Charlize Theron walks into a bar...

...and proceeds to interrupt everyone else's fun by showing how awesome she is when she's the star of a commercial and she- and everyone else- is following a script which requires her to be absolutely perfect at everything while balancing a beer with one hand.  A beer which, by the way, she either never drinks or keeps having refilled between shots.

I just don't understand commercials at all, I guess.  But know what I understand even less?  The triggered white male losers who go insane over ads like this and let us know they've lost their minds by posting comments on YouTube.

Actually, Mets and Yankees fans probably deserve each other anyway

So this woman is a married to an over-the-top Mets fan even though she "secretly loves the Yankees?"  So they never talked sports during the entire time they were dating, though those dates must have included Mets games if he's such a huge Mets fan?  Why has she kept this secret to herself until suddenly deciding to share it with anonymous neighborhood kids showing up for Halloween, anyway?  Oh right- that house.  That's a nice house.  And this is going to sound mean, but...this woman isn't what I'd call TrophyWife material.

You're doing the right thing, lady.  Keep that Yankees love to yourself.

BTW, why the heck is this kid wearing a Yankees uniform as a Halloween costume?  Is this Boston?  Because if that was the joke, it doesn't work anymore.  Through most of this century, the Yankees haven't been especially terrifying to the Red Sox.

Selena Gomez, iPhone, and other stuff I really don't give a damn about

Some years back a little girl named Selena Gomez was in the right place at the right time with the right look when the Disney Channel was casting for a stupid tv show about a family of wizards.  I'd say the rest is history, except that I teach history and I have way too much respect for the subject to go there.

And because Ms Gomez had- just barely- enough vocal range to be turned into a salable musical commodity with the right tech support, she's able to sell out the KFC Yum! Center and other high-end venues and "perform" in front of audiences of teen girls who have yet to develop any taste in music or anything else.  Fine, I'm not one to knock anyone's hustle- but for chrissakes, who cares if someone whose entire career is looking good can be made to look good by the new iPhone?

Corona "Jukebox" commercial leaves me cold, leaves YouTube commenters doing their usual schtick

I have the World Series on with the sound off, so I watched this stupid nub of an ad for crap beer without the background music that more than one total loser in the YouTube comments was desperate to track down (after a month, he managed to locate the song, which I'm sure made him happy for a few seconds in his otherwise pointless, sad little life.)

Without sound, it appears that a greasy creep saw a hot and inexplicably dateless girl standing in front of the jukebox and decided to just walk up to her, show her how cheap he is/how terrible his taste in beer is, and demonstrate that he's already out of ideas by using his own bottle of beer to turn up the volume.  She finds this charming, of course.  Naturally.  I mean, it's television.

Inside of three minutes, she'll figure out that this idiot has absolutely nothing to offer her beyond a bottle of cruddy beer, and he'll figure out that she's just as much a void, which is why she decided to drape herself over a jukebox and respond to the first guy who offered her a drink with a "ooooh aren't you wonderful" smile and body language that makes me wonder if she has a skeleton.  I'm sure they'll be very happy together.

GoMedicare Benefits HelpRipYouOffCenter Ad.....

...which has absolutely NOTHING to do with Medicare except that the extremely popular government program is being used to create a veneer of respectability on to yet another scumbag insurance company seeking to prey on the elderly and the ill-informed.

Let's imagine that I'm the owner of one of these fly-by-night barrel-scraping plagues on humanity; how would I go about using the criminally under-regulated airwaves and the Rendered-Toothless-By-Forty-Years-Of-Reaganesque-Laissez-Faire Legislation Federal Trade Commission to pry money out of the people who have highest level of anxiety and lowest level of information among the populace?  Well, first I'll use the word "Medicare," because no matter how little the average Senior Citizen Daytime TV viewer knows about federal assistance they are ALL aware of Medicare and practically all of them derive benefit from it.  As I wrote in the first paragraph, the mere mention of Medicare creates an instant bond of trust between the company that purchased the commercial and the viewer:

"Oh, he said Medicare.  I know Medicare works.  I know it's totally legitimate.  And I can't read those little words that say 'not affiliated with any government program, so I'm going to just listen to the nice man with the earnest voice tell me something about Medicare and I'm very much inclined to accept what he's saying because he started off by saying Medicare."

(It's very important that I call my company something like "GoMedicare," or "MedicareAdvanced," or something official-sounding like that- I'm using the word "Medicare" so it must be legit, the government would totally NEVER let anyone use the word "Medicare" unless was some kind of official program- except of course for that disclaimer that the viewer couldn't read and also remember that toothless FTC thing.)

(While I'm at it, I'm going to put something that looks very much like an official Medicare card on the screen, because that's also very familiar to the viewer and will make him think this is totally legitimate.)

Then I'll remind the elderly viewer that Medicare is limited in what it will pay for- something most people on Medicare already know.  Medicare is awesome but it includes co-pays for prescriptions and doctor appointments and hospital visits.  So now I'll suggest that if they use my program they'll get BETTER Medicare- motorized scooters and wheelchairs, private hospital rooms, etc.- and it will just cost them a few extra dollars a month, so worth it to bring those Medicare benefits up to a Level They Deserve, right?

I will not EVER use the word "insurance" in my ad unless it's connected to the word "Medicare."  "Medicare Insurance" sounds ok, but I think I'd rather just call it "GoMedicare Benefits," because "GoMedicare" sounds just like "Medicare" and absolves me of any responsibility if the viewer failed to get the difference (which I am hoping happens a lot.)  Plus, seniors understand they are entitled to "Benefits" already- telling people who are already getting benefits that they are entitled to MORE benefits is totally plausible.

In the end, I'm selling junk insurance to the elderly by piggy-backing onto the popularity of Medicare.   "Call now and see if you qualify?"  If you already qualify for Medicare Benefits, why would you not qualify for GoMedicare Benefits?  Because you aren't calling to see if you qualify for Medicare Benefits, but if you qualify for a policy with an insurance company called GoHealth which never- not even once- tells you it's name in any of it's ads.  Or that it's website home page is devoted to "helping" people qualify for "ObamaCare"  (old people get shafted by tv commercials, younger people get conned online thank you very much.)  And in the end, I'm just trying to scoop as much money you can't afford into my own pocket because I'm just a soulless creep who had his empathy surgically removed with his wisdom teeth.

What the heck is going on in this Nissan Rogue Commercial??

So in this Nissan ad, we see that TrophyWife's job 24/7 is to protect her daughter from her mentally deficient Child-Husband and his determination to remain a giggling preteen when playing with their offspring.  TrophyWife has resigned herself to respond again and again with exasperated shrugs and occassional "WTF?" looks in response to Boy-Man's dangerously clueless attitude toward safety when it comes to his daughter.

(Though, seriously- I think TrophyWife might be a bit anal when it comes to her daughter's safety.  What exactly did she think would be the horrifying consequence if Daughter had crashed into the kitchen trash can?)

BTW, why doesn't TrophyWife just do the driving if her husband has proven again and again that he's a dangerously useless moron when it comes to...well, just about everything?  Is it because Women Don't Drive When Hubby Is Also In The Car Because Reasons?  Oh no wait, I know the real answer:  It's because Hubby can't screw up and give Mommy another reason to grimace, roll her eyes, or otherwise express her bemused disappointment at his inability to do ANYTHING right if Mommy is doing the driving.

One more thing:  Seriously, what is it with this guy?  From one angle, I see a guy who seems to be suffering from some weird mental problem which prevents him from doing anything but grinning and laughing, like he's a very small boy trapped in the body of an adult.  From another, I see a Father enjoying the time he's spending with his daughter who he recognizes as being made of actual flesh and bone and not crystal and therefore refuses to share his Insane Harpy Wife's constant fear that daughter will suffer injury if not kept perfectly still and wrapped in cellophane.   So What the Serious F--k, Nissan?

USAA Bank: Unafraid to follow the New Predictable

Wait a minute, I'm confused!  Which is to say, I can't quite believe what I'm seeing here!

As near as I can tell (and again, I'm sure I must be mistaken,) this commercial features a young couple making a friendly bet on a game of mini-golf.  That part I actually have no problem believing.  I'm sure this happens.  But what happens next is totally bizarre- the GUY LOSES THE BET TO THE GIRL.

I mean, seriously, really?  A girl besting a guy in an American TV commercial in the year 2019?  If that's what really happened here, what's next?  Snow in January?  Fireworks in July?  I dare not guess!