These ACE Hardware Store ads don't deserve any more than this

Ace Hardware wins this year's Cute Idea Beaten To Death With Repetition Award.  Call it the Commercial version of the Razzies.

OH MY GOD DID THIS GET OLD FAST!

That's it.  Except to mention that I'll be away for the annual family vacation at the beach until next Saturday night, so please enjoy the archives until then!

Please explain this McDonald's ad to me?

I guess the message of this ad is that two professional lobster fisherman would actually finish a day of catching lobsters with a trip to McDonalds to eat what that "restaurant" laughingly refers to as it's Lobster Roll.  It reminds me of those stupid cereal ads which show people working all day at filling boxes with Honey Bunches of Oats or whatever and then sitting down to eat the stuff.  As if the food you are preparing for hours every day would actually be the same food you'd want to eat when the day is done.  Please.

But then again, the lobster in a McDonalds lobster roll probably tastes so dramatically different from the lobster you'd get at any decent seafood restaurant, maybe that really isn't a problem.

But no matter how many times I watch this mess, I simply cannot understand how it ends.  It looks as if the kid is about to reach for his lobster roll, and his dad gives him a "yeah, I can't believe we are eating this crap, either" look.  And then the kid gives a half-smile and resigned "well, we can't afford to actually eat the lobsters we catch, it's pretty sad but this is the best we can do" look right back.  But maybe I'm just misinterpreting?

This Dollar Shave Club Commercial Really Happened

I'd like to apologize to Geico for once calling one of their ads sexist.

I'd like to apologize to Dish TV for once calling one of their ads sexist.

In fact, I'd like to apologize to any company I've ever criticized for running what I considered to be a sexist ad.  But in my defense, I had yet to see THIS ad.

If I had ever considered joining the Dollar Shave Club, this ad would have thrown that idea right out the window.  I wouldn't come near this company now, out of principle.

That's all.  I simply cannot believe this keeps showing up on my television.  In 2016.

Oh come on, even I've owned one of these things!

If this guy gets sexually excited and falls into a fantasy world when he sees a freaking Honda Civic, I'm almost afraid of what his reaction would be to an Audi.  Or a good-looking woman.

Other than the Overbearing Stupid Presented Because Car Commercials Just Can't Be Car Commercials Anymore, this is really just another version of "Our Dream Customer" brought to us this time by Honda:  Doofus with no sense of how to shop for a car walks into a showroom and instantly begins to fantasize about owning the first car he sees in such an obvious manner that the salesman lucky enough to get to him first really doesn't have to do anything other than hand him a pen and guide his paralyzed-with-ectasy fingers to the correct line on the contract.   Gas Mileage? Warranty?  Terms?  Who gives a damn, it's a shiny new car and I simply must have it now now now. Gross.

This is your life, for as long as you can keep the wrinkles away....

This is your morning.  Get up while it's still dark and leave the guy you sold yourself to in bed.  Don't make too much noise, he has no reason get up.  But you sure do.

This is the house and lifestyle you sold yourself for.  It's not any port in a storm.  It's not even a palatial estate. It's a ridiculously pretentious mansion- but hey, you're cute, and you were never going to come cheap, were you?

This is your workout.  Get your butt on that bike as the sun begins to creep over the mountains and start sweating, honey.  Work those abs and sweat off that 1 percent body fat he may very well notice if you keep it around for another day.  Because this is the way any woman would want to start her morning, right?

This is the rest of your day.  Greet the kids you gave that guy.  Yes, you were cute and available, so you passed the first test.  The second test was being fertile.  The third was to keep being cute and tight.  Doesn't hurt if you have breakfast on the table on time every day, either.

This is your life. Keep quiet and fertile and toned, and you get to keep that house, Trophy Wife.  Maybe it's not a bad bargain for you.  I don't know your circumstances.  But when the sun isn't quite up tomorrow and you realize it's time to kill yourself trying to stay in your early-20s while your husband blissfully ages at a respectable pace and you really don't want to, just remember- babysitters come in Cute, and sometimes they are looking for any port in a storm, and that really is some house.  I bet that will be motivation enough.

Chevy's got a problem: Even the YouTube morons aren't buying this anymore

Look, just because the people gathered for the "focus group" are vapid, grinning idiots who are clearly so thrilled at the prospect of appearing on television that they really don't care what they are told to say or what stupid look they have to stick on their extremely punchable faces, it doesn't mean that we the viewers are going to be impressed with the "Real People, Not Actors" disclaimer.  Yeah, we KNOW they aren't actors. That's obvious.  We also know that they are Real People- real dumb, desperate-for-attention, totally corporate whore people.  With scripts.  That's very obvious.

And it couldn't be more obvious that these Real People Not Actors didn't actually buy for a minute that their cell phones were being thrown into a woodchipper- or, if they did, all knew damn well that this was all being done for a commercial (the cameras might have tipped them off) and would be rewarded with brand-new cell phone upgrades.

In fact, that brings up an interesting point- at the moment these tools saw their phones being grounded up, I bet they all thought that the ad was for the new Apple iPhone XII and for being such good sports, they were going to be handed complementary phones.  Instead, they were confused out of their admittedly limited minds by being told that their phones were actually safe but Hey Here's A Car We Aren't Giving You Thanks For Coming.  At which point, I wish they had just eaten this grinning jackass.

You "couldn't afford" that trip to Europe because you had to save up for a box?

Wow, it's more than a little depressing to be treated to a slide show of grinning idiots who seemed thrilled to death (no pun intended) that they've bought insurance so they can be absolutely sure that when grandma and grampa kick off they'll get the solid gold casket and ostentatious party they think they deserve.

Because sure, you could leave that "average" expense of Final Burial ($7500, or $8300, depending on which of these vulture-produced commercials you watch) to your loved ones and just sign up in advance with a hospital which will cremate you for free in exchange for any organs you are willing to donate, or just leave your entire body to science, but wow that gold box nobody will ever see again after the funeral sure looks awesome before they throw dirt on it, and after eighty years or so of toil you kind of had your heart set on a parade lead by a long black car followed by your family legally running red lights.

So to hell with the actual needs of those loved ones.  Sure, $7500 would make a great start to a grandkid's college fund, but what's that to you?  Long black car.  Gold box with velvet lining (because your corpse is really going to appreciate the softness, right?)  Don't leave these expenses to those loved ones (because if they have any brains, they'll skip all this showy crap for a private little get-together with sandwiches, liquor, a few tears, and a box of You sitting on a table.)  Get this insurance so your family can waste an entire day of their own fleeting lives engaged in a stupid medieval ceremony which just leaves them mildly irritated rather than financially stretched.

I'm not sure what "Presence" means, but apparently it can be bought, so I probably can't afford it anyway

I don't see any "people" in this ad, let alone people whose "presence" or "gravitas" is available to be judged by the viewer.  All I see is yet another commercial for an Audi LookAtMeI'mBetterThanYouMobile and all I hear is yet another Brit droning away at me about why owning a certain car (not just being able to afford one) simply makes you a more substantial person than someone who doesn't.

You see, owning this particular car gives you "presence."  Which makes sense, I suppose, if you plan to leave it parked ostentatiously in the driveway or beep the horn several times as you approach every parking space, so that the plebians will turn and see who gets out of it.  Because after all, if you aren't actually IN the car, how do us non-Audi-owning worms know who we are supposed to respect for their superior Gravitas and Presence?  And if we are just admiring the car for ITS presence, well, what good does that do the rich schmuck who dropped more than I make in a year on its purchase?  Should the owner drive around with his windows down so we can associate him with the awesomeness (and Gravitas) of his automobile?  Should he refrain from sucking down a Slurpee while driving, because I can definitely see that detracting from the effect.

Let's be honest about what these cars are- like mountain-sized pickup trucks and Humvees owned by suburbanites with no actual cargo larger than kids and groceries to haul, they are glaringly obvious compensation for insecure idiots with money burning holes in their pockets and no sense of social responsibility.  Who are impressed by British accents and the theory that they can instantly become more important and worthy of respect by driving a particular car- sure it's expensive, but actually doing something worthy of notice- let alone Gravitas and Presence- takes actual effort.

Um, it's a sales event. That was easy, Audi

Seriously, Audi, if you think that producing a car that can distract people away from the beach makes that car a "Force of Nature," you must also think that cell phones are a "Force of Nature."  Because every year I spent a week at the beach and see thousands of people ignoring beautiful sand and water (and their kids) in order to stare at their stupid phones.  In fact, I regularly see people trip and fall, or bump into each other, or nearly get hit by cars on the boardwalk, because they can't take their eyes off those phones.

So, sorry.  Being able to distract people doesn't make Audi a "Force of Nature."  It makes it what it already was- a ridiculously expensive toy for the One Percent to use to remind the other people on the road that there's a One Percent that can afford to buy Audis- and we aren't among them.

For the past five years, Daughter has fantasized about this thing getting totalled and replaced by an Audi

What are we looking at at the end of this nauseating spoonful of treacle called a Subaru ad?  Is it now 2032, and the family's new Subaru looks exactly like the old one, meaning the company has introduced absolutely no innovations in sixteen years?  Or is it 2016, and the daughter is being handed a 16-year old Subaru which has magically avoided even the hint of usage- no scratches, no dings- other filthy back seats which apparently NEVER got vacuumed, seeing as the father can pick junk from decades ago off the carpets?

And either way, how does the daughter age 16 years while scruffy hipster doofus dad doesn't age a single DAY?  The admakers couldn't even add a touch of grey to that mop he's wearing on his chin?  And that's another thing- if this is 16 years in the future, and full beards are going to be the style for men in 2032, I am not at all sure I want to live to see it.

This commercial would have had a better ending if it featured Daughter responding to the "gift" of the family Subaru with "um....thanks, dad.  No WiFi capability.  No Bluetooth.  No Sirius XM.  No GPS.  No built-in DVD.  Just an AM/FM radio and built-in cupholders for four.  Wow, I'm going to show really great in the HS parking lot with this ancient LameMobile."

Three successful, well-known icons of their trade....and Kevin Nealon?

1.  Didn't lightning used to kill people on golf courses?  Why doesn't that happen anymore?

2,  Did these guys all meet in a Facebook group--"Rich guys who like to play golf and who also take Xerelto?"

3.  Is anything in this ad believable at all?  I don't buy that these guys are friends, or that they enjoy babbling away about this drug they are taking.  And I sure as hell don't buy the idea that they think Kevin Nealon is at all funny, let alone hi-LARIOUS like they pretend to do here.

4.  I'm sure the waitress at the club is just thrilled with the antics of this group of overpaid morons.  What's a "Kevin Nealon?"  Given the arc of his career, I'm guessing it's a glass of flat Diet Coke.

5.  And again....one of these guys does not belong.  I'm pretty sure I know who isn't picking up the check.

23andMeandMoneyburningaholeinmypocket.com

I guess this is what you do when you've exhausted the "leafs" you can find under your name on Ancestory.com-- take the next step in digital navel-gazing by sending a vial of spit to this company so they can let you know where your dead relatives lived once.  And then sit back and genuflect on how totally awesome it is that you've received confirmation that once upon a time people you share genetic code with wandered around on the other side of the planet, never realizing that some day one of their ancestors would be a bored, self-indulgent idiot willing to spend money to confirm that they did not spring from the head of Zeus but are actually related to people who are now dead.

Now be sure to post all of this fascinating "information" on Facebook, because gosh all your virtual friends really, really want to know.  And when you wake up in a cold sweat realizing that you just PAID to hand a DNA sample over to a private company, well, I suggest warm milk to help you get back to sleep.  If that doesn't work, try Ancestory.com again- they are always updating those leafs, you know.

When the Oxygen....err, Internet....is cut off

I remember watching a movie once in which a group of people were trapped in an abandoned bomb shelter and realized that they didn't have any water and were going to slowly die of thirst.  The growing sense of panic they felt at the approach of imminent death never reached the level experienced by the people in this ad as they attempt to come to grips with the fact that OMIGOD THE INTERNET IS OUT IF THIS KEEPS UP I MIGHT HAVE TO TALK TO THESE PEOPLE I SHARE A HOUSE WITH.

Seriously, this is beyond disgusting.  Here we have a "family" of genetically related knobs who are all sitting around with their own electronic devices desperate to remain "connected" with the outside world so that they can continue to ignore the people sitting a few feet away.  I know this is supposed to be exaggeration and all (they end up actually spying on their still-connected neighbor- that doesn't happen in real life, right?)  but why would anyone find this scene funny or entertaining, let alone anything you'd want to emulate in your own home?  If I were to walk into my house and find wife and kids all sitting in various places staring at their own screens- and then freaking out when the "service" is interrupted- instead of interacting like I kind of thought families were supposed to (and generally wanted to?- I don't think my response would be "oh, the internet is out?"  I think it would be more like "the internet is way, way too important in this house.  Let's work on this."

But maybe I'm just not of this world.  After all, I don't have a wife and kids and I don't live in a massive house and I don't have DVR which allows me to record six shows while watching a seventh and store away 7000 hours of television for "later," and I don't have a smart phone I can watch television on when I'm out of the house and which can give me instant answers to every question that pops into my head.  When the internet goes down there are still books to read and people to talk to using my voice and not my fingers.   And I don't find any of these "Better Get Reliable Internet Or You'll See This In Your Home" ads anything but depressing.

Just a few things about this Ring Doorbell system....

1.  There is simply no way that the video is as good in real life as it appears in this ad, sorry.  Not buying it.

2.  The video-doorbell is pretty distinctive-looking.  It seems to me that professional thieves will quickly learn to totally ignore it when they hear the voice of a person pretending to be home.

3.  This is the second ad for this device that features someone telling the person at the door "we are busy bathing the children right now."  I guess this is the only thing they could come up with as an excuse not to come to the door- bathing children?  Why not just "I'm busy right now?"  Who feels the need to make up a plausible excuse for a total stranger at the door?

4.  That woman sure looks delighted to have the opportunity to use the rewind feature of her Ring video doorbell sytem  to show a friend that.....a dog just took a dump on her lawn.  Seriously, THAT'S the way she uses the rewind feature.  I'm sure the friend really, really appreciated being shown that instead of just being told.

5.  Why do the people who own these systems feel they have the right to monitor then entire street in front of their houses?  It looks as though this camera could be used to look into the houses of neighbors.

I guess this is better than the "if you don't have a high-tech Security Alert system with 24/7 monitoring, someone is going to break down your door in broad daylight and murder you" ads.  But not much, because it's still peddling a pretty intensive level of paranoia.  Hey, greasy people toasting yourselves with enormous glasses of wine?  You aren't that special, sorry.

Ugh. Just pay your damn taxes, scofflaws!

"If you owe the IRS $10,000 or more in back taxes, you are probably feeling the stress, anxiety, and fear that comes naturally to people who ignore their obligations to pay their fair share year to year and who figure that, eventually, the free ride is going to come to an end and the Big Bad IRS is going to demand that you stop making others carry your burden.  For some reason, we are expected to feel sorry for you."

"Inexplicably, we are also expected to feel sorry for you when you chomp like a starving bass at bait like this commercial, and hand over even more money you don't have to a Tax Dodging Service, like all the phony people with initials instead of last names who claim that with one phone call to this Very Friendly and Knowledgeable Company they managed to get their perfectly legitimate tax burden reduced by 95%, when you find yourself in even bigger trouble with the IRS and with less money than you would have had if you had just called the Treasury Department and come clean, morons."

"Personally, if you fall for this ad and throw your money at this bs 'service,' I think you get exactly what you deserve, deadbeat.  May sound mean, but as someone who pays his taxes on time all the time and doesn't look to skip out on my responsibility as a citizen of this country, that's how it is."

Unless he's in a bomb shelter and Armageddon has arrived, there's simply no excuse for this

I just gotta ask- if not for Amazon Fire TV, what was the most likely scenerio for the guy in this ad- opening a book, or committing suicide?

Earth to the People of Earth:  When you find yourself having no idea how to get on with your life between seasons of your favorite show, television has become way, way too important to you.  Instead of being in a "show hole," imagine if this ad had depicted a man trapped in an airplane on a six-hour flight and suffering withdrawal symptoms because he badly wants a cigarette.  Or suffering from the DTs because he forgot to pick up some cash and the liquor service can't check credit cards.  Would anyone think there was anything funny about it?

The guy in this ad is sitting in a dark room, all by himself (except that his best friend, the television, has suddenly stopped servicing him.)  He has lost his reason to live because Game of Thrones is on hiatus.  I wonder if he ever expected more from the world than this.  Fortunately for him, Amazon is not going to make him think about it for very long, 'cause Look More Stuff To Watch Wow That Was Close You Almost Actually Got Up.  Ugh, this is sad.

Four more dollops of joy from Reddi Wip

Commercial No. 1- Never mind the weird casting (is this guy the woman's husband, or father, or what?  They don't even look like they really even know eachother, let alone should be sitting at a table together) or setup (is this breakfast- he looks like he just woke up, she looks like she's taking a break from the office.)  Let's just jump to the fact that the guy here seems to be adding Reddi Wip to everything simply because it's there and he enjoys squirting it.  Where the hell does he get off adding it to the woman's fruit bowl- the can was just sitting there.  Isn't it safe to assume that it was perfectly visible to the woman and if she had wanted some on her fruit, she would have added it herself?  And what's the deal with her reaction- she looks annoyed, and resigned, and satisfied all at the same time.  What the hell?  Enough is NOT said here- and I don't think I've ever made that comment about any other commercial.

Commercial No. 2-   Why is the dad here sneaking downstairs?  Is he afraid that Mommy will catch him "stealing" a cookie from Santa, or what?  There's something really weird about a scene featuring Dad sneaking around in his own house.  And why was there a can of Reddi Wip just sitting out there- isn't this stuff supposed to be refrigerated?  Was it left out just in case Santa wanted to add it to his cookies and cocoa?  So the adult in this ad actually believes in Santa?

And wouldn't it have been a much better response to "what are you doing" for Dad to say "I'm eating a cookie that I bought and which is in my own house, go back to bed" instead of stupidly slathering his face with Reddi Wip?  Why does Dad owe an explanation to this kid (who is too old to believe in Santa, but gotta blame this on Dad) at all?  GO BACK TO BED.

Commercial No. 3- why are the two males in this house acting like starving dogs who haven't been fed in days?  And does food deprivation really make one's sense of hearing so acute that the slight gas-release sound made by a Reddi Wip can be detected on the other side of closed doors?  Please.

Commercial No. 4- this idiot kid's eye-rolling about being at the kid's table must have made him an absolute delight to his fellow kids.  I'm sure they were so happy when he came back because he found out that only kids were getting Reddi Wip on their pie.....but why was this the case?  We've already seen that adults like Reddi Wip at least as much as kids to.  The message of this ad- "being an adult is overrated"- clearly suggests that Reddi Wip is something we are expected to outgrow.  It's not for grown-ups.  But that message contradicts what we saw in the other ads.

I know, I know.  I think about this stuff way too much.