Did Sally Struthers ever offer a degree in Tire Retreading?

In the late-1980s, I had the best job imaginable for a kid working his way through graduate school- I managed a video rental store.  What made it a fantastic job was all the fun conversations with regular customers about this or that latest release, how amazing it was that Superman IV managed to be even worse than Superman III, and how we all appreciated Golan and Globus for making the video rental industry even possible.

I also remember watching recruitment tapes which explained what a great career managing a video rental store could be- with awesome benefits (like free rentals, plus....well, that's about it, really) in an industry which would just keep growing and growing....um, right?

When I saw this classic Sally Struthers Correspondence Courses commercial on YouTube, it made me a little nostalgic about my days at the old video store, and also made me wonder what happened to the people who bought in to the idea that managing one might be the late-20th century equivalent of working the assembly line at the Ford factory- something you did for forty years or so before retiring with a sweet pension (or at least a hefty 401k.)  Obviously those dreams did not become a reality.  Ok for me, as I had no intention of devoting my life to a job suited for a college kid, but I'm sure that there were plenty of people who watched the rapid demise of the video rental industry* at the dawn of the 21st century with more than a little anxiety at the idea of starting over.

What happened to the people who decided to go all in for training in VCR repair or "Learning the Personal Computer?"  An earlier Struthers ad I remember even included Typewriter Repair as one of the options.  Did this training result in a few years of steady paychecks before those jobs were swept into the dustbin with streetlamp lighting and meter reading?

(I also thought it was more than a little appropriate that Sally Struthers would be pitching these courses - while she would find steady work on television over the next forty years her career peaked before her thirtieth birthday and I always imagined that while she was urging the audience to look into career options and telling us "do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do!" she was speaking for herself as much as for the company that hired her.)

*Which was already underway when I departed the industry in 1991.  My last job for the company I managed for was to close three of the chain's stores through liquidation sales.   The only VHS tape left unsold in one of the stores was the Justine Bateman vehicle Satisfaction (yes, I know Julia Roberts was in it, but it was Bateman's movie.)  The last I heard, Bateman was studying Computer Science.  Good to have a fallback, even if it's not on Sally Struther's list.

"Real People, Not Actors" already infatuated by Chevys tell us how much they love Chevys

Listening to these "Real People, Not Actors" brown-nosers buzzphrase their way into a few seconds of screen time is enough to really take me off my lunch.   And it doesn't even make any sense that they slavishly praise the truck they are being shown- I mean, wouldn't it be a better commercial if they were just a little bit skeptical of Chevrolet instead of being 100 percent sold on the company and their products before going in, instead of this "you don't even have to show me the vehicle, I am so totally into Chevy already" crap?  Who would be convinced by any of this?

Oh right- Real Stupid People desperate for attention.  Not Actors.  And glue-sniffing Youtube commentators.  I keep forgetting.

You were not missed

This commercial is about as welcome as a tic; I mean, this guy wasn't even gone long enough to score nostalgia points with his return.

Personally, I'm dissapointed to learn that he didn't die in a fire or at least give up the commercial gigs and go back to law school, or something.  If this is the beginning of another line of "Can You Hear Me Now" commercials, well, I guess my mute button is going to get a serious workout this football season.

As for his "friend"- congratulations, lady, on your plans to become the most obnoxious, techno-addled twit on the planet.  I'll be counting my blessings, including the biggest one- that I don't know you.

(BTW, why is this "conversation" taking place outside a movie theater?  Am I missing something here?  Never mind.  I don't think I want to know.)

Live from Levittown, in the southern part of Uttar Pradesh.....

I guess this commercial takes place in an alternate universe where people in an obvious American suburb populated by Indians not only know what cricket is but are aware of terms like "batsmen," can identify a particular cricket player as "the most dangerous batsman in the world," and have neighbors who are equally impressed that such a person lives on their street and is willing to demonstrate his skills in front of a bizarrely appreciative audience.  I suspect that this same group of people will fall into a swoon when the captain of the Olympic Curling team moves in next winter.

Meanwhile, despite it becoming very, very obvious that the ball struck by the ---umm,  batsman--- is completely harmless, the jittery jerk driving the car puts his family in peril by freaking out and crashing into a fence and an actual working fountain in the front yard (an actual working fountain in the front yard?  Oh go f--k yourselves, you entitled asshats.)

This is all completely understandable to the State Farm agent- "ah yes, of course- it makes perfect sense that your wife pointed out that this guy was about to hit a cricket ball, that you saw it coming at your car, that you saw it bounce off your car and hit a window- and you responded by losing control of that car and crashing it through a fence and into an actual working fountain (again, grrrrr....rage rising.....) instead of just applying the brakes or using the foreknowledge provided by your wife to prepare for the possibility of your car being hit by the ball.....yeah, you're covered, though may I say you should probably be letting your wife drive....."

Wait....really, Hollywood?

I actually watched all two-plus minutes of this mess because after thirty seconds I figured I had invested too much time not to stay for the punchline.  Plus, it really is very funny, and I was absolutely convinced by the end that someone had finally decided to make a really good spoof movie- you know, like the intelligent, well-written ones that were produced in the 1980s (Airplane, Naked Gun....)

Then the trailer ended and I realized that....wow, this is for an actual horror movie, and all those hilarious scenes were supposed to be scary.  Now I feel bad for bursting into laughter repeatedly, and now I realize that if I went to see it in the theater, I would almost certainly spend more time bored and insulted than humored.  Pass.

(Are we sure we can't do just a little rewriting and turn this into a spoof film?  I mean, it doesn't have to come out until Halloween anyway, right?)

Even Geico admits that their ads are painful

The current version of this mess cuts into the "action" ten seconds in and skips to the "hilarious" punchline, with the two oddly-still-alive (I mean, for fishermen) mounted on the wall of the fish's...um... hunting cabin?  Whatever.  So someone in marketing figured out that the original version, embedded for your displeasure here, is about as interesting as, well, fishing itself.

The long version also reveals that the makers of this commercial have a pretty good grip on what it means to be a fisherman- its pretty much a pointless "activity" featuring what is politely referred to as "patience" being exercised by "sportsmen" but what is more accurately described as "an incredible waste of time" being carried out by "losers" with "no reason to wake up tomorrow."

Oh, and who are tempted by the sight of TV dinners floating around in a lake.  Seriously?

In conclusion, the only thing more depressing than actual fishing just might be this commercial.  And the only thing more depressing than this commercial is reading the Youtube comments and realizing that some people actually enjoy it.  Ugh.

Would you let your kids stay overnight at this house?

...and the best thing about this emergency food is that it fits conveniently in the corner of any reasonably-sized fallout shelter.  Just stack it up against the ammo for the M-15s and the spare batteries for the flashlights (we don't need radio batteries, because we got one with a crank handle with our last subscription to Newsmax.)

And let's be serious, ok?  The two scary-serious white people in this ad ("survival specialists."  That's not creepy at all) aren't talking about power outages when they discuss emergencies.  Nor are they seriously contemplating The Stand-level pandemics or Earth-devastating storms, droughts or meteor strikes.  They aren't really worried about getting grandma her hot meal on schedule during a snowstorm, and they don't really believe that they are ever going to be cut off from civilization for months at a time due to any natural disaster.

Nope- what the scary-serious white people are really concerned about is convincing a very small population of jittery racist idiots that the election of Barack Obama is the beginning of the end of a stable society based on the power of scary-serious white people with guns.  The same jittery racist idiots who are responsible for the largest spike in gun sales (since 2008) in our nation's history.  The World is Coming to an End because we elected a black President and OHMIGOD we are about to follow that up with a female president, Get Your Guns and Emergency Food Now While It's Still Legal.   That's why companies like Wise Foods buy ads during college football game replays and Glenn Beck's The Blaze programming schedule.  That's where the older, frightened, bored, gullible and paranoid  people with money are to be found.

Man, I feel sorry for the children of people who feel the need to buy this stuff.  I mean, ok, if you live on top of a mountain or in an area where natural disasters are fairly common and you want to keep a few days worth of dried food in a closet, fine.  But again- that's not the customer base for this stuff, because dried foods are available at any sporting goods store.  This is for the survivalists, pure and simple.  Creepy.