This "Nacho Fight" Taco Bell Commercial isn't really worth it, but....

...I guess we are supposed to completely ignore the fact that once these idiots stop inflicting injury on each other and several thousand dollars worth of damage to two apartments, that nacho they are fighting over is cold and covered with dust and germs?

...and I guess we are supposed to totally buy into the idea that the next door neighbors are fine with sharing their freaking sheet cake of nachos swimming in grease with the lunatics who smashed through their living room wall, violating THEIR lease agreement and costing them THEIR security deposit as well?

Oh never mind.  Like I said, really not worth it.  I'm more in awe of the comments that follow this YouTube contribution, which are even more repulsively slavish and even more devoid of brain cells than usual.

Another sad WeFixMoney.com ad

First....woman, before you start talking, please please PLEASE put that child in another room.  She should NOT hear this.  She should hold on to hope that mom isn't living on the margins and ready to make economically fatal decisions for as long as possible.

Mom doesn't listen to me.  Instead, she launches right into this "I have all these bills to pay, and zero savings, and my credit is in the toilet so when something goes wrong with my car I'm immediately in a position where I have to decide which bills I can simply ignore this month" Deadbeat Special Screed I guess we are supposed to relate to and sympathize with.

It gets worse.  Her "solution" is to get a payday loan from WeFixMoney.com.  Just a little money to tide her over until her paycheck shows up, Problem Solved.  All she has to do is take that check and pay off that "easy" loan, plus outrageous interest, and she and her daughter are all set- until the next Emergency (like the electric bill, or rent, or a late-night fever that requires medical attention) comes along....and it will.

Until then, the Mom here will be very grateful that a bloodsucking legal scammer online was there to take advantage of her miserable life.  Because Mom couldn't be bothered to get her act together before she started reproducing, and these bills for stuff she buys just keep coming, and it's Just So Hard Being a Single MomTM.  But I'm saving all my sympathy for that poor kid, who didn't buy in to any of this and just lost the genetic lottery by being the spawn of such a stupid, stupid woman.

Oh yeah, these people are Chevrolet Employees. Sure they are.

It's just so adorable that we are supposed to just buy in to the idea that Chevrolet employees make enough money to own big Suburban McMansions, wear designer-label clothing, and raise families in those suburbs.  So very precious.  What is this, 1955?

Oh, and BTW,

1.  How much IS the Chevrolet Employee Discount?

2.  Why would any Chevy Employee be thrilled to announce that their discount is being handed to just anyone, taking away probably the only actual perk of working at Chevrolet?

3.  "Chevrolet Family?"  "From our family to yours?"  "You're part of the family?"  Sounds pretty darned Cultish to me.

Go back home, E.T. Nothing to see here anymore.

So E.T. visited Earth 37 years ago and wandered into the backyard of a little boy living in suburban Los Angeles with his two siblings and divorced mom.  Over the next several days E.T. hid from the mom, had a tea party with the little girl, watched a little tv, got drunk, and built a device to signal his friends in outer space using a Speak and Spell, a coat hanger, and an umbrella.  Then he died, was Born Again in Fulfillment of the Script, rode a bicycle into the sky and eventually ascended into the stars while inspirational music and tears flowed.

Thirty-seven years later, E.T. returns to Earth to see what Elliot is up to.  Elliot's got kids of his own, this is going to be fun and cool again!  Except....what do Elliot's kids do with E.T.? They introduce him to YouTube.  They give him virtual reality goggles.  They feed him cake- probably the only part of this visit that seems at all like an old friend returning from a long absence in this entire four-minute plus nostalgia glurge.

Then E.T. goes back home, probably for good this time, because even though he managed to avoid actually dying during this trip, I don't think he's leaving with the warm fuzzies for Elliot's kids and their obsession with tech.  More likely he'll report to his superiors that Earth kids are nowhere near as interesting and fun as they were back in the 1980s, when that one kid who always wore headphones and was never off his bicycle represented "out of touch because of electronics."

Ridiculous Walgreens Christmas Ad

So this young couple who I have to assume has a kid somewhere in the house (do young childless couples put cookies out for Santa?) gulp down the cookies and milk only to realize that Santa Claus is real and has landed on a neighbor's roof.  Their IMMEDIATE concern is that they've eaten "his" milk and cookies.  Not that their reality has been torn into pieces by the sudden appearance of a logic-bending piece of mythology.  But that a demi-god has appeared in physical form, and it allegedly expects cookies and milk.

And their response to discovering that the Western World's most popular Lie that doesn't involve a carpenter and a plus-sign-shaped piece of wood is not a lie at all is to make a mad dash to Walgreen's to pick up a cheap tin of crappy mass-produced cookies (Cripes, even the local 7-11 would have been a better choice for sweets.)  Fortunately for them, Santa's ability to visit more than a billion homes in a single night doesn't negate the fact that it takes him 20 minutes to cross a street.  Something doesn't add up here, but why should this stupid ad start making sense now?

Anyway, the young couple- which besides almost killing several innocent people by recklessly driving at breakneck speed on icy roads to Walgreens in the unrealistic (but, it turns out, completely appropriate) expectation that they could get into that car, drive to Walgreens, get a box of cookies, drive back, and put them out in less time than it takes a magic fairy that will land on several hundred million rooftops over course of eight hours to attend to two houses (yes, I am rather fixated on this massive plot hole) - puts out the cookies and watches as Santa consumes them.  This is all supposed to be very lighthearted and sweet and whatever, but it just comes off as bizarre and stupid to nasty cynics like me.  You know, Sane People.

Kay Jewelers endorses the concept of ThoughtCrime

So the guy in this ad is clearly having a crappy day, getting burned out on the whole husband/father thing, feeling overwhelmed by not getting a moment's peace from his noisy, needy family.  He can't even eat a piece of toast and drink his morning coffee without having his personal space invaded by the insatiable demands of these people who live in his house and share his last name.

All he really wants is a few seconds to himself to reflect and recharge- but instead, he's assaulted from behind by his wife, who forces him to look at the Wall of Reminders that his life is NOT his own- he's got a wife, he's got kids, he's got responsibilities.  So stop moping, buddy- you aren't entitled to mope.  You aren't entitled to one freaking eye blink of solitude, because your wife sees you having quiet time as a threat to her existence as the freaking Center of Your Universe.  Besides, she assumes that you aren't just trying to gather yourself, but instead are contemplating how much easier- and fun- your life was before you Bought In and Sold Out.  And how long it's been since you've been out with any of your male friends to the sports bar or to play cards.  Or how cute and nice and almost-worshipful that last babysitter was.

Here's what has to happen now, at least as far as your wife is concerned:  You have to Make Amends for the wandering thoughts you dared to have without so much as a By Your Leave from your significant other.  Go out and get a mid-range piece of jewelry as a way of asking forgiveness for acting like a sovereign Human Being who actually owns the space between his ears.  And don't you ever show even the hint of fatigue, frustration, or bewilderment again or it's right back to Kay for you.

The Holidays are all about good food, good friends, and talking tax refunds

1.  Who the hell has a conversation about their tax return- let alone the AMOUNT of their tax refund- during a holiday dinner get-together?

2.  It gets even more cringy as the guests begin to push one of their own to tell them exactly how much he got - $3,000?  $4,000?- and he responds not with a very well-earned "this is really none of anyone's business and I seriously can't believe we are having this conversation" but with a grin and a "mmm hmmm" that suddenly makes me wonder if someone slipped something into his drink.  I mean, seriously, he sounds like he's falling asleep if not simply drowning in his own self-satisfied smarm.

3. "That's more than you got!"  Um, excuse me?  Do all the people at this table work in the same office, at the same salary?  Do they have the same number of dependents and did they make the same decisions over the course of the year?  I mean, two people making $50,000 each sitting at cubicles across from each other could have wildly different tax refunds due to a hundred different factors.  This is especially stupid even in what is already a very, very stupid commercial.

4.  "But I bet it took weeks (to get that refund,) right?"  This makes no sense.  The IRS does not mail out refunds based on amount being dispersed.  Is this guy suggesting that for such a big refund, his smarmy stoned friend must have hired a shady tax wizard who uses so many little-known tricks that the IRS goes through it with a fine-tooth comb before cutting the check?

5.  "Actually, I got it the same day" replies our favorite weird, semi-conscious lump of smarm (seriously, what is wrong with this guy?  Did he collapse into a coma five seconds after the commercial ended?)  And now we get the punchline- Mr. Valium used a "Rapid Refund" service to get his money- in other words, he surrendered a significant percentage of that refund in order to get his hands on the money a little faster.  Which makes me wonder about his finances, and convinces me that no one at that table should admire him.

Oh, one more thing  If you get a big tax refund every year, you are doing the whole payroll thing wrong.  You are giving the United States an interest-free loan with every paycheck.  A big tax refund is nothing to brag about; it's an admission that you haven't gotten your act together when it comes to properly managing deductions.  Do better in 2020, people.  And stop talking about tax refunds at the dinner table.  To borrow a phrase from the 19th century, it's downright Uncouth.

Range Rover, Mikaela Shiffrin, and a big middle finger to the rest of us

I guess that when you are a World Champion Skier you can't let things like road conditions- and nature- get in your way now, can you?  And if you aren't going to pay attention to road conditions, nature, property rights, etc., well, who the hell are police to tell you where you can and cannot go in your Range Rover?

The IMPORTANT thing is that Mikaela Shiffrin get to the top of that mountain so that she can ski some more.  Heck, it's not even the most important thing- it's the ONLY thing. 

Here's my question, though- she parks her Range Rover at the top of a mountain that she was only able to reach because she was equipped with a Range Rover and an overbearing sense of Entitlement.  Now she's going to ski down that mountain.  How does she plan to get back to her Range Rover when she reaches the bottom?

WeFixMoney Presents: The worst use of GoAnimate I've ever seen

For three years, GoAnimate For Schools was one of my favorite hobbies.  Every other week or so, I'd devote two or three hours to making a 3 or 4 minute video which I would then share with my class and on Facebook, just for fun.  Then GoAnimate changed it's name to Vyond, got super greedy, and got rid of GoAnimate For Schools and it's awesome $79-per-year subscription, replacing it with a virtually identical service with a $299 per year price tag.  Oh well, it was a fun hobby while it lasted- but I don't have $299 burning a hole in MY pocket.

Here's an awful use of the old GoAnimate software:  A GetPoorQuick instant loan "service" which promises to "match you up" with any number of stratosphere-high-interest cash advances to pay for car repairs, mortgage, whatever when your credit is in the toilet and you have no friends or family to lean on in a pinch.  Need $500?  $1000?  More?  No matter- the nice people at WeFixMoney will get that cash into your account quick, and all it will cost you is a monthly payment including interest rates approaching 2000%.  But don't worry about that- just make the minimum required monthly payment.   Forever.

How could such cutesy, friendly-looking GoAnimate characters steer you wrong?  Well, the ones I put into motion never did, and never could.  These, however, are setting up a trap for the Stupid and Desperate.  If GoAnimate was still affordable, I'd love to create an animated response to garbage like this.  Instead, I'll have to reply from my $10-per-year blog.  Better than nothing, I guess.

Not much to say about this Wayfair Ad....

...except that the little girl this guy married is truly insane.  I mean, just look at how she acted as the UPS guy kept showing up with crap from Wayfair, delivering packages by the freaking metric ton.  She looks like she's experiencing an LSD trip as she opens boxes, dancing around the tree and literally draping decorations around her neck.  What. The Actual. F--k.  Is wrong with this woman?

Whatever it is, it's apparently just fine with her husband.  Either that, he's in for a serious shock when the VISA bill arrives in January.  But I'm guessing he intentionally married a stunted child who looked fertile and just accepts the shopaholic behavior as just part of the package.  To each his own, buddy.

WeatherTec: When you're completely dead inside

How do you know that the best years of your life are far, far behind you and every trace of your youth has been vanquished by age and the grind of routine?

Well, an excellent clue will be when you find yourself with visions of cupholders, weatherproof floor mats, and Smartphone dashboard accessories dancing in your head so insistently that you spend a ridiculous amount of time working to convince your Significant Other that all you want for Christmas is stuff that any normal person would just buy over the course of the year, as needed.  When that happens- yes, you're dead.  Just arrange the funeral already.

That being said-- what a contrast these people are to the Lexus, Audi and Buick Couples handing each other actual luxury cars for the holidays.  This guy doesn't want a new car- he wants some stuff to keep his old car looking better.  Almost makes me feel bad to snark on him, considering that he's being quite reasonable in his gift requests.  I'm assuming he doesn't live on the same block as that kid who got a $50,000 car by blackmailing Santa with an unflattering photograph or the woman whose hubby "delighted" her with a Peloton bike.  In other words, this is almost relatable.  I wonder if this guy's wife wants something equally practical?

The enduring "power" of Copper

Or "here's another product which plays off the weirdly durable myth that copper has magical pain-relieving qualities, brought to us from the finest minds of pre-Renaissance Europe!"

Seriously, in a nation where millions of people rub on, breathe in or actually consume "essential oils" when they aren't guzzling "skinny tea" in an attempt to "detox" as if they don't already have kidneys and a liver, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that Magic Healing Copper is still a thing.  I mean, the phony-as-it-gets Holistic Wellness Industry- be it the "nutrition" aisle at your local grocery store, the GNC brick and mortar cave at the local mall, or that non-friend you barely remember from High School attempting to "enlist" you to her Arbonne, Younique or Young Living downline through random, emoji-encrusted Facebook messages- brings in tens of billions of dollars to a very tiny group of people at the top of what sure looks like a pyramid every single year.  Copper socks?  What's so astonishing about that?

Still- this isn't the 9th century.  The Earth isn't flat, leeches aren't intentionally being used to suck "excessive blood," there are a  lot more than four elements, and no amount of boiling and mixing will turn base metals into gold.  So why does anyone buy the concept of copper as a pain reliever?  Especially when we already have prayer, chants, and crystals that, when placed properly, take care of that problem already in combination with plenty of water, rest, a proper diet and two Aleve tablets every four hours?

(Oh, but these are "improved"- in that, they are easier to put on than "normal" compression socks.  They don't even have 10 percent more copper healing power, what a ripoff!)

Atomic Beam SunBlast Security Light: More As Seen on TV Awesomeness!

You wouldn't think it would be possible for a commercial which features a man falling over his own trash cans and another man being killed by an outlet in the first eight seconds to be able to top such an awesome opening, but I think this commercial for SunNuclearBlastAmazingLight or whatever it is does just that.

Ah ok, it's actually called AtomicBeam.  I was pretty close.

Anyway, this is NOT just another "stick it anywhere" light like the kind we've seen advertised on tv for at least thirty years.  Nor is it yet another Only Available on TV item sold by a guy wearing a very generic sorta military outfit standing in front of a green screen featuring a very masculine looking Air Force jet for Reasons.  This sucker is SOLAR POWERED, and may I say that I'm so happy we've finally entered an era where a manly man in military gear pretending to stand in front of a genuine KillJet 440* can endorse something that does not derive its energy from fossil fuels.  Little victories!

For us nostalgia geeks, there's plenty of room for our old favorites, though- this light features "Industrial Adhesive" which allow it to stay on "almost any surface" and "Atomic Solar Panels" which charge the "Lithium Ion Battery" (if you're over 50, that might still sound impressive.)  Oh, and did I mention the "State of the Art" sensor which detects when you- or a pet, or a leaf, or a gust of wind- is nearby but probably turns off every once in a great while all the way up to the day six to eight weeks after you purchase it when it turns off permanently?  And I'm only thirty seconds in to this two minutes of Awesome!

We get to see a bunch of reasons why you NEED this light- like, despite having a substantial suburban mansion, you never got around to installing actual security lights to keep you from falling over your own garbage cans.  Plus this thing will blind those adorable white-gloved cat burglars who would like to get at your other As Seen On TV stuff. 

The LED panels "can last a lifetime without burning out."  They Can.  WILL they?  Um, kind of doubt it.  I mean, that kind of depends on how old the people who are buying it are.  I'm guessing that the average age of customers for the AtomicBeam Security Light is around 75.  So yeah, maybe.

Hey, there's Not Really Airman Whoever pretending to stand in front of that jet again.  1:17 in.  I can do this!

Ah, we're at the price- it's $19.99.  And if you jumped to the phone and started dialing as soon as you heard that price, you don't watch a lot of tv, do you?  OF COURSE you can get a SECOND ONE FREE plus the ATOMIC FLASHLIGHT FREE and OMIGOD WILL THE LITTLE LADY LOVE THIS just LOOK how THRILLED she is when you save her from the scary dark!  And you don't even have to worry if you accidentally encase it in fifty pounds of ice or cement (you know how that happens.)  Just pay a separate fee (kind of like whenever you buy anything in addition to what you were already buying.  I wonder why other companies never pull this bit- "you can get a hamburger, or a hamburger and a Coke, just pay a separate fee!") 

Ah, it turns out that this hilarity was only 1:45 long, the last 16 seconds is just the Director's Cut featuring the Best Scenes of the Commercial.  Again, for nostalgia purposes, probably.

*Not really a jet.

**I can't tell you how many times I've needed a flashlight and discovered that it's been frozen in a 50-lb block of ice, only to find that the flashlight no longer works after I rescue it using a sledgehammer.  And it's even worse when its in hardened cement, not ice.  That baby is GONE! 

Scratch Offs: The gift you hope never starts giving

Many years ago, Norm MacDonald in a stand-up routine pointed out that giving scratch off tickets as presents makes zero sense because there are only two possible outcomes, both of them really bad:

A.  They don't pay out, in which case the recipient remembers that you gave them expensive pieces of cardboard as an expression of friendship/appreciation.  In other words, you gave them....nothing.

B.  They pay out, in which case the gift-giver spends the rest of their life with the knowledge that they held financial security- maybe even luxury- in their hands for a few minutes, and just...gave it away....to the kid who shovels the walk, or the mailman, or your kids' teacher....whoever it was, you didn't mean to give them a $10 million dollar Christmas present now, did you? Not when you're worried about paying for your kids' college (the guy who got the scratch-off ticket? He's not worried about that, or anything else.)

In short, you want the recipient to appreciate the gift, but ultimately, you don't want it to amount to much of anything.  Heck, even a $50 or $100 payout is probably a lot more than you wanted to just give anyone not directly related to you (and frankly, I wouldn't want someone directly related to me to cash in that big at my expense.)

Punt all these idiots into a galaxy far, far away

So this kid is watching a Rise of Skywalker trailer on his phone in a dark room (f--king up his future vision, not that I give a damn) and decides that he needs a dog that reminds him of Chewbacca, a character that has almost no role in the new movies other than to be barked at by Rey and do her bidding.

His dad says no.  In keeping with what is expected of kids in commercials, this brat proceeds to harass his father- even to the point of hijacking the television using tech that same dad provided him- until dad breaks and agrees that he'd rather deal with the hassle of a dog than the hassle of a whiny little begging creep who is not going to stop.

So they go to get the dog, but it's too late- someone else has already adopted it.  I'm going to ignore the fact that dogs like this don't actually show up at shelters- anything that looks even moderately exotic is going to be living at a breeder or fancy pet store and is going to come with an equally fancy price tag.  Because this is TV, not reality.

When I first saw this ad, I thought that they had succeeded in adopting the dog, only to have the kid notice another animal he suddenly Couldn't Live Without and would now start whining to dad about adopting/buying.  At least I was wrong about that.  But this kid's elastic emotions annoy me almost as much as his obsession with a thoroughly craptacular series of films that almost make the prequels look good.  What if that dog doesn't look like a Star Wars character next year?  It's just a puppy- puppies turn into dogs, you petulant little rodent.  And what if that dog wants attention while you're playing with your stupid phone?  Who wins that little contest?

Microsoft Holiday ad that, naturally, the YouTubers think is just precious

It's so adorable that this little girl

1.  Takes an expensive, delicate piece of hardware out into the snow when she sees reindeer in the yard, and

2.  Proceeds to be an overbearingly entitled little brat when she learns that she can, indeed, talk to the reindeer.  Seriously, she doesn't even ask the reindeer if they wouldn't mind answering a few questions.  She just launches into "Ok, I have a lot of questions" and it's off to the races.  She doesn't stop to listen to answers, she doesn't attempt a conversation- it's just "I'm important, I want answers, you aren't important, you are to give me answers" in the most typical nasty-kid voice imaginable.

I just want this girl to ask if their horns are sharp, so they can give her a demonstration.  Ugh what a brat.

Geico just gets dumber and dumber

I see that since being handed a Super Bowl Ring by the refs in his final season in the NFL, Jerome Bettis has kept himself busy cheating in flag football (stiff arms are illegal.)  How nice.

Meanwhile, I'd take a skinny 16-year old over a middle-aged Jerome Bettis in a flag football game.  There's zero reason why it would be at all difficult to strip a flag from a lumbering old man (which makes me wonder why the defender is trying to tackle him, as if he doesn't know this is flag football and there's supposed to be tackling or something) unless this is just like the Super Bowl and Bettis can just do whatever he wants.

Oh, and check out the YouTube comments- even worse than usual.  Either a lot of people are willing to brown nose Geico for nickles these days, or glue-sniffing has become the national pastime because these posts....oh god are they embarrassing.

Peloton: The Gift that keeps on giving.....something.....

On December 25, 2018 a certain TrophyWife received a not-at-all-subtle reminder that

1.  Her value in the home is 100 percent dependent on keeping that youthful figure, and
2.  Her husband would rather her not be going out to those spinning classes anymore because he heard that there are other guys there, not to mention all those Woke Women....

She got this reminder by coming down the stairs of the ridiculous palatial suburban estate she sold her soul for and found that HubbyMaster had purchased a Peloton bike for....um, for her, of course.

With an extremely anxious look on her face which just screams "oh god I get it, I know what this means, I've got maybe a year to get my act together and achieve 0% body fat or I'm going to be out of the street," TrophyWife launches what will be a daily routine that will certainly be starting at 6 AM at the latest because no way is she going to be cutting back on her MommyWife duties just because she's been given a chance to salvage her situation.  That kid still needs to be fed and deposited at school, HubbyMaster's breakfast and coffee must be ready when he comes downstairs, etc.  This doesn't replace anything, lady.  This is in ADDITION.  And it's for your own good, IF you know what I mean.

After a year of brutal workouts in which an already beautiful, slim young woman transforms into a....beautiful, slim woman who is one year older, she gets to sit down on the couch with HubbyMaster to evaluate the results.  The verdict is in:  She's postponed dismissal for another year, anyway.  And all it took was 365 exhausting sessions chained to that bike, being barked at by a total stranger on the screen whose audience consisted of hundreds if not thousands of other TrophyWives of the One Percent.

See you next year, lady....maybe.  Oh, and here's your 2019 Christmas Present:  An appointment for Botox treatments.  Got to keep one step ahead of the babysitter at all times.

This Fire TV commercial explains a lot, actually

When I was very young, James Bond villains (and lets be honest from the very start- the guy in this ad is an obvious parody of an old-fashioned James Bond villain) did really cool things like press buttons to coolly execute people just because they could.  Then when I got older, the Bond villains kind of went off the rails and focused on killing millions of people with nuclear missiles or cyanide-dispersing satellites or some such silliness.  Then they became a real mixed bag of characters with extremely limited goals or world-changing ambitions, but most of them were kind of stupid and it was hard to imagine them pushing those buttons and causing people to vaporize or fall into a pool of piranha or whatever.

For all the time I was growing up, James Bond films could be counted on to be released every other summer, pretty much like clockwork, too.  Their quality wasn't dependable- the first one I saw in the theaters was The Spy Who Loved Me in the summer of 1977, and I thought that was great.  Most of the Moore films that followed afterwards were pretty awful.   Dalton's films were great, Brosnan's were below average (and Die Another Day was downright 1980s Moore-level crap.)   None of the villains in any of these films were particularly memorable.  But they were there, every other year.

The Bond film series has pretty much reached a dead end in the last decade, as Bond fans die out and the next generation just can't get invested in the character because the films are so few and far between.  Bond 25, No Time To Die, will be released in April, 2020- almost five full years since the last installment.  Think about it:  Sean Connery starred in six Bond films in nine years (1962-1971.)  Roger Moore starred in seven films in 12 years (1973-1985,) Dalton two in three years (1987-89,) and Brosnan four in seven years (1995-2002.)  No Time To Die will be Daniel Craig's fifth Bond film since Casino Royale was released in 2006-- that's five Bond films in FOURTEEN YEARS.  Way to kill interest in a franchise, people!

Ok, back to connecting all of this to an Amazon Fire Commercial:  The "villain" in this ad isn't plotting to start World War III, rob Fort Knox, or nuke or poison the planet.  Hell, he isn't even trying to make a hundred million dollars in a drug deal or get exclusive broadcasting rights to China (yes, both of those are actual James Bond villain motivations.)  He just wants to watch TV.  That's what Evil Villains do in the year 2019.  They watch TV.  You know, like all of use who AREN'T evil villains.  So why are they interesting?  They aren't. They are worthy of nothing but ridicule.  They aren't fun, they aren't entertaining, and most important, they really don't remind anyone under the age of fifty or so of a certain film franchise that is in the process of being murdered by its' inheritors.  Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if most people watching this ad thought of Austin Powers before James Bond.  Sad.

Thanks to Xfinity, I now know I've been wrong about E.T. for 37 years....

So when I saw this movie as a kid,* I just assumed that somewhere out there is an original cut which features a scene immediately following the last one in which Elliot, his family and friends, and all of the scientists who witness E.T. fly off into space are immediately executed by the government and buried in a landfill surrounded by "Dangerous Toxic Chemicals, Do Not Enter" signs.  His house is condemned as a biological hazard as the word is spread that Elliot and his family were the carriers of some exotic, highly infectious disease which caused their quick death and evaporation of their bodies along necessitating the leveling of their home and the total destruction of every trace of their existence. 

According to this commercial, I was completely wrong in my premise.  Turns out that Elliot and Friends were simply forced to sign a myriad of documents agreeing to stay silent about what happened over the course of three days in the autumn of 1982 with a very subtle warning that it's not at all hard to be Disappeared if they ever step out of line.  Elliot grew up to be an adult and got married and had kids, which is about as much proof as anyone would ever need that he never mentioned the little Alien who lived in his bedroom and who he once dressed up and took trick or treating on Halloween to anyone, and certainly not to any girls.  He got over the trauma of being threatened with a brutal death at the hands of The Establishment so well that he managed to become a perfectly ordinary, perfectly boring Suburban Dad with 2.5 kids and an SUV.

Thanks for the clarification, Xfinity- though I suspect that I'm actually right about the Deleted Scene, and test audiences just thought it was kind of a downer way to end a family film, and Spielberg got cold feet and agreed to the last-minute edit.

*Ok, I was 18.  That's still a kid.  Shut Up.

Mercedes-Benz "Negotiation" Commercial is (hopefully) as bad as it can get

I'd like to suggest that this fat little creep needs a good kick in the pants followed by a lesson in decency a lot more than he needs an overpriced LookAtMeMobile, but Santa would have to hang around to provide that lesson in decency as the kid's parents certainly are not up to the task.

"It would be a real shame if this went viral."  Um, would it?  Only if you think the planet is filled with shallow, mentally challenged morons who think that every fat, bearded guy in a red suit is Santa Claus.  That's the only way anyone gives a flying damn about a shot of a guy with a wide ass dressed up like Santa Claus "goes viral."  Which means "Santa's" response makes zero sense.  He ought to tell that kid "go ahead and put it on the web, nobody gives a damn because nobody over the age of eight believes in Santa, you f--ng idiot."

Better yet, he ought to say "I'm your father, stupid.  I'm just having fun.  But thanks for demonstrating that you have no business being in possession of a phone with YouTube access.  I'm taking it back.  You can have your own phone when you get a job and pay for it yourself.

Unless he actually IS Santa.  In that case, he should stick with Option A and just tell the kid to f--k off and post the "compromising" photo.  And then repack all those gifts and tell the kid the entire house is on his Naughty List, permanently.  After all, the parents of this nasty fungus raised him to act like this, right?  And not only that-- Santa can peer into the future and see exactly how they'd react to their cruddy spawn getting a car that costs more than the average yearly salary by blackmailing St. Nicholas.  Massive fail on all levels.  F--k this kid, F--k his parents, and F--k Mercedes-Benz for soiling my television with this abomination.

Dominion Energy reminds us what we have to be thankful for.

"I have to go, honey.  I have to go Defend Our FreedomsTM."

"Defend our freedoms from who?  Who wants to take our freedoms away?"

"Um...bad people.  But don't worry, they live on the other side of the planet."

"So how are they threatening our freedoms?  Why do you have to go fight them?"

"We need to Fight Them There So We Don't Have To Fight Them HereTM."

"But why do you have to go?  How are you going to fight them?  Why can't you just be home for Thanksgiving?"

"Because Freedom Isn't FreeTM."

"But how are the bad people trying to take our freedoms?  And why do you keep talking in trademarked Cliche'-speak?"

"Got to go.  Wear this hat and think of me- you dad who can't be home because I'm well, you know, Freedoms and all that.  These Colors Don't RunTM."

"Why do I get the feeling this has something to do with an energy company, and that the freedom Daddy is fighting for has to do with profits?  Oh well, this is a nice hat, and so far he's always come back alive, and pictures of me in this hat make the easily-manipulated YouTube Sheep swoon, so...."

American Express lets us know that we can't buy happiness, but we CAN borrow it at 0% APR for 15 months

So this weirdly ugly young woman gets a piece of green plastic in the mail which encourages her to go out and recklessly spend money that she doesn't have on stuff that she's decided she wants but doesn't at all need.

And this commercial drops like a lead balloon on to a country whose people are drowning in record student loan and credit card debt....great, just great.  What's the key to happiness?  Spending more money than you have.  How can you do that?  With this little plastic rectangle.  Where will it lead to?  Stupid Debt.  Maybe the idea is to get you used to Stupid Debt so that when you get into Real, Unavoidable Debt- like before you reach that Health Plan Deductible or are trying to balance rent and student loan payments- you'll be used to carrying a balance month after month?

In any case, this woman is ugly at the beginning of an ugly commercial, and is no less ugly at the end of it.  Just poorer.  What a great message to toss on to the screens just before Black Friday.  Thanks, American Express!

Discover Antisocial Obnoxiousness

Because the best place to have a long conversation with the Discover Card phone bank is while you are standing in the middle of an aquarium.  I mean, other than a museum, library, waiting area at the airport, or while standing in line at the grocery store, I can't think of any better place to loudly discuss card options, can you?

What's that you say?  Have conversations like this while in the privacy of your own home? Well, how would you possibly be a royal pain in the ass to other people if you do that?  Seriously, if you're going to hold off on calls that can clearly wait until you get out of public areas, what's the point of even HAVING a cell phone?

Personally, I'd miss listening to people drone on at high volume about everything under the sun, including stuff that silly past generations might have considered Private.  Those silly old people, with their crazy backwards notions of not being a braying jackass around others who are just trying to enjoy their thoughts without being distracted by your Very Important Phone Conversations About Anything!  Fortunately they'll be dead someday so we won't have to deal with their sighs and head shakes and disapproving glances much longer!

(Oh, and here's an extra special punchline:  The comment option for this particular YouTube video is closed.  I guess Discover doesn't mind making commercials featuring people being obtrusive sociopaths, but don't really want to read any responses about said commercials from others.  Rather hypocritical, wouldn't you say?)

Just a few more questions for the people who make these State Farm ads....

1. What kind of life is Aaron Rodgers living where he's constantly checking his State Farm App?  How many claims can any one person have going at any given time?  Seriously, I'm concerned about what Rodgers is doing in between Not Winning Super Bowls.

2.  Why is this guy so obsessed with landing Aaron Rodgers (and/or Pat Mahomes) as a client?  This isn't Voya or AXA or Prudential or any other investment service.  Why does he care so much?

3.  Since he does care so much, why is he working for the only large insurance carrier in the United States that doesn't offer an App?

4.  Since he doesn't have Aaron Rodgers as a client, why is Rodgers always showing up at his office?  Is Rodgers stalking this guy, or what?  I mean, we don't see the weird insurance guy showing up in Green Bay to harass Rodgers.  We don't see him accosting Rodgers in the locker room moments after Rodgers' season has ended with a playoff loss (and he's had plenty of opportunities to do that, just sayin'.)  Rodgers is coming to HIM.  Why?

5. The latest ads feature this insurance guy having nightmares featuring Aaron Rodgers staring at him in a super-creepy way.  Seriously, at this point I wouldn't be surprised if this series of "funny" ads ends with Creepy Insurance Man writing a love letter to Rodgers before committing a murder-suicide with him.  Enough already.

Another Jared's "She Comes Cheap and Life is Short" Christmas Commercial

I know we just started talkin'

But since I'm sick of stalkin'

Look at the time we're clockin'

I've paid up my dues

So don't you do any thinkin'

Singles Life is really stinkin'

Just say yes without blinkin'

your Last Name's Old News

Oh No I am not fakin'

A mistake is what you're not makin'

Take the Token that says you're Taken

Time for Wedding Bell Blues

Oh sure I like your kisses

But lets get down to business

Time to make you a Mrs

You got nothin' to lose

Don't think of the guy you're pickin'

That clock inside is tickin'

Get sentenced to the kitchen

I'm partial to stews

I guess I could be more flirty

who knows if I'm even sturdy

but come on you're almost thirty

and life ain't no cruise

Outside its nice and snowy

And my car is snug and cozy

in the end, you're just a trophy

But I guess that you'll do.

NextGen Stats and Russell Wilson team up to give us an unintentionally hilarious ad

First, a sidebar if I may:  All of these NexGen"Stats"are drawn from exactly the same region that Trump supporter in the break room or at the bar gets his from- his loud, absurdly confident, ignorant ass.  If you think I'm wrong, please tell me the mathematical formula used to determine "catch probability." 

(Not to mention- even if the "catch probability" was "only" 29 percent, that's a nearly 1-in-3 chance that the pass is completed.  What is so damned amazing about that?)

Second, a great big pile of snark for using Russell Wilson of all people in this ad.  Whatever else he does in his career, Russell Wilson almost certainly be remembered for one pass more than any other- the one he threw to Malcolm Butler from the five yard line in the closing seconds of Super Bowl XLIX which sealed the game...for the Patriots. 

I wonder, what were the odds of Butler making that game-ending interception?  More than 1 in 3?

PRECISION!

GMC Black Friday Event is really giving Lexus December to Remember ads a run for their money

Apparently this god-awful insult is a reboot of last year's model, which I somehow missed.  Judging from the comments on YouTube, it was received with fury then, and I can see why.

So this Pretty Young Couple is enjoying life and the Holidays in their spotless, enormous Suburban Palace, and it's time to exchange gifts.  The young lady who I guess isn't a TrophyWife since she looks about the same age as her husband gives him-- um, an Apple Watch, or something like that.  Not exactly sure what it is, just that it's small and she got herself one too.  Oh, and she got one in black and one in red, and the guy picks up the red one and says "I love it." 

(Considering what happens, I think what he really loves is that she has totally bought into the "I'm getting myself something while getting you something" mindset, because he did the same thing.  He doesn't even LOOK at the gift she got him- clearly, he doesn't care what it is any more than I do.)

So he announces that HE got something for her and something for himself, too- so they go outside (and we get another view of that ridiculous house) and he reveals that he somehow managed to get two huge trucks parked (ostentatiously pointed into the street, naturally)  without Wife noticing.  She LOVES the....black one, even though it's quickly made clear that he intended the red one for her and the black one for him.  And this is where the Viewer Rage kicks in.  And I can't say I'm surprised, because it's where my rage kicked in, too (I was just resigned and irritated at how Pretty these people are or how Stupid-Big that house is.)

See, the stupid idiot guy went out and spent $100,000 or more on identical-model trucks that are exactly the same in everything except color, and his Otherwise Absolutely Perfect Life is marred because his Even More Disgusting Than Him wife insists on taking the truck she KNOWS he wants.  He's stupid for not announcing "I bought us trucks- red for you, black for me."  He's even dumber making this purchase without discussing it with her first, but that's just par for the course in car commercials these days- GMC, Buick, and Lexus just figure that this is what people do in December- they buy each other cars that cost more than the average full-time American worker makes in a year.  And he's Most Dumberest of All by not simply saying "um, no, the red one is yours- if you want it in a different color, let's just go down to the dealership and trade it in, sure it will cost the instant depreciation but come on it's not like we care about money, I mean, check out the house."

Maybe this guy figures he'll rescue just a little bit of his dignity by putting his foot down and demanding the black Apple Watch. That'll show her!

Or maybe he's already plotting out his revenge- next year, she's getting a Peloton bike.  That's always a nice, subtle little reminder that there ARE trophy wives out there who are younger, prettier, and maybe just a smidge less entitled when Sugar Daddy brings trucks home for the Holidays.

It's not as easy as creating a Facebook Group, but in the long run it could be a lot more effective....

Feel sad because this woman "just got deployed" and won't be spending Christmas with her family?  Well, you could join a Facebook Support Page and share Thoughts and Prayers and then go out to collect piles of lights and decorations and even take down a tree (I think this is the "Do Not Attempt" part- because nobody should ever attempt to chop down a tree unless you're an Officially Licensed Tree Chopper-Downer, I guess) in order to create a fake "Christmas" scene both outside of the family's house AND INSIDE AS WELL ("how did this happen?"  As in, "how did this Holiday MiracleTM take place, and not "how did these people get into our house and do all this while we slept, and who gave them a key, and seriously what the actual hell is happening here I thought this was about YOU missing Christmas, not all about us?")  You could respond to a woman being deployed for the holidays by assuming that meant that her homefront-bound family was going to go without decorations and a tree because Dad can't do any of this stuff without the soldier of the family around (can someone explain this to me?  Did she always do all the decorations so it can't be done without her?  Seriously, someone help me out here.)

You could do all this stuff from the comfort of your keypad, and in the end you'll get a bunch of photos which will allow you to share the Awesomeness of your Great Big Heart with all your "friends" on Facebook and which will help you forget that your MLM lost another $1600 this year and, once again, you kinda sorta forgot to give any money to that food bank and soup kitchen in your own home town (but seriously, where's the glory in THAT?)

But while you're doing all that, how about voting for candidates who won't support the ridiculous knee-jerk over-extension of America's military?  After all, the United States is currently at war with absolutely no one.  Anyone even care why this woman was suddenly deployed at all, never mind just before Christmas? Where's the compelling interest being defended here?  Whose freedoms are being defended by this woman?  What Vital Strategic Interest is being served by having Mommy on the other side of the planet instead of with her children?

Anyone? Someone?

Fios + Holiday + Disney = A Sad Commercial, Right from the Start

1.  "One thing I love about Disney, its that everyone can be a princess."

WTF?  Why would anyone WANT to be a Disney princess?  Disney princesses are, with very few exceptions, Trophies to be on the screen to have dreamy eyes and look pretty while they wistfully imagine being saved by a Big Strong ManTM.  If you think that's something worth aspiring to, please don't have kids.  Especially daughters.  But no sons, either.  Don't have sons.  Don't have kids at all. 

2.  "My TV is pretty much always playing a Marvel movie..." expand your horizons.  You are an infantile rut.  I mean, at least you didn't say "DC Comics" movie, but obviously that wasn't going to happen because we all know who owns Marvel.  Still...you have a Peter Pan complex and you need to stop bragging about it and start getting therapy for it.

3.  "Star Wars is everything.  It's my life" says a little kid who is way too young to be making such "deep" observations about himself.  And his father is standing right there, listening to this.  Red Flag, dad.  Not something you should be chuckling at- especially if early whispers about The Rise of Skywalker are to be taken seriously.)  Especially since this kid isn't old enough to have seen anything but the last two abominations in the theater.  If THOSE films made Star Wars "everything" to him, well...I mean, they weren't the Prequels, but still....

(OMG I'm nine seconds into this thing...)

4.  Another adult is telling us how her favorite Disney Princess (we're back to that again?) is Pocahontas.  Ok fine, maybe you saw it when you were very young, and she's the first-ever Princess of Color and that appealed to you, never mind that it followed the same tired Magic Natives Talking to Trees and Animals bit we've seen in a dozen other (racist) films.

Anyway, I'm done. The Patriots are on, I've got a stack of tests I must return to students tomorrow, and I'm assuming that at any moment I'll be told that my report card comments aren't QUITE good enough and need a few minor revisions, shouldn't take more than a couple of hours...I'm out.

Coming this Fall to NBC: Domino's 911!

This is one of the most unintentionally hysterical commercials out there, and that's saying a lot.

I mean, look at what's going on here:  The manager of a Domino's Pizza franchise gets a text message that tells him a recently delivered box of bland dough and sugary sauce topped with limp pieces of meat was "not quite up to standards."  He takes this "very personally," and acts exactly as if he's in command of an Emergency Care Unit rushing to the scene of a road accident. 

"We're going to expedite this order!" another franchiser who would be on suicide watch if she stopped to think for just one moment what she was panicking about  announces to her staff of high school dropouts and college students struggling to keep food on the table while getting that degree.  Because no matter what else is going on in that "restaurant," nothing is going to take precedence over dealing with the immediate tragedy of some taste-deprived loser in the 'burbs not getting exactly what they ordered on their Crap in a Box pizza.

"It might be a missing dipping sauce, it could be a wrong topping or it arrives cold..." yes, the Crisis could be any number of First World Problems that is a minor inconvenience to the customer but must be treated like a Life or Death matter to Domino's because....well, because if it's not Life or Death, we might stop to think about it for a second and blow our brains out.

At the end of all this nonsense, we see delivery monkeys literally roaring through the streets in their vehicles before sprinting up steps to hand over pizzas like they are transplanted organs being rushed into surgery.  And then we get the response of the stupid fat hicks who can't believe that they are being treated like f--ng royalty by a company willing to whip its employees into a frenzy to gain a competitive edge over PapaJohns, Little Caesars, Pizza Hut, etc. etc. ETC. 

In the end, I really do think that this should be a network tv drama.  Let's see the pain and anguish that comes from a crew of pretty young people who, try as they might, continue to occasionally fail to include mushrooms on that order or- distracted perhaps by a love triangle involving a cashier- miss a street and end up delivering the pizza at room temperature, resulting in a panicked Race Against Time to replace it during (lets say) a torrential rainstorm.  Let's use plenty of handheld cameras so we get a real sense of the pressure involved in getting just the right cup of dipping sauce out of the fridge and getting into the box with the Free This Month Only bottle of soda included and to that house in Bumblef--k USA before some arbitrary deadline that I guess exists because re-heating isn't an option.  I'm so ready for this, Network Television.  You've got a built-in sponsor .  Go for it!

Apple's iPhone 11 Commercial reminds me of Lost Opportunities

In the winter of 1978, I was sledding on a hill near my house at night and went straight into a partially snow-covered barbed wire fence.  Part of the fence cut into my neck.  If I hadn't been wearing a heavy collar, I might have bled to death that night, at the age of 14.

In the fall of 1983, I lost control of my grandfather's Volkswagen Beetle and rolled it four times before crashing into a stone bridge.  No seat belts.  If I missed the bridge, I would have plunged into the creek, maybe being crushed by the collapsing chassis of Germany's Finest in Engineering.  That was the day after the Orioles won their last World Series.  I was 20.

In the summer of 1990, I almost drowned off the coast of New Jersey.  If I hadn't managed to find an emergency rescue rope stretched out into the ocean, I might not have been able to pull myself out of the water.  I might have drowned that day, at the age of 26.

What I'm saying is....several times in my life, I had the opportunity to permanently avoid being subjected to this commercial, and I blew it.  No one to blame but myself.

Awesome fun with As Seen on TV's "Tac Visor!"

First, let's all celebrate that the Tac Visor was "inspired" by the flight helmets used in AMERICAN fighter planes; if I'm going to buy something from a company which regularly uses an American Flag and an American Bald Eagle as its logos, I want to be sure that whatever that flimsy joke piece-of-crap item wasn't inspired by some flight helmet being used by some Commie flying missions over Syria or Vietnam or wherever!

Second, if I watch this ad without thinking too hard, it appears that the Tac Visor is actually a really cool super-thin HDTV you strap to your car's standard visor.  When you get sick of driving toward that nuclear blast, you can pull down the HDTV and watch a movie about a truck blaring its horn as it drives by.  I suspect that it's not a good idea to get too into that movie, though, because that seems to be the only scene available on the Tac Visor.  Maybe there are other scenes available just pay Extra Shipping and Handling?

Then I see the scene where we have a big truck surrounded by - chains, cables?  Seriously, what?- and facing a big white screen.  A woman is asked to look at the white screen, and she sees nothing.  Then the Tac Visor is pulled down and for once its not showing that scene with the big truck blowing its horn.  Instead, it's showing an advertisement for the Tac Visor.  Mind. Blown

So I guess if you are driving toward an H-bomb testing site and you have really bad timing, you should definitely get one of these Tac Visors so you can shield your eyes with part of a movie about a truck blaring its horn- maybe a digitally remastered version of  1971's  Duel, or something.  Seems like you'd be better off just avoiding that area, or maybe putting on a pair of sunglasses, than making yourself more distracted by watching TV while driving, but that's just me.

So Basset Hounds are Racist?

I am not a dog owner.  In fact, I'm not a pet owner at all.  And I will never understand the attraction of owning a pet.

But I know a lot of pet owners, including dog owners who own several dogs of different breeds.  As near as I can tell, they all get along with each other just fine.  Which is something I never thought about until I saw this ad, which suggests that basset hounds only run with their own- or, maybe, that other dogs are bigoted toward basset hounds and won't run with them?  I'm just trying to figure out who the ridiculous snobs are here.

My guess is that the bigoted jerk in the ad is the basset hound owner and, by extension, all basset hound owners.  This guy sees that there are no other basset hounds in the park so he goes to Facebook and either starts or joins a page dedicated to the interests of basset hound owners.  Before you know it, we've got a wonderfully exclusive, segregated party going on at the beach featuring a large number of basset hound owners and their dogs who I'm guessing are running around barking and making messes that their owners will let the tide take care of.   Can't be sure because comments are blocked for this video, something I find completely unsurprising because wow this is stupid.

Yet Another Perplexing Indeed Ad

1.  If this guy is regularly losing jobs ("they have to move again..") why does he keep buying houses instead of renting apartments?  How often have they had to move, anyway?  That little girl looks awfully frustrated and angry, like it's a regular thing.  So what's with the constant purchase of houses?  Maybe if they just rented a nice two-bedroom apartment, they'd have enough financial stability to stay in the same area during a prolonged period of unemployment for dad?

2.  Somehow both the dad and the little girl know that the chirping noise on dad's phone twenty feet away means that dad's going to be employed and they don't have to move after all?  How do either of them know what that chirp means?  How did the little girl even HEAR the chirp through the door?

Charlize Theron walks into a bar...

...and proceeds to interrupt everyone else's fun by showing how awesome she is when she's the star of a commercial and she- and everyone else- is following a script which requires her to be absolutely perfect at everything while balancing a beer with one hand.  A beer which, by the way, she either never drinks or keeps having refilled between shots.

I just don't understand commercials at all, I guess.  But know what I understand even less?  The triggered white male losers who go insane over ads like this and let us know they've lost their minds by posting comments on YouTube.

Actually, Mets and Yankees fans probably deserve each other anyway

So this woman is a married to an over-the-top Mets fan even though she "secretly loves the Yankees?"  So they never talked sports during the entire time they were dating, though those dates must have included Mets games if he's such a huge Mets fan?  Why has she kept this secret to herself until suddenly deciding to share it with anonymous neighborhood kids showing up for Halloween, anyway?  Oh right- that house.  That's a nice house.  And this is going to sound mean, but...this woman isn't what I'd call TrophyWife material.

You're doing the right thing, lady.  Keep that Yankees love to yourself.

BTW, why the heck is this kid wearing a Yankees uniform as a Halloween costume?  Is this Boston?  Because if that was the joke, it doesn't work anymore.  Through most of this century, the Yankees haven't been especially terrifying to the Red Sox.

Selena Gomez, iPhone, and other stuff I really don't give a damn about

Some years back a little girl named Selena Gomez was in the right place at the right time with the right look when the Disney Channel was casting for a stupid tv show about a family of wizards.  I'd say the rest is history, except that I teach history and I have way too much respect for the subject to go there.

And because Ms Gomez had- just barely- enough vocal range to be turned into a salable musical commodity with the right tech support, she's able to sell out the KFC Yum! Center and other high-end venues and "perform" in front of audiences of teen girls who have yet to develop any taste in music or anything else.  Fine, I'm not one to knock anyone's hustle- but for chrissakes, who cares if someone whose entire career is looking good can be made to look good by the new iPhone?

Corona "Jukebox" commercial leaves me cold, leaves YouTube commenters doing their usual schtick

I have the World Series on with the sound off, so I watched this stupid nub of an ad for crap beer without the background music that more than one total loser in the YouTube comments was desperate to track down (after a month, he managed to locate the song, which I'm sure made him happy for a few seconds in his otherwise pointless, sad little life.)

Without sound, it appears that a greasy creep saw a hot and inexplicably dateless girl standing in front of the jukebox and decided to just walk up to her, show her how cheap he is/how terrible his taste in beer is, and demonstrate that he's already out of ideas by using his own bottle of beer to turn up the volume.  She finds this charming, of course.  Naturally.  I mean, it's television.

Inside of three minutes, she'll figure out that this idiot has absolutely nothing to offer her beyond a bottle of cruddy beer, and he'll figure out that she's just as much a void, which is why she decided to drape herself over a jukebox and respond to the first guy who offered her a drink with a "ooooh aren't you wonderful" smile and body language that makes me wonder if she has a skeleton.  I'm sure they'll be very happy together.

GoMedicare Benefits HelpRipYouOffCenter Ad.....

...which has absolutely NOTHING to do with Medicare except that the extremely popular government program is being used to create a veneer of respectability on to yet another scumbag insurance company seeking to prey on the elderly and the ill-informed.

Let's imagine that I'm the owner of one of these fly-by-night barrel-scraping plagues on humanity; how would I go about using the criminally under-regulated airwaves and the Rendered-Toothless-By-Forty-Years-Of-Reaganesque-Laissez-Faire Legislation Federal Trade Commission to pry money out of the people who have highest level of anxiety and lowest level of information among the populace?  Well, first I'll use the word "Medicare," because no matter how little the average Senior Citizen Daytime TV viewer knows about federal assistance they are ALL aware of Medicare and practically all of them derive benefit from it.  As I wrote in the first paragraph, the mere mention of Medicare creates an instant bond of trust between the company that purchased the commercial and the viewer:

"Oh, he said Medicare.  I know Medicare works.  I know it's totally legitimate.  And I can't read those little words that say 'not affiliated with any government program, so I'm going to just listen to the nice man with the earnest voice tell me something about Medicare and I'm very much inclined to accept what he's saying because he started off by saying Medicare."

(It's very important that I call my company something like "GoMedicare," or "MedicareAdvanced," or something official-sounding like that- I'm using the word "Medicare" so it must be legit, the government would totally NEVER let anyone use the word "Medicare" unless was some kind of official program- except of course for that disclaimer that the viewer couldn't read and also remember that toothless FTC thing.)

(While I'm at it, I'm going to put something that looks very much like an official Medicare card on the screen, because that's also very familiar to the viewer and will make him think this is totally legitimate.)

Then I'll remind the elderly viewer that Medicare is limited in what it will pay for- something most people on Medicare already know.  Medicare is awesome but it includes co-pays for prescriptions and doctor appointments and hospital visits.  So now I'll suggest that if they use my program they'll get BETTER Medicare- motorized scooters and wheelchairs, private hospital rooms, etc.- and it will just cost them a few extra dollars a month, so worth it to bring those Medicare benefits up to a Level They Deserve, right?

I will not EVER use the word "insurance" in my ad unless it's connected to the word "Medicare."  "Medicare Insurance" sounds ok, but I think I'd rather just call it "GoMedicare Benefits," because "GoMedicare" sounds just like "Medicare" and absolves me of any responsibility if the viewer failed to get the difference (which I am hoping happens a lot.)  Plus, seniors understand they are entitled to "Benefits" already- telling people who are already getting benefits that they are entitled to MORE benefits is totally plausible.

In the end, I'm selling junk insurance to the elderly by piggy-backing onto the popularity of Medicare.   "Call now and see if you qualify?"  If you already qualify for Medicare Benefits, why would you not qualify for GoMedicare Benefits?  Because you aren't calling to see if you qualify for Medicare Benefits, but if you qualify for a policy with an insurance company called GoHealth which never- not even once- tells you it's name in any of it's ads.  Or that it's website home page is devoted to "helping" people qualify for "ObamaCare"  (old people get shafted by tv commercials, younger people get conned online thank you very much.)  And in the end, I'm just trying to scoop as much money you can't afford into my own pocket because I'm just a soulless creep who had his empathy surgically removed with his wisdom teeth.

What the heck is going on in this Nissan Rogue Commercial??

So in this Nissan ad, we see that TrophyWife's job 24/7 is to protect her daughter from her mentally deficient Child-Husband and his determination to remain a giggling preteen when playing with their offspring.  TrophyWife has resigned herself to respond again and again with exasperated shrugs and occassional "WTF?" looks in response to Boy-Man's dangerously clueless attitude toward safety when it comes to his daughter.

(Though, seriously- I think TrophyWife might be a bit anal when it comes to her daughter's safety.  What exactly did she think would be the horrifying consequence if Daughter had crashed into the kitchen trash can?)

BTW, why doesn't TrophyWife just do the driving if her husband has proven again and again that he's a dangerously useless moron when it comes to...well, just about everything?  Is it because Women Don't Drive When Hubby Is Also In The Car Because Reasons?  Oh no wait, I know the real answer:  It's because Hubby can't screw up and give Mommy another reason to grimace, roll her eyes, or otherwise express her bemused disappointment at his inability to do ANYTHING right if Mommy is doing the driving.

One more thing:  Seriously, what is it with this guy?  From one angle, I see a guy who seems to be suffering from some weird mental problem which prevents him from doing anything but grinning and laughing, like he's a very small boy trapped in the body of an adult.  From another, I see a Father enjoying the time he's spending with his daughter who he recognizes as being made of actual flesh and bone and not crystal and therefore refuses to share his Insane Harpy Wife's constant fear that daughter will suffer injury if not kept perfectly still and wrapped in cellophane.   So What the Serious F--k, Nissan?

USAA Bank: Unafraid to follow the New Predictable

Wait a minute, I'm confused!  Which is to say, I can't quite believe what I'm seeing here!

As near as I can tell (and again, I'm sure I must be mistaken,) this commercial features a young couple making a friendly bet on a game of mini-golf.  That part I actually have no problem believing.  I'm sure this happens.  But what happens next is totally bizarre- the GUY LOSES THE BET TO THE GIRL.

I mean, seriously, really?  A girl besting a guy in an American TV commercial in the year 2019?  If that's what really happened here, what's next?  Snow in January?  Fireworks in July?  I dare not guess!

More Questions for Aaron Rodgers and State Farm

1.  Who the hell has a "favorite State Farm Agent?"  Who has a "favorite" insurance agent at all?

2.  What kind of horrifying crapshow is the life of Aaron Rodgers if he "takes his favorite State Farm agent wherever he goes?"  Man, if you have to bring your insurance agent along with you everywhere, you probably should be locked up as a chronic danger to society.

3.  Rodgers is also constantly checking his policy on his State Farm App in these commercials- another huge red flag.  Good lord man, what the hell are you doing that requires you to constantly check on the status of your freaking insurance?

4.  When are Packers fans going to get sick of every season featuring endless Aaron Rodgers Insurance Ads but no Aaron Rodgers in the Superbowl?  Seriously, guys- priorities.  Is Rodgers insured against consistent failure in the playoffs?  I'm sure he doesn't know offhand.  Time to check that App for the 300th time today!

5.  There's a "Subscribe" button for State Farm Insurance Commercials.  Who the hell would subscribe to be notified whenever another one of these steaming piles of dumb is released on youtube?  As if being beaten over the head with them all weekend during every football game isn't enough?

Another Awful Indeed Ad

Hmmm...just a thought:  Maybe if this kid with stupid greasy hair wasn't just sitting or laying around his parents' house with a stupid blank zombie look on his face, his parents wouldn't have jumped to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that he was being an unmotivated sponge.  Maybe they wouldn't have been so frustrated if he had been oh, I don't know, doing his own laundry or vacuuming or just TALKING TO THE PARENTS WHO WERE PROVIDING HIM WITH A PLACE TO STAY, MEALS, AND LAUNDRY SERVICE instead of acting as if moving back into your bedroom meant that you also got to revert to being a helpless child who needed caring for again.

Based on the way this commercial ends, I guess the parents are supposed to feel super-guilty for ever doubting that their stupid little spawn was actively looking for work by staring at his phone.  Like they owe him an apology for being irritated that their adult son was being totally uncommunicative about his job-hunting strategy.  Like they should have just ASSUMED that he was working really, really hard to land that position that would allow him to go back to being a functioning adult. 

But when you really think about it, um, No.  This creep is being an ungrateful little ass toward his parents.  He spends the entire commercial behaving like a guy who thinks his parents should be able to read his f--ng mind and somehow just KNOW he's working really hard to get the hell out of there (and ignore the silence, that stupid blank look frozen to his face, and that awful greasy hair.)  Also, he doesn't get a job at the end- just invites to attend interviews.  I know from experience that interviews don't pay the bills.  Hold off on that apology, parents.  And for chrissakes, stop doing this jagoff's laundry for him. 

AT&T joins in the never-ending Celebrity Spokeschoad Parade

Every once in a while, I'm reminded of how lucky I am to have been born at a certain time in the past century, watch very little television, listen to very little contemporary music, and am therefore more or less immune to these "wow, look at this Currently Popular Celebrity Doing Very Mundane Things Right Out Here In the Open" commercials.

Whoever Gordon Ramsay is, I wouldn't bat an eye if he handed me a free food sample at the Giant up the road from my house, just like I wouldn't bat an eye if Taylor Swift handed me my coffee at Starbucks because seriously, who the f--k are either of these people?  Well, of course, they are Celebrities who are supposed to Know Stuff by virtue of being Famous for doing things that have nothing to do with what they are currently trying to sell me on the TV.

And while we're at it, I'd love to tell Samuel L Jackson where he can stick that Capital One Card.  If he ever shows up around my Credit Union, I'll be sure to do it- assuming I recognize him.

Tide + NFL = Another Celebration of Dumb

Remember back in February when this was just a cute re-occurring concept for a series of Superbowl ads, and not something that you were being battered with every few minutes, hour after hour, for committing the crime of wanting to watch football?

Anyone remember the last time an ad agency came up with a clever concept and just viewers kind of enjoy it as a nice, inventive little surprise instead of responding with a knee-jerk "oh, you liked that? Well here it is again, 400 times over, until you want to blow your brains out whenever you see it pop up on your screen" series of Here We Go Again commercials?  I seriously can't.  In my lifetime, clever concepts on tv get beaten to death, then the bones get beaten, then the dust gets beaten, and then the dust gets buried for a year or two....and then the horse is resurrected to get beaten all over again for Nostalgia's Sake. 

Given the history, I suspect we'll be seeing this "What Night is Laundry Night" bit go on for quite some time.  Peyton Manning will keep showing up to bleat nonsense about Official NFL Declarations concerning when I'm supposed to do my laundry (think Peyton Manning has ever done laundry in his entire life?  Think he knows where the washing machine is in any of his houses? Me neither) and the drooling YouTube monkeys will gulp it down and claim to want more when they aren't begging to know where they can download the background music.  Other NFL "legends" will join in, until this Tide Ad campaign has had more official spokeschoads than KFC has had fake Colonels.  Eventually it will dissolve into a wall of white noise for even the OMG I LOVE THIS AD glue-sniffers and disappear from the airwaves, though I imagine that'll be 2024 at the earliest.  Then it will rise from the dead like Paul from Sprint to remind us the Good Old Days when we thought we liked this noxious, steaming little cowpie of an ad campaign.

Oh, and Peyton?  You showed up in every other commercial while you were still an active player.  Nobody misses you, because nobody's been given a chance to miss you.  I'd like that chance, please.

Questions, Indeed!

1.  So this woman was actively searching for another position while employed by her current company....maybe if she had been a little more focused on her job instead of searching for a better one, she would have been considered valuable enough to earn a promotion?

2.  This looks like a pretty serious company- this woman better hope she doesn't have some kind of non-competition agreement which prevents her from going to work for that place that wants to arrange an interview?

3.  This woman sure looks confident that she's going to get a job that she's just now learned about.  Was she just as confident when she joined this firm that she'd be getting regular advancement in exchange for hard work (I'm assuming that when she isn't looking for opportunities to quit, she works hard?)  If she does get the job over the six-foot-two white guy also being interviewed, is she going to keep floating her resume out there every time someone else gets promoted over her?

As long as they don't miss their appointment with the National Razor, I'm fine with this

I bet you let yourself get fixated on the fact that two people who are supposed to be in "FRANCE 1780" are interrupted in their discussion of carriage prices by a guy with a Circa 2019 SUV.  And yes, that's really really stupid.  But it's not the brain-dead insulting part of this ad.

That comes closer to the end, when the SUV-owning jackass yells across the square that he got a GREAT PRICE and, when challenged for evidence, waves his phone and yells "IT LITERALLY SAYS, GREAT PRICE!"  Ah, ok, why didn't you say so?  The App on your phone says Great Price, MUST be a great price otherwise how could the ad get away with saying so?

And the two people who overpaid on their...um carriages- quickly concede the "point."  Because as I mentioned earlier, they've been given Absolute Proof the other guy got a great price 'cause it Says Right There on his Phone.

Ok, done.  Bring on Robespierre and start the clean-up job on these twits please.  Because the Revolution can't succeed as long as France is burdened by this level of mouth-breathing gullibility, can it?

More Awesome Parenting from Kraft!

Got a little brat in your ridiculous palatial suburban mansion who won't eat her veggies?  Don't model healthy eating, that's too hard.  Don't make her eat her vegetables- that just creates disharmony in the household (and, as I learned in a song featured in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there's nothing more important than peace and quiet in the household.)

Here's a better idea- just give the kid something she'll eat with a big smile on her face, because Big Smiles and Contentment is what it's all about.  If that means tossing the veggies into the garbage and letting her eat macaroni saturated with fatty orange goo, well, fine.  Eventually she'll like that fatty orange goo so much you might even get away with pouring it on her veggies and getting your Little Angel to eat them, too!

Then you all can sit in your ridiculous glowing-clean dining room and give each other huge satisfied grins, as if anyone but that awful picky brat actually accomplished something of value. The little girl here certainly DID learn a valuable lesson- throw a fit, raise mommy's stress level- and she'll fold faster than Superman on laundry day.*  Dad?  Well, dad just wants a quiet house.  He couldn't give a damn what his daughter eats or how his wife deals with daughter's little tantrums, as long as it's all done by the time he walks into his Castle expecting a decent dinner.  He's not particularly thrilled that TrophyWife is serving him Kraft Crap In A Box as well, but we often get less than what we pay for.

*Seinfeld reference

I still don't hate these people as much as Lexus owners, sorry Buick!*

I'd like all these spoiled brats to go die in fires, preferably after being in horrible accidents in their cars- oh, excuse me, I mean in their Buicks.  Can they do that?

At the very least, I wish the guy who forgot to lock his car (I'm not playing this game) already had it stolen or vandalized, as it's clearly been hours since he left it (seriously, he's somewhere off the coast, and his car (f--k you, Buick) is parked ostentatiously on the top level of some parking garage at an airport?  Maybe not even in the same country?  WTF?)

And the woman who tells Alexa to start the car- umm, may I ask why?  It doesn't look like it's cold outside.  Or warm.  So what's the point of starting it before you get out there?  Afraid your carbon footprint isn't large enough, lady?  Or is it just another case of "I'm doing this because I can and I want you to know I can?"

Either way, I'd refer you back to my first request.

*We are approximately six weeks away from December to Remember Lexus ads.  Sorry.

Taco Bell's latest offering to America's Insatiable Stupid Food Hole

In the sick, perverted fantasy world of Taco Bell, thousands of people stand in line like lemmings who've been told that their destination is a store selling the newest iPhone to buy whatever greasy piece of faux-Mexican food trash they deign to serve up this week.

As if this commercial wasn't dumb enough on it's face- and it is (I mean, seriously- how many hours are these people standing in line to purchase a taco dusted with cheese?  It's CHEESE, people- not gold.  Not the newest iPhones!  CHEESE!  And pretty much exactly the same kind of cheese you wipe on your pants after eating a bag of Doritos!  Seriously, people!)  we have the spectacle of a woman commenting on what she just waited on line for, purchased, and is now eating as she walks out the door (I actually find this rather believable.  Anyone dumb enough waste a day they'll never get back to buy a handful of greasy meat wrapped in a giant Dorito is certainly dumb enough to express amazement over the concept seconds after the purchase.)



Here's what I don't get, though:  Why is the product featured in this SNL ad from six years ago not on the menu at Taco Bell yet?  I mean, Taco Bell is owned by Kentucky Fried Chicken, the people who brought us the Sandwich with deep-fried chicken in the place of bread.  Surely they can figure out the physics of a taco-pizza-crepe-pancake combo.  I'd stand in line for that!*

*not really

Questions for the fans of Buffalo Wild Wings, etc.

1.  If you can't deprive yourself of football for one day a year to attend a friend's wedding, send the invite back with the "NO" box checked and send a gift.  Don't show up, eat the food, and sit at a table staring at your phone during the festivities like the self-absorbed douchenozzle you know you are.  Just stay home with your football game.  Everyone else will have a great time without you.  Hell, they'll have a BETTER time without you.

2.  If you go to Buffalo Wild Wings, please don't act like the guys in this commercial who act as if they are afraid that if they actually eat the wings instead of attacking them, the taste might catch up and they'll realize they aren't eating actual Buffalo Wings like the kind you can get at actual sports bars from Buffalo to Pittsburgh but rather bland, mass-produced chicken that's just fine if you want lots of finger food during a football game but nowhere near good enough if you've experienced the real thing.

3.  If you work for the ad agency that makes these commercials, please ask yourself why you think that potential customers need to be yelled at in every. Single. Buffalo Wild Wings Ad.  Because we don't.  People who enjoy the prospect of sitting in the Olive Garden of Sports Bars for three hours watching The Game (any game) on a big screen tv while eating barely-seasoned chicken and guzzling down pitchers of equally bland brand-name beer don't require this level of angry hype, and people who have taste won't respond to it anyway, so why not just skip it already?

Wow, I can't imagine why comments are blocked for this iPhone 11 commercial

I mean, you'd think that Apple and Sprint would WANT to soak in the adulation from the viewers who just love the idea of trading in their old iPhones (iPhone 7 or younger, in ANY condition and we mean ANY condition, ANY!) and also love the excitement just oozing like gangrene pus from these two chipper young people!*

Or maybe Apple and Sprint are well aware that they put together a complete Hot Mess of an ad which would inspire the average viewer to dive for the mute button much more than hunting up their old iPhone and heading off to the nearest Apple store to sign another economically ruinous contract in exchange for a marginally nicer and newer phone than the one you crippled your bank account to purchase six months ago.

*I'm being generous by calling Paul a "young" person- he's 48- but it might be more descriptive to just call him an easily-purchased whore for whichever company is willing to hand him a check, a description many would consider harsh but I don't think anyone could argue is inaccurate.

Postmates demonstrates a trend I really want to see end like right now please

Some time in the very recent past a whole lot of advertising agencies got the idea that being as disgusting as humanly possible was the best strategy for selling a product.  Don't offer information about your product, don't tell the viewer why your product was superior- hell, don't even tell him what your product IS.  Just be as stupid and gross as you think you can get away with (and that's a line that's getting harder to hurdle every moment,) slap that crud on tv, and there you go, you've got yourself a commercial that will get attention.

Negative attention, but attention.

This clip includes two commercials for something called "Postmates," which I'm going to guess is just another food delivery service.  I'm not at all sure why Postmates decided that the best way to sell their food service was to

1.  Hire a tax cheat as a spokeschoad.  I mean, come on, really?  Martha Stewart?  Why do I care what Martha Stewart is pimping?  She's a crook.  I associate her with ripping people off.  Why would I buy anything she rents her name to?  And

2.  Take away any semblance of an appetite I may have had before either ad hit the air.  The first one is dumb and gross.  The second makes the first almost passable by comparison.  Almost.

BTW, check out the second guy's apartment.  I don't care about him in the slightest.  I hope he went for the penthouse, because that just means it's all that much farther to the pavement   However, I'm really kind of stunned we don't see any blood.  Given the classiness displayed in both ads, I'd expect to see LOTS of blood- like, spraying everywhere, including all over that laptop screen.   Wouldn't that have been even MORE funny, Postmates?

Taylor Swift is Just Regular Folks. This has something to do with Capital One, I guess.

See, everyone?  Taylor Swift is just like you and me, performing  low-paying jobs badly and having a good time doing it, because if she gets fired well like I said she's just like you and me and she'll be doing her best to make ends meet while she seeks out another low-paying job.

Yep, it's just so adorable to see multi-millionaires slumming it to the delight of their fans, doesn't it?  Maybe Taylor can show up at my school and teach a class or two, failing adorably at that, too.  It would make her even more gosh-darned relateable, if that's even possible.  Meanwhile, there's seriously nothing more delightful than watching someone who makes more money in an hour than the people who actually work at the jobs she's cosplaying at make in a year pretending to be Just Another Struggling Laborer, don't you think?

Chevrolet, JD Power, and the bizarre Real People Cult

Let's cut to the chase with this crap, shall we?

JD Power and Associates is a "Global Marketing Information Service."  Which is to say, it conducts surveys of consumer satisfaction.  I just thought I'd let you know in case you had become convinced that existed ONLY to give ostentatious glittering plaques to Chevrolet- after all, the only time you EVER hear about this company is when Chevy's obnoxious Eurotrash spokeschoad is bleating about it to bs "real people" who are busily drooling over some BlandMobile or Truck.

JD Power doesn't buy advertising to let other companies know who they are or what they do.  They don't have to.  They figured out quite some time ago that all they have to do is hand phony awards to Chevrolet, and Chevrolet will be more than happy to give them free advertising- which also benefits Chevrolet.  Funny how that works, don't you think?

In fact, it's gotten so bad that in this particular commercial Chevy's played-out cretin spends the entire ad time praising...JD Power and Associates.  There's really no selling of a Chevy product anywhere in this ad.  Just this jackass with a Very Very Punchable Face telling us how very reliable JD Power and Associates' surveys are.   JD Power and Associates after all talks to even more Real People Not Actors than the Just Die Already scruffy Chevy yakker does, and whaddyaknow those Real People consistently say they bought Chevys and haven't killed themselves yet so Chevy must be really high in customer satisfaction JD Power and Associates says so.

And while this scumsucking little knob is busy kissing the butts of the company that keeps handing Chevrolet impressive-sounding but ultimately meaningless awards nobody outside of Chevrolet's corporate offices gives one flying damn about, a group of ethnically diverse zombies proceed to to close in on him like he's about to provide instructions for committing mass suicide.  Oh pardon me- I just envisioned a happy ending for this commercial.