When Teens Become Homeowners

Here's a little nugget from Lowe's new ad campaign, which I believe is entitled "you are an idiot and can't screw in a lightbulb without our help, so plan on living at Lowe's." Two gawky 14-year olds who you can't imagine doing anything more intimate than holding hands have inexplicably put together the capital and credit required to buy a pretty damn substantial-looking house in the suburbs. Hilarity ensues, as the two refugees from Kraft Mac' n Cheese commercials attempt to play Grown-Up and "do it themselves." At some point, I imagine, all that yappity-yap they got from their smothering parents about "using a licensed real estate agent" and "having a thorough inspection done before you sign" as they updated their FaceBook accounts with "OMIGOD TODD AND I R BYING A HOUSE LOL!" will come back to haunt them. Probably around the time winter sets in and they flee to Lowe's to ask what all this "insulation" stuff is about- "we've heard it's pink, and there's this cartoon panther that sells it, or something."

It occurs to me that if you are calling Lowe's in response to your washing machine going bezerk, or finding four feet of water in your basement, you really aren't ready to move out of your mom's basement anyway. Every consider renting, kids? No? Well then, let me put on my Middle Aged Man cape and give you some practical advice- if your washing machine is on the fritz, consult your warranty information and call the dealer for service. If you have a lake of water in your basement, call an f--ing plumber.

Tomorrow, I'll show you how to make toast without killing yourselves, ok?

(I'm so proud of myself. I got through the entire post without even pointing out the girl's bizarre forehead which, if these arrested-development troglodytes on YouTube are accurate, has it's own FaceBook page. Good for me!)

Please, Kill Me Now

I's been a while since I've done a cell phone commercial at his site, so I feel like I'm returning to safe, familiar ground with today's post. This I Phone commercial is aimed squarely at all of us idiots who are perfectly happy with cell phones which allow you to call and text- who don't need Apps, who don't need cameras, who don't want to Tweet or Twitter or check email on the go, and despite a few years of aggressive marketing have not yet become convinced that we NEED all these bells and whistles.

The gloves are off- phone companies are tired of trying to sell us crap- now they are going to simply warn us that if we DON'T buy in, we are doomed to social isolation. Hot girls will have nothing to do with us once they realize that we can only use our phones for actually making calls. If we can't check our email ( 27 emails? Hey buddy, she's too popular for you, anyway) she's going to move on to someone more likely to ignore her during dates to check the box scores on his Blackberry. This makes sense, somewhere.

Still, the way this woman flees the scene of the "crime," as if the guy just blurted out that he's really into crystal meth and his Barbie collection- is a bit over the top. Are girls really this turned off by guys who don't have the newest phone technology? Really?

"Don't live with phone shame." Much better, I guess, to live with bad credit, which is just around the corner if you buy in to the notion that the way to impress people is by purchasing the newest shiny things the moment they hit the market. Sure you won't have any money- but the big screen and cool apps are sure to get that cute girl you just met in the sack, and quick. Bleh.

Ok, One More

I thought I was done with these ads, but like the Smirnoff Vodka "I Was There" campaign last summer, they just keep coming and coming, begging to be snarked upon. I really hope this is the last, because I'm running out of ways to describe the product.

This one is even more nasty and vile than the three previous gag-worthy offerings from Kraft. Once again, we have a sneering little creep speaking directly into the camera, whining about an idiot parent who isn't satisfied dishing out cheap, trailer-trash food (well, it does have calories, so I guess it qualifies as food) to his offspring, but insists on "stealing" some of it, too.

For a change of pace, the "victim" this time is a boy, otherwise there's not much new to see here. As usual, we are shown a white family living in an upscale suburban mansion inexplicably eating junk which is a staple for minimum-wage workers, poor college students, and single moms. But here's an extra-nasty little twist- the kid tells us that he's been put in "time out" in the middle of the meal "for a minor dinner table infraction." Setting aside the all-too-common ploy of sticking advanced vocabulary words into the mouths of little kids (real original, Kraft,) how retrograde is the "kid punished by being sent away without his dinner" theme? What is this, 1960?

And not only is this kid being punished by being made to go hungry, but the rest of his family could clearly not give a damn. Dad is helping himself to the kid's mac 'n cheese, never mind that he has to repeatedly lean over the table while pretending to listen to his other offspring to do it. Daughter (who has apparently slipped into a preservatives-and-fat coma by the conclusion) pretends to converse with Dad without offering one word of protest for his vile behavior (if this is acceptable, I don't want to imagine what Exiled Boy's "minor dinner table infraction" was.)

The final scene is just tacked on, making no real sense for anyone who thinks about it for more than a fraction of a moment- the kid suddenly appears at the dinner table like Banquo's ghost, apparently visible only to Dad- "Are you finished?" Then he walks off without waiting for an answer from stunned dad. I'm sure the YouTube mouth-breathers find this hysterical, but seriously- that's the punchline? "You banished a growing boy from the dinner table and ate his food- are you done?"

Here's what would have been more amusing- if the kid had said "I'm asking my teacher to call Child Protective Services tomorrow. Because it was bad enough that you're such a cheapskate that you are willing to raise your family on this crud, but it's even worse when you use food deprivation as punishment." Hey, I bet even Daughter would have taken notice of that.

Bag This, State Farm

This is one of those commercials which just doesn't seem complete without one of the characters just kicking the crap out of several of the others.

Here's a reasonable-looking guy with his head firmly planted on his shoulders, trying to save a little cash by brown-bagging it. Times are tough, and eating out can get seriously expensive, and every dollar counts, right? Well, check out the response he gets from his friends- derisive laughter that I wouldn't tolerate for two damn seconds before getting up and walking the hell out.

And check out the smarmy little prick sitting in the booth- "what some people won't do to try to save money!" Yeah, what a freaking nut, bring lunch from home! What's next- bringing coffee in a travel cup instead of hitting Starbucks? Where will the insanity end?

Thankfully, Mr. State Farm is available to give us REAL clues on how to save money, so you don't show poorly for your "friends" by demonstrating what I thought was just common-sense frugality. I'm sure that after a few minutes on the phone with an insurance agent, you'll be back to blowing $30- $40 a week with the guys at the lunch counter.

"When you are on date, do you bring two of those?" No, asshole, when I'm on a date, I take her to a nice restaurant. Because I can afford to do that, saving so much money by not eating out every day. It's called budgeting, and it's not dumb, or worthy of derision. It's smart, which is a lot more than I can say for the people I thought were my friends.

Seriously, why would anyone want to have lunch with these jerks? This commercial just makes me angry at State Farm, which is actively sneering at the idea of saving money unless it's done by purchasing their insurance.

The Summer of Mac 'n Me

Why is it that every woman in these mac'n cheese commercials is on the phone while her kid is eating?

Why is this girl, who looks well past three years old, eating dinner by herself? Way to model good eating habits, lady. Why the hell aren' you sitting with your daughter, with your OWN food? Better yet, why aren't you serving your kid real, nutritious food that might actually be good for her, instead of this crap? Oh yeah, I forgot- because it's something you can throw together while you blather away on the phone.

Why are all the kids in these commercials so damned creepy-looking? I mean, really- each and every one of them looks like they are one chant away from summoning up the power to wish their loathsome, lazy-ass parents into the cornfield. They look sooooo pissed off to be Only Children living in massive suburban palaces with their wealthy but utterly clueless, senseless and tasteless parents. Yeah, we really feel for you guys. Other than the fact that you'll be needing heart surgery before you graduate from High School, you seem to be doing ok.

Finally- if this kid knows that her idiot, disgusting mother is going to return again and again to "poach" a forkful of this orange crud, why doesn't she just eat the damned junk already? I's like she knows it's really, really bad for her and she's actually quite satisfied to have mommy take the fall by consuming it.

I mean, she does kind of look like that girl from the original "The Bad Seed," doesn't she?

Remember when it used to mean a book and a hot bath?

Who writes this crap? Let's take a look at the four people in this commercial that we are supposed to identify with. They all have two things in common- they are all insufferable idiots, and they all have magically fresh McDonald's "Frappes" (give me a break, they are coffee-flavored milkshakes) overflowing with whipped cream in their hands:

Jackass No. 1 works in customer "service." We know this because he's sitting in a cubicle wearing a headset. "My Me Time is when I'm dealing with a problem I had nothing to do with" he sighs as he continues to pretend that the caller is Very Important To Him as he drifts into a Me Time coma. He clearly is paying no attention to the caller's complaint, and it's equally clear that the caller will get zero satisfaction from this douche. I only hope that the call really is Being Monitored, so this asshole finds himself and his precious milkshake out on the street soon. Plenty of Me time available then, jerkoff.

Next, we come to a lovely couple inexplicably trying to crowd themselves on to an inflatable mattress while they balance their milkshakes. Groan. Her "Me time" is "when my inlaws are in town" the female tells us. Haha, nothing fresher than a "I hate my inlaws" joke, is there? But, for Christ's sake, accepting the idea that the inlaws have taken the master bedroom and the hosts must make do on an inflatable mattress in the den, WHY do they have to sit on it NOW, while balancing their milkshakes? Wouldn't it be more comfortable just to stand or sit in a chair? Is taking a milkshake to bed just part of their daily routine? Is there a McDonalds across the street in this poorly-zoned suburb? Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!

Finally, we have an angry-looking consumer of air travel standing by the baggage carousel, informing us that his "Me Time" is when his bags go to Bermuda- but he doesn't. This should be the most realistic of the segments, because yes, there are a lot of McDonalds Restaurants in airports, so that unlike the other characters we aren't left wondering where the hell he bought his milkshake or how he managed to convey it to his current location in straight-from-the-machine condition. But still, I wonder what this guy is still doing at the airport, still standing next to the baggage carousel, when he KNOWS his bag was sent to the wrong place-- does he plan to stand there gaining weight with every sip with a stupid grin on his face until the bag is returned?

Who writes this crap? People who don't mind poaching other ad campaigns for ideas, obviously. Some years back, Haagen-Daz gave us a series of ads in which people were encouraged to "have some more" in response to personal disasters, a terrific "fatty food makes everything better" message well-suited to the current McDonalds campaign. But I suppose that the idea that we should fill our down time by consuming calorie-dense crap has been around for at least as long as mass-produced ice cream and the golden arches. Watching alleged grown-ups consider drinking milkshakes as a form of "Me Time" is still pretty pathetic, though.

We end the day with the traditional burning of a giant, cross-shaped celery stalk

There's a place- a very magical place- where people aren't afraid of vegetables. A place where white Anglo-Saxon Protestants gather with their children to joyfully consume huge amounts of vegetables in a wholesome (did I mention WHITE?) setting. Where boys wear pants and girls wear their moms 1960s-era hand me down skirts. A place which just looks so gosh-darned lush and green and wholesome, you just want to pick it up and hug it to death. Or take a photo of it and use it to create a Hallmark Card, or a commercial for your Republican candidate for the Senate.

That place is Hidden Valley.

In Hidden Valley, nobody attempts to distract their spouses when the word "vegetable" is uttered in front of small children. You won't catch anyone banging pots and pans, or crashing grocery carts into pyramids of soup cans, to drown out the "v" word. In fact, in Hidden Valley, vegetables are to be celebrated, not shunned or disguised as junk food.

Yes, in Hidden Valley, people love their veggies. Specifically, they love them drowning in thick, fatty tar called "salad dressing." Pouring Hidden Valley Ranch dressing all over your salad isn't EXACTLY the same as deep-frying it or encasing it in fudge, but it's pretty darned close. And teaching kids that vegetables are really yummy if you can't taste hem isn't QUITE as bad as hiding a single serving in a can of Chef Boy-R-Dee's Big Ravioli, but almost. And eating salad dressing mixed with vegetables is a far better idea than daily trips to the local McDonald's where you can watch them sugar the french fries as they explain to your toddler why the Shrek Over and Over Again Collector's Glass she's been shrieking for was too dangerous to keep adding to Happy Meals, but it's still not the way to develop healthy eating habits (especially the way the people in these commercials do it- jesus, is a bottle of Kraft Salad Goo a "single serving," or what?)

Oh yeah, one more thing- in Hidden Valley, self-satisfied suburban parents think that they are being responsible caregivers for their Precious Little Ones by keeping them away from Mac n' Cheese and Canned Ravioli and feeding them food that was naturally green, red and orange before they slathered it with bottled white crap? Can't you just see these pretentious idiots carefully selecting each piece of produce at the local farmer's market, paying upscale prices for the stuff labeled "organic," and then wrecking their own good intentions by adding loads of fat and salt to their groceries?

The Stupid! It Burns!