Well, at least there's no chance that this client will ever come to dinner again

For today's entry, we take you back to America, circa 1956, when a favorite sitcom theme was the "husband bringing the very important client home for dinner without letting The Little Woman know in advance." The theme mixes very well with the more modern "Dad Screwed Up AGAIN!" theme which is openly presented to us in the ad's opening seconds (by the little choad who had apparently been told to entertain the client in the living room while Mom and Dad argue four feet away.)

Once the Painful Situation is defused by a pan of junk a college freshman MIGHT eat after a night of smoking pot when he realizes that he's out of Ramen noodles and stale Doritos, things settle down and get much worse. We move on to an intensely uncomfortable, silent meal with dad, client, Angry Mom, and nasty little narrator-kid sitting around a pile of cheese-flavored crud which we are apparently supposed to believe is good enough for Dad's Client because it's baked. Actually, the best possible result would be to convince the client that this guy really really needs his business, because good lord, look what he's providing for his family's dinner table. I personally think that the client is not being silent because he senses the tension between Mom and Dad. He's being silent because he can't believe that he's been transported into an episode of Leave It To Beaver, and that he's expected to play along by putting hot orange poison into his mouth.

We end with the truly smarmy little prick of a kid (who has appeared in another ad for the same nasty sludge not-food product) awkwardly twisting his head toward the camera (I only wish he could move a little closer and that technology allowed me to smack that look off his face) and tells us that "Dad really screwed this up." Oh, the hilarity.

All we really need to make this lovely little dollop of Yesteryear complete is to film it in black and white and add a laughtrack. Ok, I'd like one more thing- for that kid to be sent to his room, forever. And for the people who wrote this mess to apologize.

But I'd settle for a promise to stop showcasing the little creep. Two commercials in, I'm sick to death of him already. Send him over to Volkswagen and let me see him get slugged in the stomach when a "Red One" drives by. Better yet, pay him in Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. That will finish him off fast enough.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. This stupid commercial was sitting on my face.

Here's an eight-second ad for Wheat Thins brilliantly stretched into 31 seconds by having two characters read a tweet and then ask a third character if he remembers sending the tweet.

No kidding. Just look at this ad, I dare you. Two creeps in a van who somehow managed to find themselves with careers working for Nabisco scanning Twitter for mentions of their company's wheat cracker product ( I guess. I mean, are we really looking for some level of sense here?) One of them reads the tweet out loud. Moments later, the two creeps confront "Chris Macho" (I hope this isn't his name. No wait, I hope it is. Because at least that would mean Nabisco didn't make it up, figuring it was as clever as "Keith Stone." Actually, I don't know what to hope anymore. I think I just died inside.)

One of the creeps then reads the tweet back to "Chris Macho," apparently forgetting that we, the audience, have already heard it, and weren't all that entertained by it, or interested in it in the first place. Fortunately for the cameraman and the van guys doing this live, unscripted (yeah, right) commercial, Chris Macho does indeed remember tweeting something about Wheat Thins.

The punchline (such as it is) involves the creepy van guys "rewarding" Chris Macho for his homage to crackers by driving around with a massive billboard urging everyone to follow Chris Macho on Twitter because "he's Awesome." Um, ok.

Was I supposed to do some reading for this commercial? What the hell does any of this have to do with crackers? Who is Chris Macho? Why exactly is he awesome? Why should I follow him on twitter- is he going to tweet some other uninteresting, uninformative stuff that is sort of about Wheat Thins? If he is, why do I want to get it delivered to my phone? I'm so very confused.

But you know what? To me, being confused about ads like this is kind of like not getting references to Lady Gaga, Snookie, or Kim Kardashian. It's confusion I wear like a badge of honor. I actually think that my life was just a little more blessed because I didn't grow up with 200 channels, cell phones, or the internet.

So I won't be "following" you on Twitter, even if you are "awesome," Chris Macho. But don't feel bad, because I don't follow ANYONE on Twitter. And no one will ever be able to convince me that I'm missing a damned thing.

Don't Mess with the King of Beers!

Consumers, we tried to be polite about this.

We started slowly. Several months ago (we know, it feels like years) we rolled out our our "Here We Go" ad campaign. Just a few thirty-second commercials popping up during football games on the weekend, always featuring some vaguely familiar spokesperson (Carl Weathers was my personal favorite) finishing whatever inane pile of steaming crap we were tossing at you with a simple "here we go!"

The idea, you see, was to make "Here We Go!" America's Next Great Catchphrase. The "Five Dollar Foot Longs" of 2011. Our dream was that pretty much every Extremely Impressionable American would be bleating "Here We Go!" every few seconds, for no particular reason, and that every time one heard the phrase, one would think "Bud Lite!" Considering what you couch potato sheep have swallowed in the past, it seemed like a reasonable expectation.

But for some reason, it just didn't take. Our agents, after tirelessly surveying bars, living rooms, and tailgate parties all over this great land of ours, have reported that "Here We Go" has NOT reached the status of groan-inducing cliche. This information has created an atmosphere that can best be described as a mixture of deep disappointment and seething anger here at Budweiser.

So now, the gloves are coming off. You ADD-addled jackasses think you can just shrug off our dog whistles? Well, take a good look at your future. We are done with the subtle crap. Get ready for months of having "Here We Go!" pounded into your face at every break. Playtime is over, people. You thought "Punch Dub Days" was bad? You'll be begging to see a kid smack his grandpa in the groin while yelling "Red One!" before Easter, we promise you.

We at Budweiser hope that when this Unfortunate but Necessary episode is over, the lesson will be remembered when we reveal our next ad campaign (we can't tell what it is, but let's just say it involves a twist on the already Hi-LARIOUS 'Oh No You Di-n't!") That lesson is simply: Don't Fuck With Us. When we give you the tag line, you GO with it, monkeys. Don't MAKE us pull this again. Because if you do, we promise, the next time it will hurt even more.

You WILL be assimilated.

--Sincerely, your friends at Budweiser. Remember, Drink Responsibly.

And, seriously, why don't you just Off yourself?

If you don't have an I Phone, you don't have the App store. Which to me, sounds a lot like "if you don't have Consumption, you aren't coughing blood into your handkerchief."

...which means you can't do things like book plane tickets and get boarding passes simply by running your finger along a screen. Oh, you poor, deprived slob. You actually have to type on a lame-ass So Very 2009 Keyboard and then print up (snigger, condescend) that boarding pass on your (chuckle) printer.

...which means you can't do things like buy your favorite latte drink at your favorite fern-filled, trendy coffee shop by sticking your phone up against a screen (first: I give my permission for the person on the other side of the counter to throw a very hot cup of coffee into this pretentious asshole's face. Second: wow, what a great bonus for the person who finds this phone after it's owner leaves it in a taxi or a park bench- instant credit card access! Yay!) No, if you don't have an I Phone, you'll have to continue to take the credit card or (shudder) cash out of your wallet and have it scanned- and seriously, we all know what a MAJOR PAIN that is.

No, if you don't have an I Phone, you really aren't experiencing a Life worth Living. I mean, just think of all those extra muscles you are using that you could be just letting lie dormant. Just think how much less exhausted you'd be if you just let your fucking index finger do all the work! Not to mention all those things you currently do which distract you from engaging with your ridiculous cell phone obsession. All those evil activities that make you PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN because you don't have an I Phone!

"If you don't have an I Phone...you don't have an I Phone." What do you have instead? A life? A clue? Basic social and coping skills? Sounds like a pretty good trade-off to me.

So keep your I Phone. I'm too polite to tell you where you can keep it. But here's a hint: it's someplace very dark, and if you are a typical I Phone junkie, it's the same place you seem to keep your head most of the time.

I didn't see this in your E-Harmony Profile....

I understand that there's an App you can get which allows you to have phony calls sent to your cell phone when you want to get out of meetings or otherwise need an excuse to just. Leave. Now.

The guy in this commercial would be a great customer for such a service. Because ten seconds after entering his date's apartment, the small talk about how many brothers she has degenerates into a cringe-worthy episode of watching this Suddenly Insane Woman Act Like A Total Fool With Her Dog.

"Who do we love? We love our bank! We love our bank! We LOVE our bank! We love our bank!!" Seriously?

And all this understandably creeped-out guy can think is "I guess you really love your bank?" Frankly, I don't think I would have even noticed what she was saying. I would have been too paralyzed with disgust that this weirdo had apparently spent a great deal of time training her dog to react to repetitive baby-talk from the lunatic who feeds it and takes it for walks (to the BANK, no doubt.) And that this woman is so out of touch that she thinks this is a side of her that she wants to reveal in what sure seems to be a first date situation. Hey lady, ever take a really good look at yourself? This just MAY be why you have so many First Dates!

Just saying....

Why I don't watch the Superbowl live, ever

I simply cannot believe that this obnoxious, ugly, hateful pile of stupid was actually among the highest-rated Superbowl ads this year.

Oh wait- this is the United States in the year 2011. This is a nation of cell-phone addicts and forty year old "men" who take fantasy football and baseball so seriously that there are entire magazines and ESPN radio shows devoted to the subject. This is a nation of weirdos who spend hours singing along with digital rock bands on their plasma tvs, when they aren't blowing away "the enemy" with plastic controllers and single-handedly making the world safe for--well, whoever. Fellow losers, I guess.

So I really shouldn't be surprised that one of this year's Most Popular Super Bowl Commercials features a disgustingly clueless jackass determined to expend enormous amounts of energy to get his girlfriend's dog to slam himself into a screen door. A disgustingly pointless pile of mucus poured into a pair of jeans which somehow found itself a hot girlfriend, whose only response to the mentally challenged drek she inexplicably refers to as "babe" is to ask "please don't tease my dog." (Naturally, fuckface pays no mind- after all, who could possibly resist the opportunity to hurt a dog?)

I guess I'm mildly surprised when the commercial ends with the dog unhurt- after all, if the PROSPECT of a dog breaking it's nose on a door is hysterical, wouldn't the actual event be totally ROTFLMAO side-splitting? But I'm not at all taken aback by the non-punchline from Good Lord Why Does This Dipshit Have A Girlfriend At All She Must Have Serious Self-Esteem Issues Bag of Rocks Please Die Now Dickwad. After all, I've seen a LOT of commercials. It takes a lot more than this to throw me.

Oh and BTW, the commercial is for Doritos. Does that matter? Does anyone care or remember after this horrible thirty seconds?

This channel is just a gift that keeps on giving!

This is why Retro TV is so awesome- half the commercials are aimed at people who owe thousands of dollars in credit card bills or are way behind in their income tax payments, and the other half is for totally pointless, unnecessary gadgets which sucker the gullible into getting themselves even deeper in debt. In other words, all of these commercials are aimed at the SAME GROUP OF PEOPLE.

While watching MST3K knock-off Chiller Drive In Theater (no, it's not that I have no life- I just have schoolwork to do this weekend, ok? Back Off!) I've seen commercials urging us to order our own Home Banana Trees (because we all know how expensive store-bought bananas are,) Eggies (because we all know how virtually IMPOSSIBLE it is to boil eggs) and Snuggies (don't even get me started.) Last night I caught this winner for a counterfeit money detector which just left me shaking my head and thinking "damn, why didn't I think of that? Oh, that's right- because I have a conscience, damn it all!"

Here's how it "works:" People who don't have any money to begin with take out their credit cards and call the toll-free number. Within a few minutes, they've not only ordered their Money Cop Counterfeit Detector, but (I have no doubt) they've also been talked into buying a plastic magnifier and a Silk-Like case for the Money Cop, Just Pay Separate Shipping and Handling. And a few weeks later, they get a piece of plastic which requires a AAA battery to operate it's tiny bulb and beeper. Now you can check out those $20 bills before you head off to 7-11 to exchange them for Lottery Tickets.

Just a few unanswered questions:

Why does the average person watching Chiller Drive In Theater need to check $20 bills to make sure they are not counterfeits? Is there really an epidemic of counterfeiting going on that I haven't been made aware of?

If you run a business or work in a bank and you are concerned about Counterfeiting, aren't there already devices out there which actually detect fraudulent bills which have been certified by some government agency as being accurate and dependable? Do you really need to look to some cheap junk being peddled on late-night tv to find the answer to your concerns?

Is it safe to assume that the company that makes this device is the same one that makes those boxes that you plug into outlets to scare rodents and roaches away? Or the oddly similar boxes which stop dogs from barking? Or the ones that detect dangerous levels of Kryptonite? Or the ones which beep every five minutes that the allergen levels in your home are in the "acceptable" range?

Is it too late for me to get in on this scam? Because I could have another talk with my conscience, one that involves a closer look at my rather skimpy retirement account.