Progressive's "Son" Commercial is too real to be funny

"What happened to my son?"  Well, there are two possible answers:

A.  He is using all that crap you bought him because he asked for it and giving him an electronic cocoon is a lot easier than actually being a parent.  So your son, who grew up in a gleaming-white plastic house, has grown up to be an isolated little creep because daddy wanted to be left alone.   Or,

B.  He bought all this stuff with his own money, which he has because he's still living at home despite being financially independent enough to buy thousands of dollars worth of Virtual Life Because the Real Version is Too Hard crap.

Take your pick, jagoff.

Or maybe this is a green card situation, Walmart?

..and if you're extra-quiet and can get to the store really fast, your trophy wife might not notice that you're doing your grocery shopping at freaking Walmart.  I mean, she may be willing to ignore that you're an ugly hairy doofus who is nowhere near good enough for her, but if she picks up on the fact that you're buying groceries from WALMART she might start getting a little suspicious about the existence of that economic stability she sold her youth for.

The Colonel's cure is far, far worse than this family's disease

Not going to comment on the colonel's long arms.  Too obvious, and anyway intentional.

Not going to comment on the fact that it's the WOMAN of the family who "forgot dinner," like it was her responsibility and her's alone.  For the same reason- this is supposed to be all retro and stupid so that is also intentional.

Not going to comment on how sad it is that Jason Alexander has descended to this level.  Gotta pay the bills, I guess. 

Nope, I'm going to save my snark for the fact that the colonel walks in with enough food to poison  feed about forty people for some reason- and even if we are supposed to assume that the family chooses only ONE of these offers, there's still enough calories there to kill provide nutrition for several African villages for chrissakes.

And of course each bucket of steaming fried chicken parts is overflowing.  But I'm not going to snark on that, either.  Because that's always the case in these commercials, and I've done that bit before.

Bounty Paper Towels, Iced Coffee, and a Laptop= Recipe for Horror

A little girl loudly announces her entry into a room which is ridiculously gleaming-white and clean even for television standards, and her father doesn't even flinch.  He's so intent on staring at (daughter? Trophy wife?) that he doesn't move a single muscle as his daughter charges in.  So when she sticks him with her toy sword he is so startled that he drops his coffee on to the (gleaming white, of course) table.

Seriously, great acting job there, buddy.  You couldn't even begin to turn around when you heard your daughter?  You still could have spilled that coffee.  Instead you act like you had NO IDEA she was there, just to set up a really stupid scenerio for a paper towel commercial?

Anyway, the guy throws what looks to be two or three ounces of weak coffee on to the table about three feet away from his DaughterWife's laptop.  It couldn't be more obvious that unless they both stand there yelling "NOOOOOOOO" for maybe five minutes, none of that liquid is actually going to reach the computer.  It's not at all clear that they DON'T intend to stand there for ten minutes screaming about a situation that poses zero danger to the computer, except now the narrator jumps in with "Quick!  Grab a Bounty paper towel!"

Yeah, you'd better catch that spill "quick"- not because it poses the slightest danger to the laptop, but because as long as it's sitting there it creates a really jarring contrast with the otherwise all-white world these weirdos live in.

And then we see that the "mess" the towel picks up is about three teaspoons of coffee.  Wow, good thing you've got super-absorbent towels to to deal with a crisis of that magnitude.  Good thing you don't have to try to rely on a napkin or a sponge, because no way those would be up to the challenge. I mean, there's an ICE CUBE among the carnage. After all, we are told that Bounty is "two times more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand," which is a pretty awkward way of attempting to make a claim.  What brands are included in the "ordinary" category, anyway?

Oh, and if you're on a budget (like nobody on tv commercials) you can buy this Bounty Essentials stuff, which comes with no statistics concerning it's effectiveness but if you can't afford regular Bounty you have no business complaining if it doesn't catch up your spill before it reaches your Rent-A-Center electronics.

More fun with Humira!

(Again, I'm apologizing for the poor quality of a Humira ad.  Sorry-  I don't know why Humira isn't putting official versions of their ads on YouTube, but I am grateful to the people who are recording them and putting them up even if the sound and picture quality is pretty bad.)

So this almost ridiculously diverse band (seriously- there's another woman, a black guy on drums, and an Asian guy.  Please) is deeply concerned because they are all set up at the Annual Oshkosh Pumpkin Fest and their lead singer is once again in the bathroom.  Oh noes, all the thirtysomething white people with terminal bad taste will be so dissapointed if she doesn't show!

Oh, but phew- she DOES show, because she talked to her doctor about her bowel issues and he recommended Humira.  Now she can do what she's being paid to do- wave at the crowd, jump up and down, and (I guess) sing a song now and again.

When the show is over, the hot, sticky band climbs into their RV to look at pictures on their phones of...well, I have no idea what.  Maybe they are reading reviews of their performance?  Checking replies to their resumes from Monster.com?

Then it's off to another gig at an abandoned old theater.  The show is set for 10 PM- so this band has concerts in the middle of the day at county fairs AND at run-down old movie houses at 10 PM.  And the evening gig is "sold out?"  Well, I guess that's not hard when your venue only seats 25 (I mean, come on- it looks like they are playing in someone's living room.)

All of this is in the service of selling us a drug which as near as I can tell helps calm overactive bladders, I guess.

Hyundai Humor= Total Fail

There is so much wrong here, but I'll just focus on two things that really stuck out:

First, how terrified is this kid of his dad that he can't just come out and tell him that he needs to use a bathroom?  At one point, they are at a car wash.  I bet that car wash has a restroom he could use- but this kid is so frightened of telling his dad that he needs to urinate that he'd rather sit in the back and sweat and squirm in building agony than say "hey dad, I need to relieve myself.  Can you take me to the bathroom please?"  I bet he's even more in terror of what will happen if he wets the seat.  Poor kid, that guy must be an absolute monster.

Second, the dad finally gets that his son needs to pee so he pulls over on the highway....and the kid exits on the side facing the road and runs around the rear of the car to head off into the woods.  Huh?  Why did he exit on that side?  Why isn't the dad going with him to make sure he's ok?  Jesus freaking Christ, buddy- first you frighten the kid into suffering in the back seat for god knows how long, then you let him exit where he could easily be killed by a speeding car, then you let him run off into the woods by himself to urinate...what the hell is the matter with you?

Oh, and let's never mind that all of this is played for laughs by Hyundai.  Never mind that unless you're a 14-year old boy I don't want to hear that you think that this is funny in the slightest.  Seriously, if you've reached adulthood and you think Kid In Agony Because He Needs To Urinate is totally LOL hilarious- or even slightly amusing- I don't want to hear it.  If you think it's funny enough to sustain an ad that runs for a full minute, well...I really don't want to hear it, and maybe your parents should thank you for posting on YouTube under a fake name.

Let me correct you, Verizon Fios Spokeschoad

What this person sitting at the gate waiting for her flight needs to "let her pals know" is that she's a totally self-absorbed douchenozzle who has never heard of these things called "earbuds" and who just assumes that everyone at the gate wants to listen to whatever she's watching on her f--ng phone.

Oh wait, she doesn't need to let them know that.  They know it already.  As does everyone else at the gate, including all the people who were trying to catch a little shuteye or maybe enjoy a book or something while waiting to board their flights.  They all know that one of the people also waiting for that flight is a selfish jackass who thinks that being able to carry her tv around through her phone makes everywhere she is her Living Room.  So enjoy the game, everyone at the gate.  You're going to hear it- and her response to every play, so you might as WELL enjoy it.

Hell, I strongly suspect you'll continue to "enjoy" it while the flight is in the air.  Basic human decency doesn't compute with this woman, why should airline rules?  I mean, there's a game on her phone!

Meanwhile, Verizon Spokeschoad?  I hope your plane crashes.  Into the Andes.  And you survive.  So you can be eaten by your fellow passengers.  Slowly.  Feet first.