Firestone warned us....

This commercial was released early in 2016...yet that November, we were all stunned when Donald Trump was elected President.

It was right there in front of us the whole time- we are a nation of drooling hicks who love yelling "WOOOO" and watching big, loud, dirty things be big, loud and dirty.

We thought this country was going to choose a highly-qualified woman over a male reality tv bag of hot air?

What were we thinking?

Arby's- celebrating heart disease since 1964

According to Wikipedia, Arby's is the second-largest fast-food service chain in the United States (based on number of retail outlets.)  Which means that pretty much no matter where you live in this great big fat Getting Greater Every Day country of ours, you are not far from an opportunity to shorten your stay by shoving this greasy crap down your already overindulged cake hole.

And here's another example of Art Imitating Life, from way back in the early-90s:



Meanwhile, half the world goes to bed hungry every night.  Hell, even idiots who consume crap from Arby's, MacDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell or Kentucky FRIED Chicken, while not going to bed hungry, ARE going through life with nutrient deficiencies because the only Food Groups included in their diet are Fats and Carbs.  All contributing to the obesity epidemic already aggravated by a lack of large grocery stores in the urban centers (just try to get fruits, vegetables and high-fiber bread from a typical inner-city convenience or mom and pop store.  Liquor, lottery tickets and heat-lamp hot dogs, sure.  Actual food?  Not likely.)

But keep demanding death on a bun, morons.  I'm investing in companies specializing in heart disease medication and knee replacement surgeries.  I'll be fine.

The next step is to have the entire area sealed in a plastic bubble

So this woman is planning an outdoor party and heads out to the patio for the first time in a couple of years (I'm assuming this based on the amount of dirt she finds on the table and chairs.)  I mean, the only alternative is that someone just happened to walk on to her patio, break the pot of dirt, and spread it all over the table and chairs.

Oh wait, there's one more alternative:  that this commercial simply does not tie in any logical way to reality.

Anyway, this woman's solution to a problem solved by 99 percent of us with a quick hosedown is to attach a bottle of chemicals to that hose and then spend what seems like an hour or so shooting high-pressure water mixed with that bottle of chemicals on to that table and chairs like a germophobic maniac so terrified at the idea that there might be a tiny speck of dirt left behind that she's willing to drown the patio in water and chemicals.

And never mind that she uses so much water on those cushions that there's no way anyone sits on them without getting their pants wet inside of six hours- the important thing is that there's NO MORE DIRT ANYWHERE.  Because dirt is the last thing we should be tolerating while we're outside.  WTF-ever, Scotts.  I'm not even going to go into the whole "Oh, Schmidt" thing.  Not even worth it.

Cross-promoting M&Ms, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Racoon Maulings

Cross-promotions are the drum solos of commercials.  They are always just so g-d--ned awful and insulting and stupid.  I blame one of the best movies ever made, E.T., for their ubiquitousness (is that even a word?) because of that one simple Reece's/Movie tie-in because it lead to almost four decades of this awful "eat this or drive this while watching this" banal crud.

This one is especially bad because the two stupid fricking M&M characters are actually in the damn theater watching the damn movie (which, by the way, go ahead and flame me you weird cultists, is one of the most freaking overrated films of all time, sorry now get a freaking life) when the disease-ridden, sharp-clawed rodent does what come naturally for it (eating bags of someone else's food.)  This of course is supposed to be hilarious because get it, one of the adowable characters of that stupid It's Just Another CGI-Fest Waste of Time movie is or is not a racoon (the "debate," carried out exclusively by sad losers on the internet, continues.)  Oh my sides are splitting.

So go see Guardians of the Galaxy II because hey, you saw the first one and since then you've been told a thousand times that it's the Gone With The Wind of action-adventure crap.  And eat, umm, M&Ms, I guess.  And popcorn.  And play with racoons until they bite your fingers off and you choke to death on your own spittle.  Or something.

Another "Moms are superhuman slaves" ad, this one by Nyquil

"Moms don't take sick days?"  Um, why the hell not?  Is it because Dad isn't there to help raise his own children, ever, and would probably accidentally kill them with his ineptitude if allowed to try for one day?

You can damn well bet that DADS take sick days.  And spend them being mothered by Mom, who just adds him to the list of people who must be taken care of on those particular days.  But Moms?  Moms aren't allowed to be sick, and they really aren't allowed to rest, either, except during those hours when the kids are asleep and Dad doesn't need anything either.  Her rest periods end when one of her kids- the children or the adult one- needs something.

Need a longer break, mom?  You shouldn't have had these kids all by yourself.  And you can take several days off when they are out of the house (and your hubby doesn't need you to for anything.)  Or when you're dead.

Why do the makers of Nyquil and Tide commercials insist on acting as if we are still in some Leave It To Beaver version of the 1950s?  Those days really aren't missed by anyone with a functioning brain.  I really doubt the Dad in this commercial is all that anxious to get back to them, for example.

This girl must stink to high heaven most of the time

"My little girl practically lives in her Princess dress...she wears it all week...."

Wait, it's about to get much, much worse.

"But once a week, I need to clean it.  So what do I do?  What any good dad would do- I let her play sheriff.  While I clean that dress she's been wearing for a week."

No kidding.  This guy lets his daughter wear the same freaking dress for weeks at a time, with brief intervals in which she wears a sheriff's costume so he can wash the stinking, grass-and-spaghetti-stained thing.  And please note that he LETS her play sheriff for those maybe two hours it takes to wash her regular uniform, the princess dress.  Then it's back to her gender-appropriate princess dress.

Someone please explain to me two things here:

1.  Why the hell is this "expert dad" going along with this wear-the-same-dress-for-weeks-at-a-time bit?  Does this girl not go to school?  Is he just keeping her socially isolated in the house and the backyard, or what?  I mean, how badly does this girl smell at the end of each designated laundry cycle?

2.  How many brain cells would we have to donate to Expert Dad to get him to realize that a really good time to wash that stupid ugly dress would be in the evening when spoiled little princess is asleep and presumably wearing something else?  Oh, would that require the idiot to go shopping for new clothes every once in a while?

3.  Does anyone else think this commercial is really stupid and disturbing, or is it just me?

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I'm going to tweak the script of this commercial without changing the basic message:

"We all love bacon.  We simply can't get enough of it.  We'd eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and all snacks if we could.  When we get around to making 'Fourth Meal' an official thing- and seriously, it's only a matter a time in Donald Trump's America- that Fourth Meal will consist entirely of bacon."

"As we all know, the problem is that bacon is not very convenient to make.  It creates grease which splatters and makes messes and is even dangerous.  And because of these problems, we often deny ourselves our god-given right to consume as much pig as we'd like.  The result?  We aren't anywhere near as unhealthy as we COULD be if only SOMEONE could make the cooking of fatty strips of pork easier!"

"Well, here's the solution- with this handy little device, you effortlessly add hundreds of calories to your diet and subtract several years of your life!  Yay bacon!"

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