Allstate's Mayhem Commercials are black holes of comedy, which explains why Americans love them so much

See, it's funny 'cause the black guy keeps yelling "what?"  That makes it funny.  And it gets more funny every time he yells "what?"

Plus it's got that guy who has done this mayhem thing like a thousand times in a thousand different commercials.  That never gets old, 'cause I've got the brain of a chick pea and I like stuff that's familiar and not too hard to think about.

I hope they keep making these mayhem commercials 'cause I like them they make me laugh and that's what I look for in commercials.  I love it when the mayhem guy gets hurt too, plus when that other guy keeps yelling "what?"  And best of all I like telling people on YouTube how much I like these commercials.  I was gonna just reply "what?" but like a dozen people already did that LOL.  I'm gonna do it anyway though 'cause "what?"

Booking.com will get you to hell for less

At booking.com, we can't promise that your kids won't be bored out of their minds twenty minutes into that vacation to the middle of nowhere to pan for pretty dirt in a creek unless that big not-cabin you rented has excellent WiFi, but we can guarantee the best possible rate for that vacation your wife and kids will be complaining about for years to come and which ended any chance that your vacation suggestions would ever be taken seriously again by your family.

I may be being a bit generous with the "twenty minutes" estimate.  That looks like a pretty nice cabin.  I think it's more likely that inside of fifteen minutes the children in this ad are long past any interest in dipping a screen into a creek and are sitting in that cabin checking out the satellite package and texting nasty comments about Stupid Dad and his Stupid Idea of Fun to their friends who are at a cool beach or amusement park someplace.  Maybe the cabin has a hot tub?  Something?  Anything that doesn't lead everyone to angrily demand an explanation for why the family's two freaking weeks of vacation per year is being spent a few miles down the road from Jackson Hole Bible College and a thousand miles from Planet Interesting?

Three points concerning this Danny DeVito Quickbooks Commercial

1.  It's perfectly normal to Josie Gonzalez (who is really cute, btw) to be handed financial advice from Danny DeVito because....well, because this is television, I guess.

2.  It's perfectly fine to portray a dog groomer living in a freaking palace in the suburbs.  Because dog groomers running their own small, one-employee businesses regularly make $250K annually.  Uh-huh.

3.  Josie Gonzalez doesn't have a single line in this entire ad.  Why not?  I strongly suspect that it's because Danny DeVito, for all his concern for the success of this small business, had zero interest in sharing lines with a non-actor.  So Josie Gonzalez is oddly mute during her scenes, which comes off as more than a little awkward and weird.

Does P3 stand for Three Times the Pollution?

So instead of spending thirty seconds chopping up a cup of cold turkey and cheese and adding a handful of nuts, this woman is going to buy the same thing in "convenient" packaging which will be sitting in a landfill leaching toxins for the next ten thousand years.  And she'll feel superior doing it.

Only the country which created Lunchables and put Sunny Delight in 4-ounce plastic bottles and taught us all how to drink coffee brewed in individual plastic cups could pull this off AND sell it as a virtue.

Nobody has to pay me to avoid eating Dominos Pizza, but thanks anyway

Oh look, it's another one of those commercials which feature a very straightforward offer that must be questioned by half a dozen people who are too rock-brained to get it the first five times.  Aren't those always so hilarious?

I almost want the Dominos Pizza Spokeschoad to respond to "what about anchovies?" with "well, no, that's the exception to our Any Pizza offer.  No anchovies.  Glad you asked.  We forgot about that one."  I also wish he had responded to the dog with the chew toy with either "no, the offer is for humans only" or "I'd stick with that rubber pizza, I can almost guarantee it tastes better than anything Dominos makes."

In the end, it's all about bribing us to put down that GOOD pizza we've been eating and buy a BAD pizza from Dominos on the theory that Cheap is Better than Good.

And I'm not going to even point out that the only black woman in the entire commercial has no other lines other than "WHAAAAAAAA???"  Haha, sassy black women are so funny, aren't they?  Another winner, Dominos!  I guess after Papa John, you pretty much have carte blanche to do anything now, don't you?

Chrysler Pacifica: As shallow as it gets, I hope

Finally having some Quality Time with her thoughts, weird twitchy airhead proceeds to waste that time thinking vacant non-thoughts no human being with two brain cells to rub together thinks.  And, as implied previously, must summon a significant amount of facial muscle energy to accomplish even that.

(I mean, seriously- I can almost hear the director yelling "show me Confusion!  Show me Contemplation!  Now give me a quizzical look!"  No Oscar nominations in this woman's future, that's for sure.*)

This woman is recognized* by a trophy wife driving the same vehicle who assumes that the first woman- when she isn't struggling to contort her face to let us know she's "thinking" things- is green and all that, whatever.  And the punchline is that the first woman is just taking the opportunity to jam a giant sandwich into her mouth at the light.  This is funny Because Reasons.

Not too much more to say about this ad, except to note that it's the first car commercial I've seen in ages which actually mentions certain attributes of the automobile beyond it's WiFi capablities.  We don't even see anyone yakking on their phones in this ad, which is at least one small step forward.  It's still a gigantic Salute to Stupid, but at least it doesn't promote behavior that puts me in danger every time I cross the street.  I do wish that it didn't suggest that driving a two-ton piece of metal that keeps the DRIVER safe is a good time to list the most banal thoughts that have ever popped into the head of any biped ever, but I know that suggesting it's time better spent paying attention to one's surroundings is a bridge too far for most people, so I'll take what I can get.

*I see that this is another You're Supposed To Know Who This Is commercial featuring a Well-Known To People Addicted to Some Mind-Numbingly Dumb Show actress.  Proud to say that I don't know who she is, nor do I care.

Disgusting Scraping the Barrel Febreze Commercial reminds us that we are held in infinite contempt by advertisers

You can't smell Dave's farts.  That's it.  They don't smell, for some reason.  They never did.  And everyone noticed that they don't smell and everyone celebrates that fact, from Dave's parents to the would-be trophy wife who wasn't good enough for the guy whose farts didn't stink.  Even the janitor mopping the locker room has fond memories for Dave, and I don't even want to think about why he's remembering Dave's odorless fecal release as he's mopping the locker room floor. 

Sigh.  Yeah, we get it.  We got it ten seconds in, yet you gave us another minute and a half of this nonsense.

Because, you see, the people who are coming to your Party to Watch the Patriots Win Again aren't Dave.  They are going to stink up your bathroom.  So you'd better get Febreze.

Meanwhile, Dave doesn't even know what Febreze is- and since he can't read and continues to live with his mother well into his twenties, he asks her what it is.  His mother would know, being a girl and all.  WTF-ever, Febreze.  I can't help thinking that this commercial was made exclusively for the glue-sniffers at YouTube to LOL THIS IS HILARIOUS I LOVE THIS BTW WHAT IS THAT SONG crowd, but even they didn't jump at bait THIS obnoxiously obvious.  That's something, anyway.

Point of Personal Privilege: "Creed II" is a really, really bad movie (Spoilers!)

I finally got around to watching this film the other day.  I didn't have much by way of expectations; after all, I saw the first one and thought it was a predictably blah flick.  But at least it didn't make me angry.  This one made me angry.  More about that later.

First, let's talk about Michael B Jordan.  Is this guy a sought-after actor nowadays, and if so, may I ask why?  He has all the emotional range of Derek Zoolander.  He's like a male Alicia Vikander.  He's got exactly one look- sullen, surly, angry, morose, whatever you want to call it, there it is, on his face, at all times.  He's not at all interesting- in fact, I'd call his "characterizations" (to be charitable) downrght boring.  The only time in this film he shows any recognizable human traits is when he's writhing away on the canvas, crying and holding his crushed ribs.  More about THAT later, too.

Second, the story.  I'm pretty sure the character of Creed was a light-heavyweight in the first film.  I guess that wasn't sexy or audience-friendly enough, so he's suddenly a heavyweight in the sequel, whatever.  I guess if we can look past the fact that he's supposed to be the son of someone who died in 1985 yet I'm pretty sure is supposed to be in his mid-twenties, we can overlook the sudden weight jump, too.

My real problem is the mixed message/dropped plot point of the second fight.  The first time Creed fights Viktor Drago, he gets so badly beaten up that he suffers broken ribs and a ruptured kidney.  Drago gets disqualified, which ticked me off at first but then when the reporters are shouting questions at surly (what else?) Creed at the hospital, I thought Creed might say "hey, he kicked my butt, I was going to lose anyway, give him the belt."  That might have been cool.  But nah.

But here's the kicker:  Rocky doesn't want Creed to fight again- Creed's wife is pregnant, he was almost killed in the first fight, nothing more to prove, etc. etc. and most importantly, Rocky is still wracked with guilt for not throwing in the towel when Apollo was being annihilated by Ivan Drago way back in 1985.  He tells Adonis straight on that darn it, he should have thrown that towel, he'll never forgive himself for not throwing that towel, if he had thrown in the towel Apollo might have been upset but he would have been spared to build a relationship with his child,  and would have eventually realized how stupid risking his life for one more moment in the sun truly was.

But in the rematch, Adonis gets beaten up again and is dropped to the canvas by brutal body punches.  He's literally crying with pain as he's lying on the canvas, clutching his re-crushed rib cage- and Rocky doesn't throw in the towel.  Instead, he begs Adonis to get back up (so does Adonis' wife, which is beyond bizarre.)  So Viktor can finish him off, I guess.  I mean, the referee clearly isn't going to rescue Creed- he's not going to stop the fight until Creed vomits up his other kidney from the looks of things.  But I thought Rocky was remorseful because he could have saved Creed's father but froze instead and didn't throw that towel.  So, what the hell?

(Before the final round, Rocky asks Adonis- who is clearly in a great deal of pain, with one eye closed, if he wants to throw in the towel.  Adonis can't even answer- and Rocky mutters approvingly "I didn't think so."  Again- what the hell?  Did the writers just want to make it clear that Rocky learned absolutely nothing from that 1985 fight and that all his "shoulda thrown the towel" nonsense was just that, nonsense?)

And then Creed, with his caved-in lungs, gets up and stops Viktor with a series of head shots which come out of nowhere.  Time is running out in the final round but Viktor's dad demonstrates that he's the only person around with even a shred of humanity and throws in the towel himself, rescuing his son, though it  was pretty obvious that had he not done so Viktor would have won, as the ref was being totally fair in his handling of the bout- the fight would continue until Creed expelled that kidney or Viktor's head was deposited into the third row.

I don't usually play script doctor, but here's how this film could have ended in a much more realistic and perfectly satisfying way:  Creed is the challenger, having opted to hand Viktor the belt despite the disqualification.  In the rematch Creed does much better despite being badly hurt again, and may even be gaining the upper hand late in the fight, but it's also clear that he's suffering from internal bleeding and could die if the contest continues.  Creed knocks down Viktor and has him in serious trouble but its clear that he can't finish him off without an effort that could cost him his life- so as he's on the attack, Rocky throws in the towel.  Creed is upset and angry until he sees his wife climbing into the ring and realizes that the almost became his father in the worst way, being willing to sacrifice years with his child for one great moment of glory.  He closes the circle by shrugging off the fight and embracing his wife, leaving Viktor with a belt which now means nothing to him.

Ok, now that that's fixed, I can get back to snarking on commercials.  And Michael B. Jordan can get back to those acting lessons.  And Sylvester Stallone can stop making these films already.

The ONLY funny thing about the State Farm "Fender Bender" Superbowl Commercial....

....comes at the very beginning, when the driver tells his agent "I've got a pretty big fender bender here" and the agent, without knowing one single thing about the accident, who is at fault, or the amount of damage accrued spread among the number of people involved, says "don't worry, you're covered."

Uh-huh.  That's what happens when your car is damaged and you call your State Farm Rep.  She'll instantly tell you not to worry, you're covered, we'll get the details later.  Suuuuurrre, that's the way it works.

The helium voices?  Well, as I post in the YouTube comments, they are very funny- if you're under eleven years old.  Otherwise....meh, not so much.  But I know who the audience is for commercials like this, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Oh, gag: Turbotax has created a Cinematic Universe?

Hey looky, it's that woman from the other Turbotax commercial who "escapes" the horror of a casual conversation to go over her tax return "line by line" on the phone while sitting in a coffee shop!

But wait....wasn't she just a costumer of Turbotax in that ad?  I mean, she's just using a deluxe version of the service which includes a callback and personal line-by-line examination of her filing.  In THIS ad, she seems to be intimately connected to Turbotax.  So she's an employee of the service now?  Then why didn't she do her own taxes?

And the whole little child robot thing....meh, whatever.  I'd argue that a robot which has achieved self-awareness and dreams of becoming a Turbotax accountant has not actually achieved any level of self-awareness worth posessing.  It would be like if Pinnochio came to life and announced that his great ambition was to fold boxes at Dominoes or work at a Discover Card call center.  I'd excuse Geppetto for converting him into a tv tray.  You know, something valuable.

Coming next:  This robot kid and Nasty Antisocial Woman fend off lawsuits from Sprint for stealing their Robot Wanting To Use Its Programming to Whore for a Massive Corporation schtick.

Teleflora's disturbing "Love Out Loud" commercial

The main character in this ad spends his entire life vainly attempting to buy love with flowers.  Over and over again, he goes to flowers as a way of getting girls- and then women- to acknowledge his existence.  At first, he's dissapointed to discover that while the objects of his affection like the flowers and are willing to accept them, they aren't instantly enamoured of him personally.  His world is bright for one moment as the girl smiles and appreciates the gift of flowers, and then turns away without offering him any kind of reward beyond the thank-you. 

As the boy was clearly after more than a thank-you, this leaves him confused.

As he gets older, he continues in his quest to purchase a relationship with a fistful of pretty plant life.  At some point, he finally manages to get a woman to go out with him and even move in with him, but as she learns who he is beyond his ability to buy flowers she begins to (gasp!) quarrel with him.  Yes, this incredibly ungrateful woman actually ARGUES with the Very Nice Guy who used to be a Very Nice Boy, clearly she isn't good enough for him and she walks out, leaving our Hero Alone Again, Naturally.*

Now our Very Nice Guy has turned into an Old Very Nice Guy, and the world is very dark and cold and filled with Evil Women who simply cannot appreciate him no matter how many times he's shelled out for flowers.  He's done with all that; he's not buying any more of these Users flowers because they never get him what he really wants.  But oh wait- here's an equally dissapointed and Twice as Desperate old woman willing to give HIM a flower because SHE'S been let down by people with personalities and their own ideas of what they want in a life partner.  True love at last.

Our story closes with the main character married at last to the right person- someone who, like him, believes that affection can and should be purchased with trinkets (flowers today, rings tomorrow) and that there's Hope Yet for all the Nice People in the world who know they are Nice People because Look What I Did For You Now You Owe Me Dammit. 

The only thing more creepy, sad and disturbing about this ridiculously smarmy, ugly, manipulative little nub of an ad?  The YouTube commenters weeping with appreciation over it.  Ugh, people.  Please.

*yes, that's an intentional Gilbert O'Sullivan reference.

The Only Thing Worse than another Consumer Cellular Commercial....

...is one that attempts to use a rhyming scheme.  I mean, all of these ads are just horrible- most of them feature idiot old people smiling and nodding at their phones in a lame attempt to demonstrate emotion for the camera- but this one might be the very worst, as it's nothing more than a celebration of all the ways you can waste the one and only life you'll ever have f--king around with your stupid phone.

All I really want is for everyone in this commercial to die in a horrible fire, and for Consumer Cellular commercials to stop popping up every time I listen to anything on YouTube.  That doesn't seem to be asking for so very much, but I rarely get what I want.  Maybe that will change when I become a Senior Citizen and join the ranks of the disgusting old twats who pollute the airwaves through these ads, as they seem to get everything THEY want.  Until then, I'll just sit here and wish that the Sharing The Latest Viral Cat Insane Woman would just put her stupid phone down and do something, anything, other than "share" banal bullcrap with whatever years of her worthless, meaningless life she has left.

In two years, Paul from Sprint will be yipping like a puppy for T-Mobile

"Hi I'm Paul, and I had a sweet gig with Verizon for a few years that I thought might lead to an acting career. Then my shelf life expired, Verizon dumped me overboard, and I found myself on the edge of homelessness because I couldn't find an ounce of acting ability with an x-ray machine and a mag-lite. So I decided to do the only thing I had any talent for- whoring myself out to a crappy cell service company and going back to making America hate my stupid fat face and dumbass grin." "And hey, check it out- I get to share time with an attention-sucking CGI robot thing, because Sprint is smart enough to know you sure as hell aren't about to switch phone services on MY word. After all, I've proven that I'll be a brown-noser for any company willing to put money in my pocket. Aren't I trustworthy?"

Good2Go Auto Insurance presents: So Much Winning!

"I'm walking down the street with my two kids and bags of groceries- this is really hard, making my life very difficult.  I've got a car, but I can't afford insurance.  I had a choice- feed them, or buy insurance.  They won."

Um, only in the most limited sense, lady.*  First of all, unless you wanted an eventual visit from Child Protective Services, you really don't get to choose between feeding your kids and driving your car, sorry.  If you thought I was going to give you plaudits for "choosing" your kids over your f--ng car, well, sorry, that's not going to happen.

If you wanted praise from me, you should have dumped that worthless car of yours and invested in a few transit passes.  Stop pretending you can afford a car and get real.  And get used to that mass transit option.

As for your kids....this is what your mom calls "winning," guys.  Juggling car insurance and food.  There's this thing called the genetic lottery, and you didn't win it.  The heartbreaking thing here is that your mom isn't all that interested in getting her finances in order if she's just waiting for someone to hand her cut-rate, Just Barely Legal "insurance" that won't do one damn thing for you if you're hurt in an accident which is her fault (think that's a risk worth taking?  Your mom does.  Which is probably why she can't afford insurance in the first place.)

Yep, they "won."  Kind of hard to tell when they are walking home from the grocery store with mom and then sitting in that studio apartment surrounded by Rent A Center appliances, but trust me, they "won."  Mommy says so.

*and once again, it's a single black person with kids who can't afford insurance.  So very progressive of you, Good2Go.

Check out this racist Good2Go Insurance Commercial....

I've watched a lot of these commercials, trying to pick and choose the best (worst) of them to snark at here.  And I've noticed a pattern I'd like to share with you.

Again and again, whenever the Good2Go customer is black person, that black person is either a divorced guy taking the bus to see his daughter and her mother or a single woman struggling to make ends meet with little children, no father in sight.  But whenever the Good2Go customer is a white man or white woman, they are simply seen as single people who talk about how difficult it is to get to their jobs without car insurance.  I'm serious- I've watched a dozen or more of these ads, and it's ALWAYS the same- black person with dependent kids, or single white person just trying to get to work.

WTF, Good2Go?

Oh, and about this particular ad- as usual, the woman here is doing everything backwards.  She paid good money for a car that I guess is just sitting in the driveway or on the street because she can't afford to drive it. She can't afford to drive it because car insurance costs too much.  Assuming she didn't buy a BMW or Audi, why can't she afford insurance?  Terrible driving record? Terrible credit? Must be something like that.  But in any case, why don't you just SELL that car you aren't using and invest that money in public transportation for which you'll never have to pay for maintenence, fuel, accidents or insurance?  I mean, it's obvious that you live in a substantial urban area- why don't you use that money you could get from selling the car you can't drive without buying barely-legal, no actual coverage car insurance to take an Uber or public bus to the freaking doctor?

Probably because all of these Good2Go commercials feature boneheaded idiots who dropped thousands of dollars on IndividualMobiles without considering where they were going to get the money for the insurance.  Even the ones featuring white people.  But getting back to my first point- come on, Good2Go.  Give me at least ONE commercial featuring a white single mom or a dad trying to catch the bus to visit his kid at mom's new place.  Just ONE. 

Consumer Cellular: Because being obnoxious with cell phones isn't just for you loser millenials anymore!

Watching these obnoxious Consumer Cellular ads with their ridiculous grinning self-satisfied Retired and Lovin' It Baby Boomers yapping endlessly about how much they adore Usin' the cell phones Just Like Their Grandchildren seriously makes me want to punch somebody.

Hey, Stupid Old People who had everything handed to them on a silver platter because they were born at the right time:  It's bad enough that the entire economy has catered to you for my entire life and that means that most of the commercials I see today is for drugs designed to treat Old People Diseases.  The very last thing any of us need to see now is you ridiculous idiots pretending to be thrilled to death over technology everyone under the age of fifty got used to over twenty years ago.

And it's even worse that there's one commercial after another for this stupid service featuring people who are in that golden age between Just Retired and Completely Helpless wasting what little productive time they have left hanging out with fellow Stupid Old People playing with their Amazing Phones.  Why aren't you using those ridiculous pension plans and swollen bank accounts to travel or something, you stupid ugly old knobs?

At least get the hell off my television.  I'm done with you people.  Seriously, we get it:  You've got it all.  You've always had it all.  Now you're old, rich and healthy and you can't even let your kids have the addiction to cellphones to themselves.