Start your kids on their journey to morbid obesity and diabetes early!

 https://youtu.be/Yz_Sb7m2bYQ

I just....I just can't with this thing.  Maybe it's because I spent all day yesterday driving to Vermont for fall break and I'm really tired, maybe I'm sick of living under a proto-Fascist administration which is currently reminding me of Russia in the days after Stalin died or Spain in the final days of Franco.  Maybe being in a bad mood is just My Normal.

Or maybe I'm just done seeing commercials for products which make it quick and easy to produce fatty junk for the whole family.  French fries, stuffed hamburgers, and now this bizarre Marshmallows mixed with other non-foods Frankenstein's Monster Creator that's fun for everyone who lives in your house from Age 4 to 9 (I didn't get through the entire 2 minutes 15 seconds of this- do any adults show up to supervise,* or do they just exist to make sure that there's an adequate supply of marshmallows, chocolate chips, M&Ms, sprinkles, and every other nutrition-free product capable of being squished into a blob of sugary goo using this device?)

*this would actually be easier to take if we were told these are free-range children who simply don't have parents, because this product is exactly the kind of thing we could see unsupervised kids using but we'd be horrified to find as a regular go-to in a home with actual adult supervision.

Another quick look at that AT&T ad....

 https://youtu.be/8JfArM3UXEg

(After all, if AT&T is going to make me watch it fifty times an hour, I should be allowed to get more than one post out of it...)

Let's imagine that this commercial featured a black woman straining to push a giant 5G prop across the floor of the AT&T store.  She's interrupted in her work by a white man who isn't even IN the store, who then proceeds to bark questions and then suggestions at her from the other side of the glass. 

The black, female AT&T employee's response is not to politely remind the non-customer that he's yelling at her through both a mask and a window while she is only trying to do her job.  It's to stop doing that job so she can better listen to the white guy demand that she explain what exactly that prop is all about, and then proceed to lecture her on how she SHOULD be doing her job. 

That go over well with you?  Anybody?

Dominos has our number

 https://youtu.be/1Mxh6wAia74

"Here at Domino's we figured out something during this pandemic:  Americans like to eat cheap, processed, fatty crap that ISN'T pizza or pasta.  We couldn't quite believe it, but statistics don't lie: It turns out that a whole lot of you are actually ordering Taco Bell and even McDonalds for delivery!"

"Needless to say, we were stunned.  We thought that Taco Bell and McDonalds were and always would be that spur of the moment crap you eat because you're in a massive hurry because you are working long hours plus it gives the illusion of being low-cost even though it really isn't at all when you factor in the negligible nutritional value, not to mention the addictive chemicals added in to keep you coming back in again and again and again.  It never occurred to us that people sitting at home would actually ORDER from those pig troughs!  Silly us, we apparently forgot that we live in a country where people line up for all-you-can eat cardboard pizza and cinnamon buns."

"So....better late than never, we're jumping on the bandwagon.  You want greasy taco-flavored garbage delivered to your door?  Here's a taco pizza!  You like cheap hamburger and processed 'cheese' on bread?  Here's a cheeseburger pizza!  Delivered right to your door, just like McDonalds and Taco Bell!"

"We apologize for misjudging you, America.  It won't happen again.  From now on, we'll be watching to see whatever horrific poisonous junk you're willing to pay to have delivered to your door despite the kitchen and stove being right there and despite the fact that you for sure own a refrigerator that is actually capable of keeping real food fresh until you are ready to spend a few minutes prepping it.  Our phone lines are open, our delivery cars a warmed up, and we're just waiting to be of service!"

Don't Mind Me, I'll just be in this Snow Fort I built next to you....The InnovaGoods Travel "pillow"

 https://youtu.be/Iucv6dT0YGo

Anyone who has spent any time in airports over the last twenty years has seen multiple display stands featuring travel pillows being offered for sale.  They are pretty much all the same, designed to wrap around your neck so your head doesn't shift while you sleep and wake you up.  The more expensive ones are filled with some kind of beads or seeds, while the cheapo versions need to be inflated with your own lung power before you attach it to your neck and try to get to sleep while being worried that it will lose air during your nap and you'll wake up with a crick in your neck and the guy in the next seat trying really hard not to snicker.  

I actually own a travel neck pillow thingee which is filled with beads or seeds; I've used it on long (11 hours on paper, 12+ in reality, all the time, because America) train trips.  It works ok, but it's obviously limited in it's utility as it will not prevent your body from shifting sideways as you sleep.  This is a big deal if you are one of those people who can fall asleep on a train, I guess.  I wouldn't know, because I'm not one of those people.

Anyway, here's a commercial for what I can best describe as a larger, more cumbersome version of the travel pillow.  It looks a lot like something I saw being advertised in one of those SkyMall magazines that sit in the pocket in front of your seat on American Airlines flights.  It goes a step further from providing stabilization for your neck and actually provides a mini-bed for your entire upper body to rest on.   You have to inflate it (which means you have to worry about it deflating, but let's be real- this thing isn't going to sell if it's filled with beads, weighs 15 lbs and counts as your carry-on) but once you do, you've got a little comfy personal space to lean into to take a nap or watch movies on your phone (without headphones, of course.)  Heck, if it isolates me from the person sitting next to me, maybe it's even worth it. 

But seriously- can you imagine using this if you aren't in the window seat?  Put it another way- how'd you like to be in the window seat and have the person in the aisle seat using this?  You're sitting there about to take off for a six-hour flight and the person sitting next to you, blocking your only exit to the restroom, is announcing "I'm going to be completely oblivious to you, probably asleep, in a few minutes- if you want to get up you'll have to interact with me physically, and btw this is also going to make it very difficult for you to get your drink or your meal because I'm basically creating a wall between you and the rest of the plane."  

You know what?  Just get one of those travel neck pillows at the gift shop and accept that you can't recreate your freaking bedroom for the flight.  You aren't the only person on the plane.  More to the point, you aren't the only person sitting in that row.  So unless you have the window seat, you don't get to use one of these stupid things, ok?

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.