Maybe you shouldn't be a Lert, either.....

In both of these ads, A Loof is brutally murdered by a bus or a train, a horrific event which has zero impact on A Lert, which goes about it's perfect, everyday life of using the still getting Back2Good Metro System as if absolutely nothing has happened.  So either A Lert is deaf and blind (in which case, he ought to have a dedicated series of Metro Safety Ads) or he's some kind of bizarre Sociopath who simply doesn't care that the train he's happily getting on just ran over a fellow sentient creature.

What a sad world we live in.  When I was a kid I remember Gallant being a goody two-shoes perfect little boy and Goofus being a (much more relateable) jerk, but I don't recall Goofus ever being punished for his behavior by getting maimed by mass transportation while Gallant celebrated his Obvious Superiority by whistling softly to himself and being totally oblivious to the horror that unfolded fifteen feet away. 

We should at least be seeing A Lert crying out in terror and calling 911.  Isn't he supposed to be A Lert?  If you see something, say something!

Heineken's "Holiday" ad: Sorry, but I just don't get it.

And I don't get certain YouTube posters concerning this ad (which is showing up twice per commercial break during bowl games today)  either.

What exactly is non-traditional about this ad?  There's a Dad here.  There are twins. There's a stepdaughter, and a "reveal" that mom- who I guess is either divorced or widowed- has a boyfriend.  Is it that the stepdaughter isn't wearing a pretty dress, or that she' swearing "untraditional" makeup?  Is it that mom's new boyfriend is an artist, and he's not wearing a cardigan or smoking a pipe, or that he has long hair and a beard?  What is it about any of these people that makes them "untraditional?"

Is just that the ad features a blended family?  Does Heineken think that this is a 21st century phenomenon?  Is it even possible that anyone could think this?

I can't get the answer from the YouTube posters who think that this ad represents "degeneracy" and "the breakdown of the nuclear family"- no kidding, check it out.  So can you help me with this?  What am I missing here?

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.