In keeping with the Spirit of the Season

This is actually a pretty old commercial. GMC has been using some version of it for years, every holiday season, like clockwork.

The difference is that this year, it's narrated. And the narration sure does add a lot- it's not just the raping of a beautiful piece of classical music anymore. It's not subtle, "clever" wordplay left to be deduced by the viewer. This year, GMC has decided "to hell with the mildly grotesque, socially inconsiderate allusion." This year, GMC cuts right to the chase.

Happy Holidays. Here's a tune you've probably loved since childhood. You certainly recognize it. Well, we've got something else for you, too- a big fucking truck crashing it's way through snow drifts to give you something to look at while you are enjoying the beautiful music. But you know what? Screw the music, because you still might not get the message. This Mother is a NUTCRACKER!! Get it? This is one freaking awesome man-machine (not a Man Ship, however- that's another commercial.) This thing kicks ass! And we would say so, in exactly those words, if we thought that current standards permitted it. Maybe next year.

In the meantime, check out the NUT CRACKING capabilities of this powerful sonofabitch!!! No one's getting in your way if you are knocking over snowmen behind the wheel of THIS baby! So what are you waiting for, Mozart??

Again- maybe next year. Because nothing is sacred. Absolutely nothing.

Coors's answer to Eddie Murphy!

Some twenty-five years ago, Eddie Murphy starred in one of the truly seminal Saturday Night Live skits; a skit so damned classic that it's fondly remembered by people of my generation as one of the great moments of television comedy to come out of the 1980s. In wonderful deadpan fashion, Murphy went "undercover" as a white man to find out how white people act when there are no black people around. Hilariously, he discovered that white people "give each other things....for free!" and that life as a white person in the United States was basically paradise when those "silly negroes" were out of the picture.

Well, it took a good quarter-century, but it seems that Coors Light has come up with an "answer" to Murphy's "expose." Check out the well-dressed executive-type black guy as he abruptly dismisses his white friends outside the office building. (Ok, one of these people is a hot African-American chick; wonder why she wasn't invited?) Next thing you know, he's surrounded by other young, hip, and good-looking African-Americans on a Coors Light "Love Train" (shame on you, O'Jays, if you actually still owned the rights and sold out your plea for World Peace to a beer company owned by a family which probably thinks that Sarah Palin is too liberal to be trusted with power.) The beer and the music flow freely, and everyone has an awesome time on the Coors Silver Bullet train (well, at least there's one bullet train in the United States.) It's all good, because there are no white people around to mess things up with their Miller Lite, Mickey D's Dollar Meals and Jerad-endorsed Five Dollar Foot Longs.

Yes, it's nothing but fun on the Highly Segregated Love Train. Leaving me to wonder what is more insulting here- the idea that African Americans are expected to equate "love" with dumping white coworkers to hang out with people with similar skin tones, or the idea that African Americans equate having fun with drinking Coors Light. I'll leave that conundrum to the philosophers.

Meanwhile, Eddie, you've been served. And it only took another generation to do it.

The Proper Care and Feeding of your own Bundle of Joy

You've been an insufferable, whiny, petulant little brat all your life, why start making sensible choices now just because your driver's license identifies you as an adult?

After all, when you were a pout-faced little cherub, you had no problem dismissing your mom's attempts to keep Christmas within the family budget by steering you toward a slightly less exorbitant version of That Thing You Really Wanted And Were Quite Willing To Throw a Quiet Fit If You Couldn't Get Right This Minute. By barely acknowledging her presence, and dismissing her with a soft, but determined, "No, it's Not," you let her know that there was No Way You Would Ever Love Her Again if she didn't succumb to Her Precious One's demands.

And when you were the punk wannabee who dragged dad to the guitar store, you didn't let that lame-ass old fart suggest that the slightly cheaper Piece of Shit You Didn't Even Bother to Look At was anywhere near as good as the signature series beauty you were going to make him pay through the nose for, if he didn't want you hating him more than you already did, the cranky, out of touch old loser.

And now you are on your own (I bet your parents are heartbroken over THAT fact) and the world had better know right now that you are living life on your Own Terms, As Usual. You've always demanded the Best, and you Always Will. Right now, that means a BMW. I don't know what it will mean to you later- and frankly, I don't care. Because people like you make me want to vomit.

We all know where self-indulgent monsters who think the fucking planet revolves around their wants come from- they come from indulgent parents. They are easily recognizable, and once again we are living in an era where they are to be admired and emulated, rather than despised. Just because this prick didn't actually throw himself on the floor and kick while screaming his face blue doesn't make him any less loathsome as a child, and his calm, assured "this is the one" doesn't make him any less repulsive as an adult. Every version of him shown in this ad is equally vile. And all I can do now is hope that his decision to use gold as a hedge against inflation blows up in his face and he spends his golden years splitting his prescription meds and dining on Brand-X mushroom soup. Whether it's really "good enough" or not.

Not the Answer to Rachel's problem

Rachel wakes up with back pain. So she gulps down two Tylenol. A few hours later, she spots some hard benches, assumes that they will result in back pain, and so gulps down two more. A few hours later, it's been a few hours, and Rachel, being a creature of habit, gulps down two Tylenol just for the heck of it.

That night, she is the object of a one-person intervention by her husband, who forces her to watch an Aleve commercial on the family's big screen HDTV. "Hey honey, nobody wants to force you to give up your pill habit...but maybe if you switch to Aleve, you'll be down to a bottle a month...wanna give it a try?'

Now Rachel gets up in the morning with her ever-present friend, back pain, and gulps down two Aleve which last "all day long." Aleve's pain-numbing medicine is so much more advanced than that of Tylenol that it will keep her in drug-induced non-agony until she turns in that night. Yay. Of course, it's only a matter of time before Rachel starts popping two pre-emptive tablets before she turns off the light- why wake up with pain, after all.

I just wonder- before Rachel's kidneys and liver finally surrender to the nonstop chemical barrage they are receiving from this poor woman's constant intake of pain medication, Rachel might consider actually picking up a phone and MAKING AN APPOINTMENT WITH HER DOCTOR. Because I'm pretty sure that over the counter drugs like Tylenol and Aleve aren't really designed to deal with medical conditions which produce long-term pain. When I was in a car accident seven years ago, I suffered a back injury which required me to ingest a daily dose of Oxyprozin to deaden the pain while I completed physical therapy. Today I deal with back pain with exercise and only take drugs to deal with EXTREME pain- the kind that prevents me from getting on with life. They aren't part of my daily diet, and I kind of suspect they aren't supposed to be.

There's something very wrong with ads for over the counter drugs (or any drugs, for that matter) which suggest that it's perfectly ok to include allegedly powerful painkillers along with your coffee, orange juice and toast routine. Especially since your body doesn't want a lot of this stuff in it's system, and will let you know this, in very nasty ways, sooner or later.

How do they get away with this?

Ok, I've given Hyundai a hard time with their ads in the past. "Hyundai Uncensored" is nothing more than blatant false advertising- either the "hidden video" is heavily edited or (much more likely, in my opinion) it's not hidden at all, boiling the entire campaign down to "let's lie to our customers."

Hyundai isn't exactly LYING in these "Lease a Hyundai Sonata for only $199 a month" ads, but they come pretty damned close- too close to just let slide. Check out the fine print- there's just a LITTLE money due at signing, hardly worth mentioning (which I guess is why it's not mentioned by the thrilled-to-death narrator.) Because this is a Full Service Site, I won't make you burn out your eyes trying to find the figure I'm referring to. It's $2399.

That's Two Thousand, Three Hundred and Ninety-Nine Dollars. Due at lease signing. Before you can drive off with your "$199 a month" awesome deal.

There's a little something there concerning taxes and tags too, but that's to be expected if you've ever bought a car. Let's stay with that Due at Signing figure. Exactly how much IS $2399, anyway? Well, my trusty calculator tells me that it's the equivalent of another ENTIRE YEAR OF LEASE PAYMENTS.

So what is this great deal, really? Quite simply: You can lease a Hyundai Sonata for $199 a month, for three years. You just have to pay for four years.

Great deal, huh? Oh, and don't forget to bring it back without a scratch, and under 12,000 miles per year on the odometer. Other than that, enjoy the car you are essentially renting for $9563 for three years (paying for four.)

But before you head off to take advantage of this Great Deal, just ask yourself: ARE YOU A FREAKING MORON?????

Well, if you believe that the "Hyundai Uncensored" commercials are legit, you probably are. But heck, if you believe those commercials, you're probably driving around in one of these stunningly overpriced imports already. Enjoy!

Town of the Living Dead

Here's a delightfully cutesy ad for yet another phone-gaming-texting-video hybrid monstrosity featuring an entire town of drugged zombies who are simply incapable of taking a step or developing a thought which does not involve gazing fondly at a screen and pushing buttons.

Here's a guy who can't play his keyboard unless he's got his little security blanket positioned where he can read it- or maybe he's just not willing to do anything that doesn't involve using the thing he convinced himself he needed last month. Here's another guy who isn't about to be drawn into a conversation with the driver of the car he's in- to hell with that, he's too busy playing some clueless, braincell-sucking game. Here's another guy on a bus who figures that he might as well take a photo of two total strangers, because what the hell, his overpriced little toy does that, too.

Best of all- here's a guy with flowers who is having a hard time finding the object of his affections because he's relying on his phone to guide him to the very SPOT she's standing. Never mind that all he has to do is LOOK UP- how could he bear to to that, what with this wicked cool electronic thingee? And of course, his potential Better Half is doing exactly the same thing. These guys are one dead battery way from never meeting up at all- and seriously, would this really be a bad thing?

Sometimes I feel like I live in this town. More than once (more than a thousand times, actually) I've taken long walks through local parks and down local streets, passing people whose necks seem permanently bent down and their brains focused on the Really Important Thing that's happening on that little screen in their hand. I've seen small children practically beg for attention from their parents (usually in vain,) and I've seen older kids apparently resolved to the fact that it's not worth the bother. More and more of these older kids have their own nifty little time vampires to keep them happy in their social retardation, so it's All Good, I guess.

Still, I don't regret the fact that this junk didn't exist when I was younger. I guess I'm just weird in some ways.

Here at Dr Pepper, we've got money to burn!

I just gotta say, this is a lot of work in service of not a whole hell of a lot- basically, we get a big production number just to hear the most predictable play on words imaginable.

I just wish I could have been in the boardroom where it was decided that yes, it makes perfect sense to invest a huge amount of time and money to bring a sad reminder of the 1970s back to the stage to utter a bad pun. "Look, we'll get Doctor Love, and we'll get KISS on stage, and we'll have him say something like, I don't know, a KISS of flavor or something like that! Get it? KISS of flavor? DOCTOR Love? Trust me, it will be GREAT!" I mean, how out of it were the guys who signed off on the production costs for this lump of Not Very Much At All?

Then again, this is an ad for Dr. Pepper, a soda popular only with people who think that soft drinks should taste like cough syrup. So maybe this works with the target audience. For the rest of us, we are left shaking our heads and wondering why every corporation in the US isn't as willing to part with it's money for so little return. Think how fast we could wipe out unemployment among 70s rockers!