that in the last ten years, all of the "improvements" involved in pizza delivery services revolve around how we order pizzas and pay for them?  Meanwhile, I've seen no improvements in how they taste or how long it takes for them to get to our door.  I suspect that in ten years, these couch pumpkins will be able to just THINK about a pizza and it will be delivered- in 30 to 60 minutes.  And it will taste like cardboard covered in ketchup.  Just like today.

Mazda's Celebration of the Mid-Life Crisis

Ugh, where to start?

First, this guy's incredibly cliche'd life (seriously, "cliche'd" doesn't really cut it.  There should be another word that's stronger than that, but I don't know what it is of if it even exists.  If it doesn't, someone needs to invent it...)

 Because good freaking lord, according to the scriptwriters this guy dotted every "i," crossed every "t," and did absolutely everything exactly the way he was supposed to do it in exactly the order he was supposed to do it.  His first car was a hot red Mazda convertable (uh huh.)  He rocked with his band.  He got serious, got married, settled down, had 1.5 children, moved to the suburbs, bought a house with a big mortgage.  (Not Shown:  his soul actually dying.)

And then, the day after he noticed his hair was thining and he had these wrinkles appearing around his eyes and he was getting up twice a night to use the bathroom, he went out and bought himself- a flashy red Mazda.  Groan.

(Not Shown- though I really wish it was:  Mazda guy cheating with the babysitter, handing half his income to his wife in the settlement, and wrapping his new Douchemobile around a tree a few days later.  I mean, might as well complete the cliche', right?)

When you're an admaker for Geico, you make crappy commercials. It's what you do.

What the people who made this awful lump of obnoxious dumb know about little kids can fit comfortably into any sitcom.  In fact, what they know about little boys in general is clearly derived from watching way too many sitcoms.  It's the only explanation for their depiction of a "young forever" Peter Pan character as a crude, rude, boorish little creep played for laughs.

Oh yeah- and another thing that you do if you make commercials for Geico- you make commercials that have nothing to do with car insurance.  When was the last time you saw one which featured a car?