What are we Hungry for? Never, EVER this crud, Stouffers!

If you didn't notice the tiny Stouffers logo in the corner of the screen, you probably thought that this was a commercial for insurance, or McDonald's, or Gatorade, or something that was unrelated to the story that was unfolding on screen and which was supposed to pull at your heart strings or whatever.

With ten seconds left in a 79-second ad, we learn that this guy....eats Stouffers brand frozen boxed crap faux-lasagna.  And this is important because....oh, sorry, can't tell you, because the ad is over.

WTF-ever, Stouffers.

Maybe English is a second language to the Lavazza Family

"For over four generations, the Lavazza family has been perfecting the art of blending coffee."

How can a family "perfect" the art of blending coffee "for four generations?"  Either the art has been perfected or it hasn't.  Once it's been perfected, it can't be perfected any more.  So shouldn't this ad really say that "for over four generations, the Lavazza family has gotten better and better at blending coffee?"

Also- why are all the other ads for this stuff so chock-full of stupid celebrity cameos?  Why does anyone think that this is the way to sell coffee?

Finally- America runs on Dunkin, and there's a Starbucks on every corner. Does this Lavazza family really think that Americans are still looking for "perfectly blended coffee?"  We're not.  We just want the caffeine.  If we cared about the taste, there wouldn't be a Dunkin Donuts every fifty yards in New England and a Starbucks every fifteen feet everywhere else.

Geico's "So Easy" Campaign is Nonsensical, Offensive Rubbish

Notice how every Geico commercial is constructed exactly the same, with five seconds of non-information about the insurance company (usually how long it's been around, or how easy it is to sign up for it or file a claim) followed by ten seconds of banal nonsense that is only funny to people who think that EVERYTHING EVER MADE BY ANYONE is funny?

Check out this particular steaming pile of non-informative nothing.  The fat doofus sitting on his lawnchair tells us Geico has been around for "over 75 years" (eighty-two, actually) and therefore "it's easy to trust Geico."  This is the entirety of the educational part of this ad.  This one line explaining that Geico has been around for what I guess is supposed to be considered a long time for an insurance company.

I'm not going to point out that several of Geico's chief rivals are even older companies and therefore, by this jackass's logic, are even more worthy of trust.  For example, State Farm was established Ninety-Six years ago.  And Allstate, which was established the year before Geico, making it at least a year more worthy of confidence.  Even Progressive is only a decade younger than Geico.  But as I said, I'm not going to point any of that out.

Instead, I'll stick with the as-usual-nonsensical "funny" part of the typical Geico ad, which is always designed to make you smirk or roll your eyes (or, if you are a YouTube commentator, spit your beer out of your nose and fall on the floor laughing before running to YouTube to let everyone know how much you LOL loved the ad.)  This time, the theme is how easy it is to trust Geico, so the guy delivering the punchline tells us it's "Master of Hypnotist easy."  As in, it's as easy as your life would be if you could mentally enslave your neighbors and order them around.  Lovely.

Except, what?  Is becoming a Master of Hypnosis easy?  If not, what is the point of the punchline again?  It seems to me that this guy is actually telling us that trusting Geico is as "easy" as doing something that is pretty much impossible for almost everybody- and if not impossible, certainly not desirable if one's goal is to improve societal health.  Yeah, having slaves makes one's life "easy," if we embrace a very surface-level view of slavery and if one happens to be a slave owner and not a slave.  Even if one is a slave owner, we can see from the few seconds of this commercial that Geico understands the corrosive nature of slave ownership- the guy in the chair isn't using his abilities to enrich anyone but himself, and is turning into a disgusting, worthless slug in the process.

Wait- "disgusting, worthless slug?"  I finally found the right words to describe a typical Geico commercia.  And you can trust me on that, this blog is almost ten years old, after all.

KFC Carols all over our most sacred traditions

The only thing more disturbing and utterly heartbreaking than this horrible ad is the number of YouTube commentators who think it's "damn catchy" and want to know what the lyrics are.  Holy crap, people- Hark the Herald Angels Sing dates back to 1739 and it's one of pretty much everybody's favorite holiday hymns EVER.  But you rape it (sorry, I can't think of another term which expresses my feelings at this moment) in the service of selling fried chicken parts, and the mentally deficient box turtles gush all over it as if KFC has done something wonderful here.

Well, no, but KFC has NOT done anything wonderful here.  It's taken a beautiful song (which was originally meant to be sung at a slow, almost mournful pace) and run it through the Shredder of Ultimate Corporate Disrespect because it's in the public domain.  Well, F-k you, KFC.  And Double F-k you to the mouth-breathing jagoffs over at YouTube- you winners really need to just take a break from commenting online for.....well, frankly, EVER.

Touch of Modern Gluttony

Back in the 1980s- a decade pretty much dedicated to the art of Conspicuous Consumption- there was this awesome store in the local mall called The Sharper Image which sold all kinds of nifty gadgets which all had one thing in common.  Everything in the store was really cool, and really pointless (or, at least, way ahead of it's time- which meant that the concept was there but the tech had not yet quite caught up yet.  For example, The Sharper Image was the first place I saw Wireless Headphones, Hoverboards, and Robot Vacuums, and I'm sure they all worked equally badly.)

It was, essentially, a place for poor kids like me to ogle fancy Toys for Adults, and for upper-class adults to buy toys for themselves.

Well, that particular The Sharper Image has gone the way of almost every other store at that mall, vanished off the face of the Earth to be replaced by a massive Filene's Basement, though I was a bit surprised to learn that the company itself does actually exist somewhere (perhaps as an internet-only entity.)  About fifteen years ago I walked into my first Brookstone's and thought "hey, The Sharper Image is back with a new name," because Brookstone's does pretty much cater to the same audience, but it wasn't as cool probably because I wasn't 18 years old anymore.

Now there's Touch of Modern, where Stupid Rich People Who Have No Change For the Guy with the Bell can purchase electronic coasters which allow coffee cups to hover above the desk or floating Death Star models or super-nifty-SciFi Swiss Army knives or belts which don't quite work like the belts that the plebs buy at JC Penny.  It isn't Toys for Adults- you can get vintage GI Joes at Ebay and video games at Walmart.  These are showy pieces of pointless junk which serve exactly one purpose- to let everyone else know that you can afford to buy showy pieces of pointless junk.  As in "Don't think for one minute that I saved for three years or took out a second mortgage to buy that Lexus in the driveway.  I've got money coming out of my ears!"

So for that rich guy in your life who has everything- here's something they don't have, because they didn't know it existed.  Because there's no reason for it to exist, except that there will always be people out there desperate to throw money around in the most ostentatious manner imaginable.  And because it's 2018 they don't even have to drive to the mall to do it.

I wasn't fooled, Peloton

See, the gag here is that you thought the guy was getting up at 5 AM to work his butt off on the Peloton bike so he could stay in good shape for his wife.  Sure, you thought it was kind of weird, since pretty much every other Peloton bike commercial you ever saw featured a twentysomething woman with the body of a triathelete/Sports Illustrated model getting up before dawn to sweat for an hour while being shouted at by another hot woman on a screen.  Each of those ads ended with the woman toweling herself off before being greeted by two little kids and- eventually- the shlub she sold herself to who is finally getting HIS ass out of bed and who has no need for a Peloton bike himself because hey, Bank Account.

It's all made right at the end, as it's revealed that, yep, this is actually HER Christmas present and he was just taking it for a test ride, like that guy who put a whole 900 miles on the brand new Jaguar last year before handing it over to HIS trophy wife.  This time the Grateful To Be Reminded That She Could Be In Better Shape spouse doesn't notice the slightly damp seat or any other signs that this gift has been broken in- she's too busy gushing with delight at the modern equivalent of a new washing matchine as an appropriate holiday present.

"Hey look, honey- a Peloton Bike, just for you!  Now you can cancel those classes at the gym you clearly hated even though they were pretty much the only time you ever left the house to take a trip that didn't involve buying groceries or cleaning products!  Now show how much you appreciate me by taking a pound off before making me breakfast!"

"Oh and BTW, don't bother looking out into the driveway- there's no Lexus wrapped in a ribbon for you again.  How many years in a row does that make?"

Roll the dice at Kay Jewelers?

I get that this is supposed to be super-cute and not at all trite or manipulative or drowning in BS g-d forbid.  It's supposed to be just adorable that this guy not only decides he has to ask this little kid's permission before marrying his mom, but feels compelled to show the kid the ring in a way which, if you watch this without sound, looks as though he's offering it to the kid and not to the mom.

Because I'm a commercial curmudgeon, I'm going to point out a few obvious sticking points which make this ad kind of screwed up and certainly nothing that any guy interested in marrying a woman with a young child should take inspiration from.

First, I'm more than a little squicked at the concept of an adult man asking a male child for permission to marry an adult woman, as if that adult woman has no real say in the matter.  He even pushes the ring toward the kid like he's offering payment for his mom.  I guess it would be worse if we saw the guy asking the woman's FATHER for permission to marry her, but this really isn't much better.

Hey, buddy?  This is the son of the woman you want to marry, not her master or her boss.  Did she send you into his room to do this?  I get that you're going to be a family and maybe there's even something a little sweet in getting the little boy ready for his mother to be married again, but how about a little conference with all three of you in the same room in which it's explained to the kid what is GOING to happen?  Because, after all....

Second, this guy has pretty much set this up as the kid's decision to make.  I guess he's been around for a while and he knows the kid very well, and the look on the little boy's face suggests that he really likes the guy and OF COURSE he's going to say "yes," but what if he doesn't?  Is this a decision that ought to be made by a kid who can't get to sleep without his favorite stuffed Porg toy?  What if he kind of still likes it being him and Mom and isn't quite ready to share her with this guy or anyone else?  What if he says "maybe in a few years?"  I don't imagine that the guy is really going to take a negative reaction as the signal to take the ring back to Kay Jewelers and renew his membership with Match.com.  It's a lot more likely that the kid will be informed that umm, sorry, we were just trying to be cutesy and nice by asking, but we're getting married anyway, suck it up, buddy.