An open letter to Volkswagen

Dear Volkswagen,

I first noticed that "Punch Dub Days" had arrived back in March, and I quickly noted the ugliness of an ad campaign based on the "fun" experience of punching people in the arm. Well, I thought, at least "Punch Dub Days" won't last very long. And there have been worse sales pitches (though not many.)

But now we are three months in to watching people punch friends, neighbors, grandparents, children and innocent bystanders-- HARD-- each time using the excuse that one of your overrated automobiles- not ONE of which is an actual Volkswagen Bug- has just cruised by at a dangerous speed. And I can tell you that what was annoying in March has become downright nauseating in May.

Really, for how long do you intend to subject us to this viciousness? Do you really think it's funny or entertaining to watch grampa get socked in the nuts by his grandson as they wait for the light to change? To watch one passive-aggressive moron after another slam their fists into the person next to them, sometimes knocking them off-balance in the process? To watch a huffing and puffing pregnant woman take a moment away from measured breathing to listlessly slam her fist into her life partner's shoulder?

Do you realize that the actors in these commercials themselves seem thoroughly sick of this pitch? The punches are becoming heavier, more intentionally damaging, while the "Black Ones!' and "Red Ones!" are more and more formulaic and matter-of-fact. And the victims? They look ready to respond with a knife or a gun. And I can't say I blame them.

Can we please move on now? Violence is not funny. Your "Punch Dub Days" concept, harkening back to an earlier era of automotive travel in which Volkswagen made Bugs which looked different from all other cars on the road, was never a clever one. And now it's gone to seed. So please, spare us any further "let's watch people slam their fists into each other" commercials, ok? They aren't humorous, they don't make me want to buy one of your cars, and they don't leave me with a good opinion of your company. Quite frankly, they leave me angry and disgusted.

Please, let it go. We in the real world don't want to play your stupid, mean-spirited "game." And I for one am bored out of my mind watching cruelty played up as humor in your ads.

Sincerely,

Thiscommercialsucks@blogspot.com

You can actually HEAR your Arteries Harden

I’m willing to give a pass to the people carrying each other on their backs to “illustrate” something that doesn’t need to be illustrated to anyone smarter than a mentally ill box turtle. After all, I’ve been to IHOP once or twice, and my guess is that these choads approximate quite accurately the average IQ level of the regular customers. Especially since regulars are usually stumbling in at 3 AM drunk out of their skulls. I'm sure I've seen that guy bumping his head against the lights in the closing moments before- and his girth certainly suggests that he's no stranger to unhealthy food choices.

I’m even willing to give a pass to the casting of an implausibly beautiful, white actress to play the role of IHOP hostess. Doesn’t match my experience in any way, but hey, there are a lot of IHOPS out there. I’m not sure that there are a lot of lovely young women choosing to make minimum wage handing out menus to tipsy morons at 3 AM instead of walking through any of the many other doors open to them, but like I said, I’ll give this a pass to get to my main gripe...

Cheesecake between pancakes, covered in “strawberry” flavoring? Really? This “breakfast” would be only slightly more dangerous if it came with a nice hot cup of strychnine. And I’m sure that the people who order it are encouraged to add sides- bacon, sausages, hash browns, etc. ("all your favorites.") Very nice- a three-day supply of fat and calories on one big plate. Real time-saver.

And if you really eat this crap, you’ll need to save time whenever you can, because you haven’t got much to spare.

(I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt to the black guy who pauses for a moment with an overladen fork in front of his mouth- perhaps he isn't stunned by the sudden appearance of a Human Tower of Fat. Perhaps he's experiencing an epiphany- "what am I doing to myself?")

I know it’s not IHOP or KFC’s job to end the obesity epidemic all by themselves, but does that mean they have to be fighting on the other side? Pancake Stackers, Double Down Sandwiches, Super Sizing...I just don’t see how the promoters of good nutrition keep up. In a few decades, when triple bypass surgery becomes oddly routine and people end up selling their houses to pay for the treatment of medical conditions brought on by years of disgustingly gluttonous eating habits, will any of these restaurants be held culpable in any way?

Oh, who am I kidding. In a couple of years, IHOP will be selling us donut cheeseburgers and KFC will be promoting Buckets of Just Skin. And people will be wheeling in on their Segways to chow down. Sick.

Have you Driven a Ford Lately? Well, now you have no choice!

Pardon the pun, but haven't ad agencies gotten enough mileage out of the lame "swap" theme already? We've seen decent coffee swapped for Folger's Crystals without complaint (oh PLEASE!! If you can't tell the difference between decent coffee and instant, get your taste buds swapped!,) Owen Wilson's brother swapping out cell phones, Italian Restaurant-goers being fed Domino's pasta and liking it (what a crappy restaurant, I mean come on!) And now we've got people losing their cars for a week and being forced to drive Fords. What did they do to deserve this? What did WE do?

Right off the bat, I really can't get past this guy's thumbs-hooked-to-his-belt, hilariously exaggerated "man pose" in the opening scene. What's the matter, couldn't figure out how to gut a fish or chop down a redwood while introducing Ford's latest ad idea?

Setting aside Mr Testosterone for a moment, let's examine this woman's reaction to being told that Ford has taken possession of her reliable Honda Civic and has left her to drive a brand-new Ford Focus for the next seven days. (This has been accomplished with the help of her "friends" and family-- kind of an Intervention for people who own cars of which we do not approve, I guess.) Well, she's quite thrilled at the idea. After all, it IS only seven days- and Fords are actually pretty reliable for periods well beyond a week. I've known people who have owned Fords which have provided excellent service for months before needing major work.

Of course, the gushing over the car is all about the pointless little gadgets Ford has thrown in to distract you from the fact that- well, it's a Ford. "My Civic doesn't have Bluetooth...." Um, no, it doesn't, unless of course you get it installed. It will, however, easily reach 200,000 miles with simple, regular maintenance, which means your Civic will be on the streets several years after this Ford Focus has rusted out, collapsed from within and been turned into a cube.

"I can say 'Destination,'...." Yes, and if you install a $100 GPS in your Honda (like I did on mine,) you can get directions with the push of a few buttons, too. True, you'll actually have to push buttons and you can't just command it to give you directions, like you can on this Ford Focus, but guess what? In a couple of years, all the yelling in the world won't make this shiny piece of trash move at all. Maybe you'll be yelling at it the very moment I drive past in your old Civic, which you foolishly traded in to buy this junk.

This commercial ends with Mr. Hooked Thumbs barking near-orders at Easily Seduced Woman, to which she responds with one-word affirmatives. She's sold. She wants a Ford Focus. Because it's shinier than her Honda Civic and it has these little gadgets. My guess is that she thinks Folger's Crystals makes awesome coffee and Domino's pasta should be sold out of Milanese Restaurants. All I know is, she's easily conned, and I'll be swinging by Ford to buy her old Civic.

Morons of the World Unite; You Have Nothing to Lose but your Wires

Once again, our friends in the wireless industry demonstrate their total lack of shame, humility, or any sense of boundaries in their never-ending quest to convince us that their stupid little toys are not only absolutely vital to our individual abilities to survive through the ups and downs of our daily lives, but are the fricking glue holding civilization together.

Seriously- "Let Freedom Ring?" By caressing phone screens and bringing up maps, downloading videos, posting youtube clips, twittering, etc? This is what our concept of "Freedom" has descended to?

Does it matter to those coldblooded assholes that most of the planet is living on less than 1000 calories a day, with no stable electrical grid or clean water supply, under regimes more likely to round them up and "disappear" them than provide basic services or the FREEDOMS we in the Western World take for granted? Does it matter to any of these ghouls that for most of our fellow voyagers here on Spaceship Earth, "freedom" is either a dream or the punchline to an unfunny joke- the "freedom" to obey or be stamped on by Big Brother? Did any of these human pustules stop to think about how rare and beautiful and utterly SIMPLE real "freedom" is before they decided to connect it to ownership of an expensive beeping little box?

How about this- did any of these vampires ever think that as long as they are going to kidnap and rape the word "Freedom" in order to sell a wireless service, maybe they ought to at least- oh, I don't know- pledge a percentage of profits to an organization like Amnesty International?

Naw. Why bother when you can just use "Freedom" like other ad agencies use "Love" and "Hero" and "Pioneer" and "Bravery"-- empty shells of words which once meant something important and timeless, but today all mean exactly one thing: Buy This. Turns out that those "Freedom isn't Free" bumper stickers were right. Freedom isn't Free- it requires a two-year service plan.

Could you turn off your teeth? I'm trying to get some sleep!

This is almost unbelievably bad. For one thing, there's no script- just women insisting that their recently-arrived friend with the freakish glowing mouth is "in love" (how exactly does love make your teeth capable of warning ships away from rocky coasts, anyway?) and brushing off her "no I'm nots" with pointless "yes you are" blather.

Second, good lord, what is with that mouth? Change the shading to green, and I'd think this woman had just eaten a bowl of nuclear waste. Her busybody loser friends really ought be put on their blublockers before their retinas burn out for good.

Finally- you've got great teeth, lady. We GET IT. If you don't want people to think that something's different about you, stop grinning like a lunatic. Nobody's telling great jokes, your "friends" don't look like the type of people to fill one with irrepressible delight, and we aren't interested in actually counting your pearlies, ok? You want people to stop asking you what's up? Stop showing us your damned gums already. You look like a moron.

A great commercial for Birth Control

Oh, look at the adorable "picky eater." We know she's adorable because she speaks in a high-pitched sing-song voice and has pigtails (otherwise, we'd have no clue. Believe me.)

"We really need some broccoli" says mom out loud. Why she's speaking out loud, I don't know. Why she's speaking at all, I don't know. Because clearly, she really ought to be just asking the person in charge what she wants to eat.

"I don't like broccoli" announces the little monster. An "I've heard this before" look crosses Mommy's face, but the broccoli goes in the cart, and we move on.

"And....some chicken" says mom. (Maybe she's trying to build vocab skills for her spawn of Satan?)

"I don't like chicken" announces her daughter. Again, look of despair from Mommy. Kind of odd, because Mommy has the answer...

A six-pack of PediaSure comes off the shelf. Daughter responds with a really creepy "I see I've trained you well, monkey" look on her face- a look which is repeated later, as we see her sipping the white liquid as mom hovers nearby, apparently ready to take the nasty stuff away if her Precious Little One expresses the slightest displeasure at this most recent- but assuredly not first- attempt to appease the brat.

"I don't think I like waffles....." is the last line we get from this wretched little monster as her mother, no doubt cursing her own fertility, heads down the aisle again in yet another vain attempt to find some solid food her daughter will eat without bitching.

What a great message. If your 5-year old "won't" eat vegetables, meat, etc, no problem- just keep looking until you find some food they will "agree" to consume without causing disharmony in the home (which, as we all know from the example set by Veruca Salt's parents, is most important anyway.) Don't try different recipes to make veggies and poultry more attractive. Don't model good eating habits. Just cater. Who cares if the kid never learns to consume important vitamins and minerals naturally? There are pills for that.

And there are pills for mommy, too, when she finally cracks from spending every waking hour trying to appease this brat. Because I'm pretty damned sure this doesn't start and end with food- I'm sure Daughter doesn't like the radio station mommy listens to in the car, the wallpaper in the living room, the clothes she and mommy picked out yesterday, or the preschool's selection of playground equipment. What's your answer to that problem, PediaSure?

"Mine is a very familiar story..."

“Hi, I’m Ellen. Like pretty much every woman on tv who is sharing screen time with a guy, I’m smart, competent, and cute. I’m also long-suffering because of my friend Dave, here. Like pretty much every guy on tv who is sharing screen time with a girl, Dave is a fat, clueless bag of uncombed, unshaven fertilizer who couldn’t find his ass with two flashlights and a GPS.”

“As is always the case with the female side of any guy-girl relationship on television, my cool industriousness keeps our small corner of the world from spinning into chaos, while Dave would probably stick his foot into a bucket of water while sucking on a power cord if I let him out of my sight for more than five minutes.

I’m long-suffering, because my ‘partner,’ Dave here, is constantly attempting to undermine our ability to survive in a competitive environment merely by Being Dave- a clunky, clumsy, worthless road block I must be constantly swerving around as I drag us both to the top.

I imagine that Dave and I would be getting our own sitcom in the near future, except for the fact that- let’s face it- our story has been told a thousand times on a thousand different shows dating back to the 1970s at least. Actually, I’m pretty sure that Hugh Beaumont was the last fully functional male to appear on an American television, and even he had to be pulled back to the straight and narrow by Barbara Billingsley from time to time.

So for now, please sit back and enjoy episode #213,497 in television’s longest-running show, “The Adventures of Intelligent Beautiful Woman and her Dimwitted Dumbass Male Partner.’ My only request is that you continue to avoid asking the obvious question- ‘why does she put up with this shit?’ Because to that query, I’m sorry to report, there is no answer.”