"The Future," according to Taco Bell.....

...sure isn't very inviting or attractive.  In fact, it's basically imagining a world in which twentysomethings gorge themselves on carbs, cheese, meat and grease while sitting on their expanding butts using virtual reality glasses to pretend to be doing something cool as their arteries harden and life passes by right in front of them (but completely invisible, because of those virtual reality glasses.)

Well, at least the crap they'll be killing themselves with will come in cheap package deals.  That's something, because they really will need to save their money for the diabetes medications and heart surgeries.  Pardon me if I don't shed a tear in advance for these loathsome slobs.

At least Aleve doesn't try to be funny with most of ITS Ads.....

   

The conclusion of this ad would make a lot more sense if the "Not Gonna Happen" woman and the "My headache's gone so continue to destroy the house and scream, unsupervised kids" woman were one and the same.  I could totally get "two is enough and I'm out of pills, even if you aren't" coming from THAT woman.

But as it is, this just comes off as another ad going for a cheap laugh.  The "Not Gonna Happen" woman might as well finish her statement by letting the guy know that the whole "headache" thing was just an excuse to avoid intimacy and while she's perfectly happy to sleep in the same bed with him, he's to keep to his side at all times.  Pretty cold, but it WILL allow her to avoid the fate of that other woman.....

I'll give Apex this- they are still around, and still offering these classes. I bet their commercials are better now, though

"Every two seconds somebody bangs up a car.  Keeping them looking new again keeps 185,000 specialists on the job..."

Well, I'd think so.  After all, that's 30 cars being banged up every minute, or 1800 every hour, or 43,200 every day- or almost sixteen MILLION cars banged up every year....if they all needed servicing, that comes out to eighty-five cars per "specialist."  Except, wait- isn't it reasonable to assume that the vast majority of those "bang-ups" are going to be fender-benders, scratches, and dings written off by the owners because, well, deductables?  And even if every single one of those cars were brought in to a "specialist," that comes out to one job every four days...how long does it take to fix a dent or fill a stratch?*

My favorite part of this classic ad comes at 35 seconds in when the host, after giving a quick rundown of the skills his training program teaches, breaks into a chuckle and practically blurts out "now seriously, don't you agree that a monkey could be trained to do any of this work in a long weekend?  How freaking helpless are you?"

Maybe in the 1970s applying bondo and smoothing out dents and spraying paint- all those things MAACO charges through the nose for- made for a good career?  Considering that my father in law was able to teach me how to do all that stuff for my own car and I managed to actually do it without blinding myself or losing an appendage, I kind of doubt it.  VCR Repair sounds more promising, even if it doesn't come with that awesome Probably Free When You Apply For a Sears Card tool kit...

*oh, who am I kidding?  "Labor: $200 Minimum" pretty much no matter what, right?

Another Lexus "you'd give anything to be me, 'cause I get to drive this car" ad

The guy who drives this Lexus is the President of the company his dad started and is well aware that he doesn't pay his minions enough to ever be able to afford a decent car, let alone a Lexus, which makes him better than them, and that makes him happy as he cruises off in smug satisfaction, hopefully on his way to a horrific accident in which he is the only fatality.

And just think- the December to Remember ads are right around the corner.  Must be, because Christmas is right around the corner.  The local chain store tells me so.

Bet you Corona thinks this one's clever, too.....

1.  The poor alcoholic in the first frame can only afford to buy single cans, but doesn't notice that one has gone missing- and I guess won't notice until she gets home and realizes that she's going to have a very rough night without that third can of cheap beer to stave off the DTs....

2.  The magic rolling Corona can is SO magic that it does something that no can has ever done- it manages to roll several inches on a dry beach.  Sure, that happens.  Uh huh.  And if you leave a sandwich out unattended the seagulls will realize it's not their property and totally leave it alone, too.

3.  Is it too much to ask that beer companies just go back to showing us people actually drinking their product and having a good time doing it?  This is stupid.  The only way this ad comes even close to redeeming itself is if we at least get to see the guy who opens this can get half of it sprayed in his face.  Instead, we are supposed to believe that the Obviously Lukewarm Can of Cheap Beer was mistaken as one brought to the beach party.  If that happened, I have to believe that the partiers are already seriously buzzed from the consumption of alcohol of a much higher quality.

Here we go again with Aleve's Alternate Universe.....

1.  Hey buddy, your customers aren't "counting on you" to get your sorry ass out of bed to make coffee.  If you don't get that shop open, they are going to hit McDonald's, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Seven-Eleven or any of the other 2000 options out there for early morning coffee.  And you'll get to explain to the bank how you "couldn't get up" and therefore lost all your business and won't be making this month's loan payment.

2.  If you are happily rising from bed as the sun streams through your windows, you sure as hell aren't running a coffee shop.  Hey, guess what, moron?  Your customers are long gone.  Unlike you, they actually have to get to jobs that start before mid-morning.  Coffee shops that don't open until after sunrise aren't going to be in business very long.  You wanted to run a coffee shop but you didn't want to get up before dawn to get it going?  Well, I'm sorry, but that means you didn't really want to run a coffee shop.*  You just conned yourself into thinking you did.  And now....

3.  You are blaming your back pain for your absolutely horrible business sense.  You decided you wanted to be your own boss, so you figured "hey, people drink coffee, I can make coffee, so I'll do that."  Then you realized that people like to BUY coffee early in the morning, and oh noes that means that if you wanted to succeed, you'd have to get up early what were you thinking?  And now you're stuck with the option of hiring someone to open "your" shop for you (and splitting the profits) or just hoping that people won't want coffee until you are damn good and ready to open your shop (mid-morning, apparently.  When everyone is at work.)

4.  Just admit it- you thought it would be fun to run a business in which you served up very expensive coffee to really stupid people who would continue to be totally loyal to you (they "depend" on you, after all) even if you couldn't get the damn store open at a time convenient to THEM, not YOU.  Congratulations on finding a loan officer even more obtuse than you are.  Enjoy your backache, you entitled jackass.   I'm off to Starbucks.

*Maybe this guy can start a support group with that woman in the other commercial who thinks she has a job taking pictures of sunrises but gets up after dawn and takes them with a hand-held camera....Delusionals Annonymous, perhaps?

Masterpass It: Because "Modern Life" Means "I'm sorry" just doesn't cut it anymore

In the Bad Old Days, when spending $150 wasn't something you could do at the spur of the moment from your seat at Fenway Park (unless you flagged down a vendor and bought a couple of hot dogs and three or four beers,) this scene might end with an apology and a "well, I'm at a game and that's what dry cleaners are for" shrug.  Or at the very most, a trip to the huge gift shop on Yawkey Way right outside the ballpark for a replacement jersey when the game is over.

Because we live in the Modern World, spilling nachos on the guy next to you means you whip out your phone (oh, who am I kidding, it's already out and you were already scrolling through stuff you were thinking of buying, not like there's a sporting event you paid serious money to watch happening in front of you or anything) and buy him a replacement jersey before he has a chance to even sit back down- "oops sorry I trashed your jersey, but there's another one on the way so don't even respond, ok?"

And never mind that there's no indication that these people know eachother- where is that jersey being sent?  Obviously not to the big guy's house, he wasn't asked his address.  So are they going to meet up in a few days to finish this really awkward (and ridiculously expensive) transaction made necessary by the apparent conviction that A) The guy whose jersey was damaged is big and therefore he's a humorless jerk and therefore was about to kill the slob who damaged it, stopped only by the assurance that a brand new jersey was on the way, and B) saying "oh, I'm sorry" is simply not adequate in the era of Buy It* Right Now?

*Oh, sorry- "Masterpass It."  Yeah, that's going to catch on.  Have I told you how much I hate this century?