The Olive Garden Ramps up the Stupid

It's bad enough that the people in this commercial appear to be INSANELY happy to be eating at The Olive Garden- I mean, good lord. They look like they are five years old and are being treated to a day at Disney World. But the ridiculously blissful grins are only the beginning of this reality-bending slice of garbage, which is over the top even for OG ads.

This guy tells us that he "goes to The Olive Garden all the time.." Seriously? You know, there ARE other restaurants out there. They're called GOOD restaurants. And if you skip the Olive Garden two or three times, you could afford to go to one.

This guy continues "...and I knew about the endless bread sticks and salad, but now there's endless PASTA as well?" Yep, you can now get "endless" (I don't know why "unlimited" or "all you can eat" doesn't work fine here. Not as classy-sounding? How classy can you be, you are at the OLIVE GARDEN!) pasta too!

Wow, super-amazing deal here. All the pasta you can eat, plus all the salad and bread sticks, for "only" $8.95. Look, I know you pay a premium when you eat out- the food gets served to you, you don't have to do the dishes, etc- but think about this for a minute. Even if anyone would really WANT to mix spaghetti and tomato sauce in one course, followed by linguini and clam sauce the next, followed by angel hair pasta and pesto the next- how many bowls of pasta can a person eat at one sitting, especially while dampening the appetite with salad and bread? Nine dollars worth? If you think so, you haven't checked the prices of pasta lately. A box of spaghetti costs about fifty cents.

"How's your pasta, sir?" I'd prefer that his guy be rude and respond "it's pasta, and I've noticed that no matter how much of this wine I drink, I really don't want to eat that much of it," rather than the Not Funny Yet Hysterical-Laugh Inducing "Endless." Why does every Olive Garden ad end with people laughing? It sure isn't because anything even remotely amusing has been said.

Maybe it's the cheap wine. I suppose if they made that endless, these idiots would never leave.

Where have you been all my life?

Finally!

Someone has Finally(!) responded to the decades-old demand of American males in their twenties and thirties for a chicken sandwich we can order without having to ponder the painful question "do you want that on wheat or white?"

Finally(!) we can get fried chicken, bacon, and cheese in one nifty little package, with no danger of exposing our bodies to nasty carbs or (shudder) fiber!

Finally (!) guys of limited means can kill themselves with food while sticking to a tight budget. Back in the bad old days, you'd have to spend serious money stuffing this level of fat and sodium into your bloodstream. Well, KFC to the rescue- now you can speed your way to the grave with the change you dug out of the couch or glove compartment.

And now, we Finally(!) have a lunch worthy of our consideration after breakfasting on IHOP's cheesecake-filled pancake platters.

All we need now is for someone to come up with a good, wholesome dinner-- I don't think Long John Silver's Hush Puppies or The Olive Garden's Endless Pasta Bowl with Breadsticks quite fits the bill- and we'll have our Last Request menu in place.

But back to KFC for a moment- I want the names of the people who actually requested this Double Down monstrosity. Because unless you make your living doing liposuction or open-heart surgery, it's hard to imagine how the existence of this crud really enhances your life at all.

If I cared how it tasted, I wouldn't order a Lite Beer; thanks for asking though

There are several of these nasty little bites of crud disguised as advertisements for Miller Lite out there, but this one pushed the wrong buttons for several reasons.

First- we have the super-hot bartender who behaves like no bartender who wants to keep her job- and the tips coming in- ever would: she openly mocks a customer. What exactly does "do you care how it tastes?" mean, anyway? I would be taken aback by this question, and maybe we can give the guy a pass for answering "no I don't care." I mean, I'd assume that it was a joke. I just ordered a Lite Beer. You are a bartender. I kind of expect that even if I don't specify a brand, you'll give me a beer you think tastes pretty good. You know, because I'm a customer, and all that quaint shit.

Second- "When you put down your purse and start caring, I'll give you a Miller Lite." Fucking Excuse Me? Who asked for your opinion of my wardrobe, beer monkey? Know when you are going to give me a Miller Lite? When I ask for one. Which btw, will be never, because why the hell am I drinking light beer anyway?

Third, in response to "it's a carry-on," the bartender doesn't quite seem to know what to do with her empty skull- "no, it's not" comes out of her lips, but she shakes her head in the affirmative. What the hell? It's bad enough that you've created an argument with a customer, lady. What's with the "no" answer and the "yes" headshake? What's with the attitude? My money not green enough for you?

Naturally when the guy gets back to his "friends" with his beer, he's treated with condescending derision from all of them, including the Token Black Guy Who Must Appear in Every Beer Ad Featuring More than Three Males. Naturally.

Miller Lite seems pretty determined to give State Farm and NFL Direct a real run for their money when it comes to producing stupid, nasty, insulting commercials. With this string of Hot Judgmental Bartenders ads, I think they might just pull it off and win the race to the top of the steaming heap of putridness the commercial landscape has become. I'd just like to see a real bartender try to pull this crap and keep her job. I don't how cute this woman is; act like this in the real world and you'll be filling out an application at Hooters the next day.

Quick, I'm sure you have an App for this!

You know, it would be really easy for me to devote this edition of snark to the absurdity of featuring Shaquille O'Neal in a series of commercials for cable service. But if I wanted to do that, I'd include a clip of Shaq saving Stupid Father from the eternal disdain of his children because he failed to get tickets to a concert (or something, I have seen that one several times and I still don't really know what it's about.) Too easy, too obvious.

Instead, I'm going to ignore Shaq altogether and focus on the pathetic, whiny little toad curled up in a ball in his living room chair, freaking out because he can't get a video to download ("Come ON!!!!" he pleads) OR the Satellite signal to return to his tv during a thunder storm. Oh Noes, this poor guy is being deprived of all electronic stimulation, what will he do?

I mean, seriously, what's he supposed to do, turn his toys off and go read a (gasp) BOOK? Indulge in a hobby which does not involve an internet connection or the word "fantasy?" Get real.

My parents have a satellite dish. When there's a thunderstorm, the tv gets unplugged because if the dish is struck by lightning, the damage to the tv is not covered by the warranty. Know what? No one freaks out at that house when the tv is not in use and the internet is down. Because the people who live there know how to read, talk to each other, play cards, etc.

I can't get over the fact that we've got a grown man reduced to the fetal position because he can't watch tv or surf the web. Time to re-evaluate your life, buddy. I don't think you'll like what you see.

What the NFL Doesn't Get

Here we see a bunch of imagination-starved louts, their brain cells fried by the cotton candy of downloadable video and instant-gratification fantasy games, incapable of having fun with what looks to be a 1990s era, Atari-style football game. You can just see one of them muttering "huh? Wha' jus' happened? This sucks, man. Those dots don' look like people, so how can I tell they're supposta be people?"

"The NFL has never been a game of dots..." the narrator begins. And we know what's coming- fuck this dot shit guys, now you can go to NFL Fantasy Football.com and see actual video when you play your game.

By yourself.

When I was around 12 years old, me and my brothers played a really cool electronic football game- you'd pick offensive and defensive plays from a file and then put them on a piece of transparent plastic backlit by a light bulb. Then you'd slide an opaque piece of paper over your selected plays, revealing which side guessed correctly and whether yards were gained or lost. We'd play this game for HOURS. Know why? Because it required strategy, and it was AWESOME.

My nephew got married this past summer. When he was seven years old, in 1987, we'd spend hours playing an NFL computer game on my Tandy 1000 TX. The "players" were little blobs of color on a green screen representing the field. Every sack resulted in a loss of six yards, and for some reason the little blob labeled Art Monk would always make a big play when my nephew wanted him to, dammit. We'd play this game for HOURS. Know why? Because it was easy and FUN.

Now, NFL.com tells us that unless our games look exactly like television, they are really really lame and you'll die of boredom attempting to play them.

Well, fuck off, NFL. Not all football fans are brain-dead losers who need their fun spoon-fed to them. Why would I want to play a game that makes me think I'm just WATCHING a game?

Maybe I'd understand it better if I understood fantasy football to begin with- when I was a kid, we'd dash outside between commercials, at half time, and between games to throw a football around. We still play touch football on Holidays, when we can get enough of the family together. I guess the NFL wouldn't get this, since they think that when we aren't actually watching a game, we should be spending all our time checking stats, "conducting trades," playing some crap version of a real contest on our laptops, and above all gradually becoming part of our couches as our brains turn to jelly.

Facebook. Cell phones. Fantasy Football. Nope, this Obesity Epidemic has me stumped. What could possibly be the cause?

You could at least stop being part of the problem, NFL.

Check out the latest Shiny Thing You Have to Own!

Now that you can blather incessantly for unlimited hours (still laughingly referred to as "minutes" in these commercials,) text your fingers off, watch videos and television, play games, manage your fantasy leagues (taking breaks now and then to check Facebook and fantasize that you have friends, or looking out the window and fantasizing that your life is worth living) and basically waste your youth away fiddling with a stupid piece of plastic as your waistline and ass expand exponentially and your inevitable bout with diabetes moves ever closer, your existence is, truly, Fascinating, isn't it?

Not that this will have any impact on you pathetic zombies, but do you ever stop to think that maybe it's pretty damned sad that you are being sold a phone called the "Fascinate" many, many years after cell phone technology ceased to be anything close to "fascinating," and many, many years after cell phones moved from conveniences to life-sucking, privacy-denying nuisances? Today I'm speaking in particular to the obnoxious jackass on the jogging trail thirty yards in front of me this afternoon, who insisted on carrying on an EXTREMELY LOUD "conversation" (I assume someone was on the other end, though I can't imagine when that person had a chance to add anything) sprinkled with plenty of cursing and what used to be considered rather delicate, private details- that is, back when we actually had a civilization going on here.

Remember those days? They were fascinating.

The Punchline is Worth the Wait

These "Family Stories" ads are a little funnier on the radio- people "discussing" the car that serves as the center of their lives, how Cousin Bob bought one two years after he got off the boat from the old country, and here's a black and white showing that event, and later he turned it over to his first-born, embracing the tradition of primogeniture, but then later that guy bought another Camry and the original was handed off....well, you get the idea.

Still, actually seeing people wax poetic about the family car is pretty darned amusing, especially when you remember that, after all, they are talking about a CAMRY. All these kids are dreaming of the day when mom and dad decide it's time to pass the family car on to the next generation- one girl gives a "YES!" fist pump when recalling that glorious day when she inherited the well-worn chariot. Another kid allows himself to fantasize out loud that he might someday be bequeathed the family's new Camry Hybrid- only to suffer they "yeah right, as if you're worthy" (or maybe it's the "yeah right, as if this thing is still going to be running when you are old enough to drive, six years from now") derisive laughter of his parents and siblings.

So what's the hilarious punchline? It's not the stupid "Boller Camry Tree" pun- that's not hilarious, it's just cloying and stupid. It's the "Want to see the Boller's whole story? Go to Camry.com" we get in the tv ad. I mean, come on- first, does this nonsense really qualify as a "story?" The parents in this family buy Camrys and then pass them on to the kids. Not exactly as complicated as your average Dickens novel. We GET IT.

Second, I'm trying to picture the kind of person who would go online to see how this "story turns out." All I can get is an image of the Most Boring Person Who Has Ever Lived. I mean, if you find yourself actually researching one family's car ownership history, you are probably beyond being told to get a life. BTW, this part is also funnier on the radio- I don't know why, but there's something unintentionally chuckle-worthy about a sober, serious announcer intoning "for more of this story, go to...."
I wonder if their server ever crashes from the surge in traffic after these ads.