Quaker Presents: Taste, Totally Flattened

Or maybe "laid to waste."

I mean, let's slightly rewrite the narration for this ad:  "Here at Quaker Oats, we take berries, honey, oats, raisins, and other good, wholesome food and pound the living crap out of it until it's reduced to thin, dry, utterly tasteless wafers which can be stacked, wrapped in plastic, and packaged for all you posers who absolutely refuse to make the effort to search out and eat real food but instead seek out this processed crud - not only seek it out, but actually manage to get it down because you think you're doing something good for yourself.  For you, here are New Quaker Flats- quite literally, dried-up and mass-produced fiber chunks held together with honey which might, if you don't think about it too much, be a passable snack if consumed with a very hot, very strong cup of coffee."

I'm always amazed that there's a market for six dollar boxes containing a few cents worth of food, but then I remember- there's always people like the ones I described in the first paragraph.  Lazy, Niave morons looking for a short cut brought us Carnation Instant Breakfast and Eggo Waffles.  This stuff fits right in.

KIA ramps up the Dumb

Nothing about this ad makes even the slightest sense.

First, what's with the 1980s video football game?  Is KIA trying to reach the fiftysomething car buyer with this ad?  Maybe so, because Second, what the heck is Bo Jackson doing even attempting to play football here?

Third, the electronic version of Bo Jackson in the game looks like he has a pretty good shot to go 95 yards for the score, but instead decides....to cheat by running out of the stadium, getting into his car, and driving it on to the field?  Now we've moved beyond "makes no sense" and are deep into "this is really, really stupid" territory.

Fourth, why are the other electronic players attempting to tackle Jackson's car?  Why is Jackson carefully weaving his car around the players as if he's concerned that it will get tackled?  I don't care how big NFL players are nowadays, they aren't taking down a freaking SUV.

Fifth, what is Bo Jackson celebrating at the end?  That he managed to drive across a football field in a car without being tackled?  That he's still marketable enough to be in an ad and that's a good thing even if it's one as dumb as this?  That he's in an ad and at least it isn't for Five Hour Energy?

Why do I think about this stupid crap so much?

Dodge really captures the spirit of the holidays in this ad

Ostentatious competitiveness.  Surly looks.  Drag races which endanger the lives of the Not One Percenters who might be trying to cross these urban streets.  Concluding with a reminder that hey there are even more self-satisfied prigs willing to trash their Christmas trees if it means they get to show off the fact that....um, their cars go forward when you press the gas pedal.

Yeah, this is somebody's idea of what the holidays are all about.  "Somebody" being pretty much everyone who writes commercials to be broadcast in the month of December.  Because I'm not kidding- as I was watching the Ravens-Dolphins game Sunday afternoon I couldn't help noticing that at least nine out of ten of the ads broadcast featured the message that the best thing you can do for yourself this holiday season is to buy a car you probably don't need but will make you the envy of the neighborhood and in the end, what else really matters?

Merry....Um, something.  I guess.

So many villains to choose from in this horrible Xfinity ad....

1.  The grandparents, who follow their grandkid's twitter account and respond to the bitchy, spoiled-rotten "oh I have to spend a few hours at a house with no WiFi or Netflix just because it happens to contain elderly people I guess I'm related to" tweets by forking over god knows how much money to update their internet and cable system because Everything Must Be Made Perfect For Precious Granddaughter.

2.  Wretchedly spoiled little monster grandchild, who publicly considers an afternoon without WiFi as "entering the gates of hell" and begs her Twitter followers to "pray for her" because oh my freaking god, she's going to have to survive several hours without indulging in electronic addition---err, entertainment.  Horrors, an actual conversation with real people who may not be around next holiday season might result.  Wouldn't that be a nightmare.

3.  The company that is so craven that it sells this as a heartwarming tale of grandparents so determined to show well for Granddaughter that they invest in an upgraded service and If You Loved Your Grandkids You'd Do The Same And Then Maybe You'd See Them More Old Fogies.  Sick, Xfinity.  Truly Sick.

I didn't think it was possible for a commercial to make me long for a Lexus December to Remember ad, but this one comes pretty close.  What a nightmare the modern world is.

There's nothing wrong with my volume control, Mr. Jackson!

1.  Is it fair to assume that if Samuel L Jackson was acting in a Capital One Commercial set in a library or hospital, he would still be yelling at me about the benefits of the credit card he's whoring? Seriously, what is it with this guy?  The only films I can remember seeing in which he doesn't yell his lines are the Star Wars prequels- and a little yelling instead of his constant non-action and scenery-chewing intraspection might have really helped there.  In this ad, it's completely unnecessary.  Al Sharpton doesn't yell as often as this guy does.

2.  Yes, the malls are full of stuff to buy, and I suppose that one reason why people cut back on their holiday spending is because of a lack of credit.  But that's now what Mr Jackson is barking at us about in this ad.  He's suggesting that we are holding back because the cards currently taking up space in our wallets simply don't provide enough rewards points to make buying something an attractive option.  Um, in whose universe do people think like this?  Samuel L Jackson's, I guess.  When I use a credit card, I think of the interest I'll have to pay if I don't send the bank the full amount at the end of the month.  The one percent apparently think more about how they are going to spend those awesome points they are tossed like crumbs from the table as rewards for accruing more debt.  Good for them.

3.  If Samuel L Jackson weren't in it, this would be the whitest commercial I've ever seen.  Hell, even with him in it it's got to be in the top ten.  My retinas are burning.

Subway presents: Your tax dollars at work.

Can we agree that Subway really knows construction workers?

For the past two weeks, the street outside my apartment is being torn up.  This is the second time in eight years there is major work being done on the same section of street.  I wonder if the same company is doing the work, and if anyone asked them why it wasn't done right the first time (or is it just par for the course for streets to need major work every eight years?)

Just like 90 percent of the "workers" out on my street, the guys in this ad are doing nothing resembling actual work.  The people on my street are wearing hard hats and yellow and orange jackets and heavy boots and safety glasses because I guess that makes standing around watching one guy operate a piece of heavy machinery slightly less dangerous.  The jokers in this Subway ad aren't even going through the motions of pretending to earn their $30 an hour- they've got their backs to the site, blathering away about Subway's jingle.

I guess I should be glad they just acting like lazy morons and not making lewd comments at women as they pass by.  If they did that, I'd be convinced that Subway went out and found actual construction workers to star in their ad.

(Oh and BTW, in the outtakes one of the guys in the ad offers to "sign my sandwich" if I happen to bump into him at my neighborhood Subway.  Um, seriously, buddy.  Get over yourself.  No one knows who you are and that's not going to change because you were a total tool in a Subway ad.)

The Dramatic Twist at the end of this Commercial.....

....is when you realize that it's for dog food.  And that it's not an SNL skit or some other form of brilliant snark.

Nope.  The big buildup- the woman either being thrown out of the house or breaking up with her significant other or whatever that is, her quest for a hotel which takes pets (which fails on the first night, requiring her to sleep in the car,) her driving for what seems to be hundreds of miles, her finally finding a pet-friendly hotel after having a bitter, fruitless conversation with (presumably) her significant other which ends with her dropping the phone (and she's using a payphone, which I guess is supposed to be even more dramatic, besides marking her as the only adult in the United States under the age of forty who doesn't have a cell phone).....concludes with her opening a can of Cesar dog food and feeding it to her bestest friend.  Two minutes of this.  Two minutes of my life I'll never get back because I was curious enough to see how this ended up, at the end of which I was half-convinced it was going to be a pitch for the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints because it sure looked like that.  But it's a dog food ad.  A dog food ad which is really, really ripe for parody for anyone who wants to take a crack at it.  Won't be me, but someone just has to.

And by the way, "Road Trip?"  Really?  This woman acts as if she is fleeing an abusive relationship and except for her dog, her whole life is going to hell in a handbasket.  That's what Cesar calls a "road trip?"