The best reason to watch MeTV - the Awesome Commercials

If you don't buy this wallet, you are all but certain to be one of the people who lose a combined One Hundred and Ninety Trillion Dollars per year through credit card fraud!  (Seriously, that's what the opening graphic asserts.  One hundred and ninety trillion dollars- twelve times the national debt of the United States, more than the annual Gross Domestic Product of the entire country- lost EVERY YEAR through CREDIT CARD FRAUD.  Good lord, where is all that money going???? )

Well, that question is answered right away- it's going into the pockets of people who own handheld devices which can read credit cards through ordinary, not-locked wallets and purses.  People who by now must be so insanely rich that it's kind of odd that they would continue to risk arrest by stealing even more credit card numbers.  I mean, let's say that there are a hundred thousand people out there actively engaged in stealing credit card numbers.  According to the Must Be True Because It's On Television statistics presented here, each of those hundred thousand scammers are pulling in $1.9 million per year.  That's a lot of Sham-Wows and Eagle Eye Sunglasses!

But this unbelievably huge criminal enterprise- far more than needed to fund every terrorist organization and activity on the planet, including the purchase of nuclear weapons, delivery systems, submarines, etc- can be thwarted with the purchase of a wallet which blocks the signal credit cards with old-fashioned magnetic strips eminate?  Holy crap, why didn't the scammers just kill the genius who invented this and burn his notes, or buy up the rights and keep the product off the market?  This is like an invention which makes gasoline obsolete -- how did it make it to a totally convincing commercial being presented before an enormous tv audience during Wonder Woman on MeTV?  My faith in Capitalist conspiracies is completely shattered!

BTW, I love the totally-believable crooks nonchalantly holding the card reading devices two inches from purses while we are told they work "up to ten feet away" and the even more totally believable laptop screen reading "NO DATA" because the card is encased in a LockWallet (why would it read anything at all?  So it can detect that there's a credit card in the wallet but can't read it?  Does this make sense?)  But then again, I love everything about this commercial, because it's so fun and cheesy and stupid and easy to snark on.  And to make it extra awesome, we get ten seconds of The Benefits Of The Amazing Free Magnifying Glass Which Can Magnify All These Things And More.

The zipper on the wallet sure makes sense, though.  I wonder why more wallets don't have zippers.  Not going to buy this wallet- and the second "free" one which magically doubles the price through the typical Just Pay Extra Shipping scam- just for the zipper, though.

Another Medication which creates more patients- and another wonderful benefit of marrying Medicine to Capitalism

1.  Notice how so many of these ads are about "adding" a medication, rather than "replacing?"  I strongly suspect that it has something to do with the fact that there's a lot more money in adding than there is in replacing.  Just once I'd like to see a commercial where the doctor "explains" that the drug she prescribed isn't doing what it was promised, so it's time to try something else.  Instead it's always "that perfectly good antidepressant doesn't eliminate your symptoms 100%, 100% of the time?  Nothing wrong with that drug, you just need ANOTHER drug to fill in the gaps."

2.  Notice how happy the doctors in these ads are to prescribe another drug?  The cartoon doctor here seems downright thrilled to hear that her patient's symptoms aren't being 100% masked by whatever Miracle Drug she prescribed eight days ago.  Wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that doctors are essentially drug dealers who went to Medical School, and their money- along with junkets and other free goodies- comes primarily from dealing.

3.  Notice how one of the two constants in drug ads over the past thirty years (since they've become nauseatingly ubiquitous?) is the line "(Insert Drug Name Here) Is Not For Everyone?"  Like we don't know this already?  We are all well aware that drugs for Depression, Diabetes, Arthritis, Erectile Disfunction, etc. etc. etc. aren't for "everyone"- just the people who have been diagnosed, and who have the insurance required to pay for the expensive drugs needed to mask the problem.

4.  Notice how the other contant in drug ads is the long list of absolutely horrible possible side-effects, always delivered calmly in a matter-of-fact, no-big-deal manner?  If you take Abilify- the drug your television doctor told you to try because you aren't in a constant state of bliss- on top of the antidepressent your actual doctor told you would work the last time you visited, you might suffer from all of these other issues, each of which when experienced by normal people (with health insurance) drives those people to the doctor for therapy and-- of course-- medication.  I strongly suspect that if, after a few days of taking Abilify AND the original antidepressant, the patient begins to feel any of these symptoms, they'll be back to the doctor for even more drugs.   Putting more dollars signs in the eyes of that smiling, compassionate doctor.  And so it goes.

How do the lawn care professionals get around all that damn furniture, anyway?

As you can tell from the title, I think about this stuff way too much.  That being said.....

1.  This family should be called the Allergys, not the Yardleys.

2.  The kids on the couch aren't doing anything other than glancing awkwardly at each other.  If she were my daughter, I'd have no problem with this.  It sure doesn't look like it's going to go any further- after all, they look like they are about 12 years old.  And outdoors.  In broad daylight.

3.  Including Little Brother in Dad's "triumph" really ramps up the Creepy meter here.  Why would Little Brother care that his sister is hanging out with a boy on the lawn?

4.  I can't believe this is part of a series of commercials about the same family which loves its chemically-produced lawn so very much that it moved the furniture outside to be close to it all the time.  Oh wait, yes I can.  Because stupid knows no boundaries in the land of tv commercials.

The song isn't good enough. I'm going to need actual evidence of brain activity before I buy this one

Actually, if you had a brain, you would have planned out your life just a little bit better than you did, getting the college degree before the two kids and a mortgage.  You know, so you don't have to study while they sleep, and all that.

And if you really had a brain, you wouldn't be shelling out your money to a For-Profit "Education" service monster birthed by the Apollo Group, an organization becoming increasingly well-known for taking money from desperate, poor and easily-manipulated dreamers and delivering worthless degrees and mountains of debt in exchange.   You'd be going to a real college and not a Diploma Mill.

So sorry, I know you mean well but I'm not going to give you a whole hell of a lot of credit for the way you planned out your life.  Not to be mean, but let's be honest- this isnt' what you are going to encourage your kids to do when they get older, is it?

"When you get out of High School get married and quickly have two kids- once you find yourself with mortgage payments you can't handle, sign up for even more debt with a crooked bs online non-college and spend the next three years completing the work needed for the Print At Home 'diploma' while you are half-asleep from the two jobs you'll need to hold down while you see your kids for roughly twenty minutes a day."   Yeah, sounds like a plan, Brainiac.

Because I can find a way to snark on pretty much any ad...here are two for the price of one!

Anyone else think that the message of this otherwise very nice, very well-done commercial is muted somewhat by the fact that the kid is standing on what is obviously a stump?



The real horror of this commercial is not immediately apparent.  It only comes when you realize that they are rhyming.  As in- oh my freaking god, they are rhyming.  And suddenly what you thought was an annoyance becomes a war crime, complete with a sound track brought to you by a total freaking sellout of what I thought was a pretty cool rock group.

Not at all funny....

Seriously, does Heart Rate MonitorsUSA think that this is going to win me as a customer?  What idiot thought that this "joke" was a good idea? First rule of marketing- don't tick off the base.  I buy fitness devices from time to time.  I will probably look elsewhere after this crap.

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Ahhhhh this is a really obnoxious commercial, Cigna!

Seriously, I think I'd rather have my ears battered by a Kit-Kat commercial than have to listen to this awfulness.  At least Kit-Kat ads don't feature one idiot after another sticking out their damn tongues.

I get that the message is kind of important- yeah, we should all get regular checkups and yeah, insurance companies should pay for them because, after all, regular checkups mean problems caught at the early stage when they can be dealt with for the least amount of money and pain.  Get it.

Still doesn't mean I want all this "aaaaahhhhhh" crap, especially for thirty freaking seconds.  I GET it.  It's an important message.  It's NOT clever.  It does NOT make me like anyone in the ad.  Actually, it makes me want to HURT them.  Especially at the end, when these people are saying "ahhh" for no freaking reason at all except the script demands it.  Ahhhhh I don't get paid enough to do this blog.