A Large Degree of Failure

There is so much wrong here, it's hard to know where to begin. I think I'll just take the commercial's many flaws in order of appearance.

First, we see something I'm pretty sure I've never seen in a commercial for deodorant before- a guy actually applying the stuff to his armpit. Hey Degree, did you think that maybe there's an adult out there who doesn't know how to use your product? Is this something you thought we'd really appreciate seeing? I can only hope that the makers of Preparation H don't copy this really bad idea.

Just in case you aren't getting the subtle message- um, guys? We know how to apply deodorant. Thanks anyway.

Ok, next, we see our rugged, manly hero tumbling down the side of a mountain on his bike and mysteriously losing his front wheel. This has never happened to me in almost forty years of riding a bike, and I've never even watched a video of someone putting a bike together. So in my life I've managed to apply deodorant AND ride a bike without having an accident. I feel so accomplished right now.

Now things get REALLY stupid. Our hero continues down the mountain on one wheel, chasing the front tire as he goes. The disclaimer reads "Professional Stunt. Do Not Attempt."

Hold it right there, degree. There is no "stunt" being performed here. Just fancy camera and computer manipulation and special effects. It's not as if this guy is really chasing his tire down the mountain, after all- any possibility of conning the most gullible of viewers into believing that what they are seeing has any basis in reality (and therefore qualifies as a "stunt") is erased when the bicyclist bounces across a stream- what is the errant front tire doing during this time? Bouncing in one place, waiting for him to catch up? And then proceeding down the hill when it senses our hero is ready to resume the chase? Um, no, YouTube droolers. Really not possible. Thanks for playing, though.

The front tire and the bicyclist finally come back together again on a stretch of highway- no tools needed, which at least partially explains why the tire fell off in the first place. At this point Degree AGAIN attempts to pass this off as some kind of amazing stunt, as the bicyclist throws his arms up in triumph- yeah, congratulations, buddy. You've managed to appear in a crappy deodorant commercial. Other than that, kind of hard to see what you've actually accomplished here.

I don't mind trick photography and special effects in commercials. I don't mind cool stunts in commercials. What I mind is when a company has so little respect for it's customers that it is comfortable in conning them with a commercial which features special effects and calls it a cool stunt.

Oh, and when a company thinks it's customers don't know how to use it's product and need to have this demonstrated. Even when it's deodorant.

As Much Class as there are Calories

LOL this commercial is so funny! It has everything! In this I agree with all the thumbs up here at YouTube which btw is my favorite cite cept for Facebook LOL and I think this is the Best. Commercial. Ever. It's epic.

I mean, first of all, it's got these old guys who were in a similar commercial around 20 years ago, and John says he's old enough to remember it, which LOL makes it a super epic commercial, like Retro like A-ha or something and I totally agree with the YouTube comments here. Epic Epicness.

Then as if thats not enough you got these guys agreeing to be friends, which would be suck ass lame except you know someone's gonna get fucked over royal like u just wait and see. So that makes it funny 'cause you know it's not gonna last, so very epic.

Then here is the best part cause it happened to a friend of mine once and we all had a good LOL over it. The one guy takes out his smartphone when the other guy who thinks they are friends now and he videos the second guy drinking a Pepsi. When the second guy is like what the fuck? the first guy says "YouTube'd it." Then he shows him, and first let me say this is totally awesome cause the guy has no respect for the second guy's privacy, if he wanted privacy he should not have left the house FYI buddy everyone's got cameras in their phone if you didn't want to be on YouTube you shouldnta left the house moron LOL!

Then the second guy realizes hey I could lose my job when my bosses see this, so not only did this guy pretend to be a friend and then fuck him over with the YouTube'd thing but now the second guy maybe is going to get fired, which means he won't be able to afford soda at all anymore and say goodbye to your house if you've got a mortgage loser LOL!!

Then here is the best part which really puts the period on the epic epicness of this commercial. Next thing we know we've got the first guy being thrown through the window by the second guy LOL I hope that first guy is dead that would rock but then we wouldnt have a sequel which would totally suck because this commercial is so epic.

I think what is so great about his commercial is because its so real, I mean, at my YMCA the assholes who run it put up NO CELLPHONES IN LOCKER ROOMS which I think is really gay but I guess its because they think someone might YouTube someone showering or naked and boom its on YouTube LOL. Which would be so epic but I guess those guys dont think so they should get a life hey cellphones with video is here to stay and fuck privacy thats like so 20th century.

Anyway thats why I think this commercial is so epic awesome ROTFLMAO. I'm glad I got a chance to use this blog to say it but actually I think this is kind of a lame site LOL dont tell John LOL

--John Jamele's 13-year old intern, who volunteered to do this post because John had a headache from pounding his head against a wall

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.