Remember Big City Sliders? Another As Seen on TV Commercial Gem

Original Commercial Here:   https://youtu.be/fUj_VOH_rY4

I don't want to spend any time ragging on the late Billy Mays here- not my place to knock another man's hustle, especially when that man has been dead for more than a decade now.  If you aren't that familiar with the guy, this is vintage Mays BTW- shouting his head off over an extremely underwhelming product  no one in their right mind would buy as if it's as essential to any kitchen as the sink.   The guy made a pretty decent living doing this, and as I said, it's not my place to knock it.  He found his niche.  Everybody has to.

Ok, on to the product.  Apparently, back in 2009 Americans just couldn't get enough of the mini-hamburgers you buy by the sack at White Castle and were struggling mightily to recreate that Tiny Hamburger taste at home.   This lead to frustration and awful greasy messes because it's the hardest thing win the world to make small hamburgers without specialized equipment.  So the wonderful Made for TV people decided to sell refigured muffin tins as slider molds and the rest wasn't even close to History.   

I wonder how many people actually bought these things- I admit that the hamburgers look pretty good, and I'm sure it was reassuring to learn that it was ok to stack several on top of each other and add CHEESE (wow!) and condiments (double wow!) just like they do at White Castle, don't worry it's not trademarked or anything.  And then you and your family can eat just as well as your average drunk college kid with the munchies at 2 AM on a Sunday morning.  

I take on Rocket Mortgage's Weird Non-Sequitur

 Original Commercial here:  https://youtu.be/kzcTwTlmi34

"When it comes to buying a house, THEY say 'Cash is king.'  But you're a queen, and that's just as powerful."

My brain just broke, and it's leaking all over the floor.  

Whoever "they" who are saying "cash is king" are, I'm pretty sure what they mean is that it's always preferable to pay cash for a purchase whenever necessary because that eliminates the issue of Interest.  In other words, it's the cheapest way to buy anything, be it a loaf of bread or a house.  When it comes to the latter, it means that you should save as much cash as you can so that you can borrow as little as possible.  Whatever you borrow is going to come with SOME interest payment.  

This isn't complicated, and it isn't Sexist because the phrase is "Cash is king," not "Cash is queen."  I mean, please.

"But you're a queen, and that's just as powerful..." I seriously have no idea what this means.  All that stuff I just said about paying cash is equally applicable regardless of the sex of the person making the purchase.  I mean, this is an ad for Rocket Mortgage, so it makes sense that it would sneer at the idea of paying cash.  But is it actually encouraging us to ignore the blatantly obvious truth in the term "cash is king" merely because some invisible "they" are insisting on it's accuracy?  Is Rocket Mortgage actually arguing that paying cash is NOT preferable to taking out a loan with Rocket Mortgage?  Is Rocket Mortgage offering zero percent interest on home loans?  Because if it isn't, well-- I'm sorry, but that old chestnut still applies here in Real Life.  If you can afford to pay cash, you immediately saving money by doing just that.   

BTW, Rocket Mortgage sure gets a lot out of it's "instant pre-approval" promise.  Pre-Approval is pretty much a meaningless joke in the loan industry- it just means that they ran your name and SS number and no massive red flags immediately jumped into their faces.  I'm guessing that more than 99 percent of people who contact Rocket Mortgage- or any other lender- gets a "Pre-Approval" in about three and a half minutes.  It means nothing, and is followed by an actual, detailed credit check which reveals that you are a good risk or a poor one, and whether you are going to get a low-interest loan, a high-interest loan, or no loan at all.  These ads make it look like you can just decide you want to buy a house and have the loan money in your account within seconds, which is just nonsense.  What you can do is get an instant "Pre-Approved" message on your phone that makes you feel like you are suddenly much more credit-worthy that even you thought you were.    Might even make you feel like a Queen- for a few days, anyway. 

Campbell's sells the very last thing you'll go to in the bomb shelter.

 Original Commercial Here:  https://youtu.be/BfR9ABlM-vU

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Someday, maybe someone will explain to me how exactly the most god-awful mass-manufactured mushy bland soup which has hints of actual taste only because it's saturated in salt contributes anything to bringing us "together' during Social Distancing.   Is it a throwback to this spring, with its panic shopping, because Campbell's Canned Liquid Dull is something you could quickly buy by the case and shove into a corner of the closet somewhere, hoping you never have to resort to heating it up and consuming it but deriving some very, very small amount of comfort knowing it's there if even Amazon runs out of food it's willing to deliver to the door of your freaking bunker?

Wow, the warm feels.   I'm so motivated to eat the liquid equivalent of Wonder Bread right now.  

A not-very responsible Snickers ad*

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Original Commercial Here:  https://youtu.be/negeco0b1L0

Husband:  "I thought we were being good citizens and continuing to practice social distancing; I didn't think we were having people over in person."

Wife:  "No.  We're all done that.  Didn't you hear Trump on Fox the other night?  We are all done bowing to the Plandemic, which after all was sent here by China to defeat the President."

Husband:  "We aren't even wearing masks.  What the hell is going on here?"

Wife:  "You aren't listening.  Fake news.  Masks are for the Libs.  Now put some damn pants on, Libtard!"

*Seriously, what the hell?  

And if you are Anthony Rizzo, you might even be able to afford one....

 Original commercial here:  https://youtu.be/Da8UWU2FkEc

This "first ever" something-or-other vanity car STARTS at $133,000.  So if you play a professional sport- and aren't making your league minimum- you might be able to buy one of these.  If you want to let people know you have the money to buy one of these.  

You still won't be able to go "zero to sixty in 2.5 awe-inspiring seconds" unless you rent a race track and are willing to risk your six-figure car testing out the honesty of the commercial that hooked you into buying this shiny ego grip.   And as near as I can tell, all the regular traffic laws apply so forget about driving 70 MPH through busy city streets just because you saw Anthony Rizzo or some other pro Orb Ball Participant doing it in an ad. 

I seriously wonder who these commercials are really aimed at.  Are there really a lot of people watching the Bucs-Saints game who have over a hundred thousand dollars burning a hole in their pockets who don't ALREADY own a BMW or Lexus or Audi, or are always on the market for another car even if they do?

Meanwhile, I'm trying to find someone to install a dashboard-mounted SiriusXM radio in my 2010 Honda Accord.  I live in a totally different world than these people.  But I knew that already. 

It will go great with that VariDesk he doesn't really need either

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Original Commercial here:  https://youtu.be/Qb-ScL0TUy4

Hey look everybody, it's the perfect chair for your boss (because let's be real, your company is NOT going to be spending a thousand dollars to make YOU, an employee who actually DOES sit all day in front of a computer, comfortable!)

You are invited to walk past your boss's office every once in a while to admire his X-chair (just don't you even THINK about sitting in it.)  Try not to get too irritated at the fact that he's rarely actually IN that chair- or that when he is, he's usually just on a personal call and not actually doing work.  And try not to think of your own aching back and how you have to sit in the same old computer desk chair you've been using for going on five years now.  You are not the boss!!

I am really trying to understand this Nissan Sentra ad with Brie Larson

 Original Commercial Here:  https://youtu.be/WCVUUbcVI9o

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So this woman is told by her boss that she's not getting the promotion she thought she was due.  Apparently Brie Larson was told ahead of time that this was going to happen because at that moment, Captain Marvel herself shows up and orders The Unpromoted to jump into her Nissan Sentra for a lecture and a very fast tour of the city...

Brie Larson tells this woman that she should "not compromise" on....something or another.  Larson demonstrates her "no compromise" attitude by driving dangerously fast through busy, crowded city streets.  Seriously, she seems to think that speed limits and stop signs are for Your Mom's Generation (or maybe your grandmother's or, at this point, great-grandmother's.  Because, seriously, it's 2020.  

Larson spits bumper stickers at her passenger who by now has to wonder what any of this has to do with her failure to attain a promotion, if she is going to be complicit in the accidents Larson is certain to be in or cause with her insane driving, and if Larson is ever going to let her out of the car alive.  At the end of the ad Larson drops her off right where she left her, leaving us- and, I would think, this woman- wondering what the hell any of this was all about. 

I mean, think about it.  The tagline of this ad is "No Compromise."  But the woman wasn't asked by her boss to compromise.  She was told that she's not getting a promotion right now.  How does being kidnapped and terrorized by Captain Marvel get across the "No Compromise" message?  Someone please explain this to me.  I'm totally lost.

I guess I am glad that the comments section is turned off for this ad- considering the crap Brie Larson got for having the audacity to play a comic book character traditionally depicted as male from the gatekeeper geek incels on YouTube, I shudder to imagine how this ad plays with that crowd of pathetic, dateless creeps.