This Taco Bell Commercial is like that shower of meteorites 66 million years ago...

 

...you know, the shower of meteorites that foreshadowed the massive rock that ended the age of the dinosaurs.  

Stay with me on this:  A week from tomorrow most Americans will be engaged in the annual Watching of the Overproduced Overhyped Commercials Occasionally Interrupted by a Football Game.  All of the ads will have three things in common:  they will feature people we are expected to recognize and WILL recognize if we are In Tune With the Modern Era, they will be about thirty seconds longer than necessary, and they will have nothing to do with the actual product which may or may not be featured in the commercial.  I think this one features a Social Media personality- that's what is suggested in the comment section- but I don't know, nor do I care, because I'm not In Tune with the Modern Era.

A depressingly large population seems to enjoy these commercials; I'm even told that there are people who only watch the game FOR the commercials.  Personally, I think that they are by far the worst thing about the Superbowl and the main reason why I often don't even watch the game.  When I go to Superbowl parties, commercials are times to step out of the room, look at my phone, maybe try to engage in a conversation (which usually doesn't work because most people there want to take in the commercial.)  Actually I just go for the food and because I feel like I'm required to engage in national rituals now and then and one day a year seems about right.  

As for Taco Bell- well, this stuff is crap but so are people obsessed with their social media presence, so I guess this kind of makes sense.  If you think that Taco Bell is "food" you probably think that having a "following" makes you a "celebrity" and therefore "important."  So stay addicted to ultra-processed grease, fat, carbs and Attention from Strangers; probably better for you than Meth, anyway.

Tide Detergent Presents: the most boring family ever

 

Life's full of questions- and every single one of them revolves around stains.  At least, as far as this family is concerned.

This family is absolutely breathtaking in it's total lack of reasons to get up and face another day.  The woman comes in to the house with a big bottle of Tide on the TOP of her grocery bag, suggesting that either she did her own bagging or the guy who did hates her.  I mean, come on- nobody puts heavy bottles of detergent on top of groceries.  That's just stupid.  

From the moment she steps in the door, she's deluged with questions concerning laundry- if a color is "dark" or "light" (never in my life have I separated dark and light clothes; is that even still a thing?  I wash all my clothes in cold water, that's all.)  What should one use to get out chocolate (since the answer to all such questions is "Tide," because that's the detergent the insane woman who does the shopping and brings home crushed food every time she does purchases, it's kind of a mystery why they are even being asked.)  Does this family talk about anything else, ever?

Oh yeah- "do crabs have eyebrows?"  Probably not, but instead of sitting there with that stupid ugly perplexed face, you could look it up or at least ask Alexa, Idiot Mom.  But I'm guessing it's not lack of knowledge about crabs or eyebrows that has mom stumped.  It's just that the question has nothing to do with laundry and what's that all about anyway?  Ask how to get out crab stains, kid.  Stay in your mom's lane. 

That Ethos Life "Sweet Dreams" ad- because husbands are a dime a dozen, but this house is an appreciating asset, after all....

 

  

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/fzwT/ethos-worst-dream

"Honey, I had a terrible dream last night.  You were killed in a car accident!"

Oh my gosh, that's terrible.

"Wait, I haven't gotten to the bad part yet.  Jimmy and I couldn't afford to stay in the house, so we had to move!"

Wait, what?  Ok, so was the nightmare that I was killed in a car accident?  Or that my death caused financial hardship to you and our son?

"I was asking our neighbor about life insurance and he told me about Ethos, I think you should call and buy it today."

Well, I guess that answers my question.  Gee, if this was an ad campaign for Ethos Life, I wonder what they would call it?

"Sweet dreams."

No really.  What do you think they would call....oh my god, are you serious?

This Fanduel Manning Brothers ad is trying to convince us of three things

 

1.  The Mannings were in High School during the 1970s. 

I mean, come on. What's with the hairstyles?

These guys are in their forties.  They were in High School in the 1990s.  Give me a break.

2.  The Mannings think that gambling apps* are fun and actually engage with them. 

I'd bet (no pun intended) more money on Ice-T actually saving money with CarShield than on either of these guys actually gambling on sporting events.  That's really not something multimillionaires do.

3.  The Mannings will put their faces on anything if the money is right.  

We were pretty sure of this one already- and these ads just confirm that.  

*I'm told that what is being advertised here is a free game, which changes things not in the slightest.  Lots of drug dealers offer free samples to get people hooked out of the goodness of their heart.  "Free" offers like this are just gateways to addiction and the suppliers know it. 

Oh look, it's a series. We love those.

 

I mean, we can't get enough of Stupid Clueless Men trying everything and failing badly every time.  Why not as series of ads in which the guy tries and fails and it involves sports?  (Weren't men obsessed with sports on tv five minutes ago?  And now they know nothing about it?)

At least give us some backstory on this guy to explain his cluelessness.  He was raised on the moon, for example, and has arrived on Earth in the last week and is trying to fit in.  Right now, it looks as though he just never turned on the tv or interacted with any other males of his species until yesterday and is just trying to catch up.  Because yelling "high tide" and not being aware that Oregon's mascot is a duck....wait a minute. Is this guy actually traveling around the country to show what an utter doofus he is?  What is going on here?

An Airport Television Monitor, a Knife, MAGA and a great weekend to be Anywhere Else

The PF Chang restaurant next to my gate at Ronald Reagan National Airport was playing this ad pretty much nonstop for the hour leading up to my departure for Vermont for winter break.  I actually thought it was a parody until I realized that the tv was tuned to some channel that probably thinks that One America Network is too Woke.  The volume was not on, but I picked up some of the scrolling text- stuff about "standing up for America," being "prepared for anything" and "ready to stand strong" against--um, anyone who might challenge your right to own a stupid knife emblazoned with the name of your Dear Leader, I guess.

At first, I could understand why the tv was tuned to this particular channel on this particular day- it's the Saturday before the inaugural, and plenty of bloated, middle-aged white people with hard faces and empty heads were exiting from aircraft to spend a few days in a city they can't stand Because Reasons.  But then I thought-- wait a minute.  Don't restaurants at airport gates generally cater to DEPARTING flyers waiting for their flights to board?  What percentage of people taking in any of the amenities at an airport are already at their destination?  Who hangs around an airport after landing?  It seems to me that PF Changs was providing right-wing media trash for an audience that simply didn't exist.  

At any rate, my cold little heart was warmed a little bit at the news that the outdoor festivities have been cancelled due to impending bad weather- a Democrat Plot, no doubt, as the last time the weather forced an inauguration indoors was in January, 1985 when another great Republican was about to take his second oath of office.  Poor, poor MAGA- whatever will they do without the opportunity to show their Orange Mussolini how much they love him by waving flags and signs on the mall?  It's not like this crowd is interested in touring the Smithsonian, after all.

On second thought, I'm kind of sorry that the entire thing was moved indoors- it seems to me that Real Patriots like Trump America could have just toughed it out against the elements, keeping themselves warm by burning books in trash cans just like their philosophical forbearers did.  Or just huddled in one giant mass of the Proudly Unvaccinated to start another COVID spike.  Either way- Mr. Trump, please veto the figurative snowflakes who think that actual snowflakes should stand in the way of MAGA nation showing its pride and sharing its germs.  Our nation's collective IQ will rise slightly, and absolutely nothing of value will be lost. 

This DraftKings Commercial is a War Crime

 

Eventually every recognizable figure from sports and Hollywood will be pimping for America's Favorite Life-Destroying Addiction, and when the fever passes (probably following an economic collapse which will briefly SPIKE use of gambling apps) all of these people should be booed off the stage, regardless of where or what that stage is.

Then I remember that I live in a country that just re-elected a grifting, treasonous sexual predator, and also that nobody is burning Larry David or Tom Brady in effigy for peddling a Bitcoin scam just a few years ago, and realize that all of these shameless hucksters will be just fine.  There's no limit to our appetite for being kicked hard in the face.  It's almost as if, deep down, we know we deserve it. 

That Allstate "High Tide Commercial"

 

Hey look, it's a commercial featuring a stupid man making an ass of himself to the mortification of his smart female partner.  

Just checking...yep, that makes all of them.  

Pizza Hut's Absolutely Awful Pizza Delivery Commercial

 

Imagine being this delivery guy.  It's the NFL playoffs, which means it's a uniquely busy time at your place of work, which by the way will pay you your contracted rate if there's a lot to do and fire you as soon as business slacks off.  At any rate, you aren't watching the playoffs from the comfort of YOUR couch.  Not when there are pizzas to be delivered to douchenozzles like the guys in this ad.

So you get to your next delivery stop, and ring the bell while holding a stack of rapidly-cooling pizza and wings.  Nobody comes to the door.  You look inside, and you see two guys sitting in a huge living room watching a high-end HD TV, apparently engaged in some kind of conversation instead of just getting their delivery.  You ring the bell again.  The two choads on the couch keep talking; just because they pulled out an iPhone and opened an app and purchased thirty or forty bucks worth of pizza and wings doesn't mean that taking possession of that "food" is a priority.  

So you just stand there, wondering if you've been punked or are at the wrong address.  Presumably, they finally come to the door and may or not reward you with a tip and actual eye contact, but don't think for one moment that they are going to apologize for throwing you off schedule and making the next five stops on the route late and decorated by Karens who insist on discounts because their "food" is cold and will absolutely stiff you on that tip you kind of need to survive.  Before you head home to the Basement Efficiency you share with two of your co-workers. 

But it's all good because two jackasses in a suburban mansion too good to get off their damned couch to answer the door, let alone actually go out and get the food themselves, wanted to have a MENSA meeting over pizza or something.  This is just gross. 

Georgie and Mandy are CBS's way of letting us know that network television is dead

 

There are actually people (bots?) in the comment section excited about the premiere of this show, which is a spinoff of Young Sheldon,* which is itself a spinoff of The Big Bang Theory**.  It's like listening to people on Tuesday babble about how they can't wait to get home and reheat Monday's leftovers from Sunday's dinner.  While it's heating up, I bet if they look hard enough they can find some stale crackers in the bottom of that box on the shelf, too.  They can wash it down with that half-can of flat Diet Coke from the same Sunday dinner being reheated for a second time.

I used to think that the networks were intentionally creating shows like this to have an excuse to kill off the sitcom genre and run nothing but reality shows with whatever sporting events they can still afford to purchase away from Amazon, Netflix and Hulu.  Now I'm convinced that the streaming services are actually producing these shows to get rid of network television once and for all.  I mean, good riddance, but....I'm really hoping that the final extinction of network tv leads to a renaissance of reading rather than a wave of subscription purchases.  They say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one....

*A very popular show I've never watched even once.

**Another very popular show I've never watched even once. 

An Honest West Virginia Tourism Ad

 

Funny how I've been hearing about the high crime rate and corruption and poverty in "Democrat Controlled Cities" but I have never once heard anyone point out the absolute desolation, despair and hopelessness that has consumed a state that is absolutely dominated from top to bottom by the Republican Party. 

The entire state looks like this video.  West Virginia is well above the national average in Unemployment, Crime, Drug Addiction (especially Meth,)  and Poverty.  West Virginians are also heavy users of the Affordable Care Act (but hate Obamacare, of course, and repeatedly elect legislators who reject the Medicaid Family Planning Program.  Can't have fewer children living in poverty.  Wouldn't be American.)

West Virginia gave 70 percent of its vote to the GOP candidate for President in 2024 while electing two Republican Congressmen, a new Republican Senator, and a new Republican Governor to work with the overwhelmingly Republican Legislature.  Those people will continue to feed at the trough of government subsidies while flying American flags from their porches, Trump flags from their trucks, and proclaiming their independence from the Big Bad Government and it's Liberal Big Spenders who apparently still have all the power despite the Republicans controlling every branch.  Did I mention that West Virginia gutted its public school funding decades ago?  

The second largest industry in West Virginia (after coal, which is rapidly dying) is Tourism (which is rapidly dying.)  It's getting harder and harder to get people to see Ignorant Self-Sabotaging Hicksville USA as a great place to explore nature when the few mining companies that remain are busy carving down the last of the state's once-beautiful mountains.  The problem is that there are still plenty of stunning hikes to be had in the Appalachians of Pennsylvania and New York and North Carolina- you know, where there are still reasonable regulations preventing the total destruction of the wilderness for quick $$$.

West Virginia is doomed to go down with a whimper, not a bang.  Heck, it's there already.  Harper's Ferry is still worth a day with the kids.  But that's about it. 

Figuring out something about those awful Dr. Pepper "Fansville" ads

 

No, it's not that every single fan of the Fansville ads on YouTube is a bot.  That's obvious.  There cannot possibly be more than three or four people in the United States who ACTUALLY look forward to the "latest episode" of the lamest "series" in Commercial Land since that guy and that woman stopped flirting over instant coffee back in the 80s.  

It's that every single one of these ads is being produced by writers over the age of 70 who have not been outside of their offices or homes in thirty years.  I mean, come on- the people in this ad are reading about their favorite football team (or the National Championship Series, which has not been around for as long as the Fansville Series) in actual physical newspapers.  Most of the people watching these ad probably don't know why characters are playing with huge sheets of paper with ink on them and acting as if those sheets of paper are conveying information of some kind, like they are magic or something.  I expect to see a phone on the wall in the next ad, or maybe a television with rabbit ears.  

Or maybe these ads were all produced by young people in the 1980s and stuffed into a vault for when Dr. Pepper completely ran out of ideas- or behind glass which was labeled BREAK WHEN DESPERATE AND UNDER A RIDICULOUS DEADLINE AND LIVING IN A COUNTRY THAT WOULD ELECT DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENT, TWICE.  Either way works for me.  These ads?  They don't work for me at all. 

T-Mobile, the iPhone, Snoop Dog and Pat Mahomes set out to redefine the term "cringe"

 

All we need is for Stephen A. Smith and at least one of the Manning brothers to make an appearance, and I think we've got our Brick through the TV Set Bingo Cards all filled out.  

Seriously, it's like television WANTS us to hate these guys.  First, we've got Mahomes in every freaking State Farm commercial running roughly twice every break during every NFL or college football game.  Then we inexplicably have a freaking COLLEGE BOWL GAME named after a musician who hasn't had a hit in thirty years but has instead transitioned into the blandest corporate sellout since Eddie Murphy agreed to star in "Dr. Doolittle."  And then there's this ad, which is for a phone service, or maybe an iPhone, or maybe it's just a reminder that Snoop Dog exists outside the grotesque spectacle that was that bowl game or that Mahomes can appear on television without Jake from State Farm surgically attached to his hip.  

Well, if the goal was to kill off network TV once and for all and complete society's transition to streaming services, Mission Accomplished, I guess.  Because if the only way to get away from this brain-dead dreck is to sign up for every pay-tv option out there, well, I guess it's either that or give up on televised sports altogether.  Since I'm a miser, I think I know which way I'm going, but the rest of you are on your own.  

Taco Bell's "Negative Nelly" obvious rage bait is obvious rage bait

 

The next time I want to demonstrate the theory that companies will intentionally create ads just to tick people off and get them talking- even if the talk is 99 percent negative, even if the talk includes phrases like "worst ad ever" and "this makes me sick" and "I'll never use this product again," the theory is "if they are talking about us, it's a good thing, no such thing as bad publicity"- I'll show them this commercial. 

There is simply no way that "Negative Nelly" is not here to get people asking questions like "what was Taco Bell thinking" and "this is gross" and "not funny at all."  I'm sure we're going to get a few Fat Activists throwing in with a few legitimate-for-a-change points concerning the fact that Nelli is the only obese person in this ad and is acting like a disgusting cretin (it's not that she doesn't like the nuggets, it's the way she's expressing herself, being a crude, brassy cliche of a Fat Person on TV- in 1975.)  

Not noticed is the more sinister message- that if you don't like Taco Bell's chicken nuggets, you should just keep your fool mouth shut.  Or be ridiculed as a fat, gross, brassy pig in a Taco Bell commercial.  Don't be a "Negative Nelly"- if you don't like the nuggets, eat them anyway and pretend to like them, like a good little drone.  You know, like the thin, attractive people you are in a consumer testing group with for some reason. 

I suspect that his ad will get a lot of attention, almost all of which is negative, and the ad company that created it will receive a nice fat check from Taco Bell execs, who will then congratulate themselves on buying into the idea of being stupid and offensive for clicks and views.  I won't be boycotting Taco Bell since I wouldn't eat there if I was literally starving, but it would be nice if the company took even a little bit of a financial hit for subjecting us to this manipulative tripe.  I am not holding my breath though; Americans  are addicted to cheap, greasy non-food even more than they are addicted to smart phones, Buy Now Pay Later and Uber Eats.  We're doomed- and even that doesn't enrage me, really. 

ESPN bet- yeah, I guess I should have seen this coming...

 

This braying jackass is everywhere; he might as well be whoring for gambling addiction apps.  Stephen A. Smith is a little late to the party, but there's plenty of money still out there to be made off of what is currently America's favorite family-and-finances-destroying habit, and after all there's no money like blood money, is there?

Starting the New Year with the ultimate "Sure Jan" moment, courtesy of Toyota

 

"Welcome to Toyotathon...."

Response by what appears to be a human life form using a script from Nathan Pyle's aliens:  "we are taking her friends to the snow in a Highlander."  

First, how is that a response to "welcome to this sales event?"  Like, talk about cutting to the chase- "yeah yeah, we are taking New Car to Destination.  Sell us new car."  Second, why would Jan give a flying damn WHY you want a new car or what you plan to do with it?  She's there to sell you the car you want or, if you aren't sure you want one, convince you that you do and in fact can't live another day without one.  That's what car salesmen DO.  But you come in here with your daughter and her friend who is for some reason being referred to in the plural all decked out in winter clothing as if you've just stopped by to pick up the vehicle you need to "go to the snow" like you are dropping by McDonald's for a quick Happy Meal.  Dude, this is going to take some time.  At least take your jacket and scarf off.  You guys look like total dorks who have no idea how the process of purchasing a car works.  THIS IS GOING TO TAKE MORE THAN A FEW MINUTES.

And what would Jan know about "Human Friends" anyway?  She's spent the last decade or more sitting in that dealership with that stupid frozen zombie smile grinning like a mannequin and acting as if being the peddler of Japanese Imports has her on a constant dopamine drip.  What are you ON, woman?