George Foreman joins the "I'll do anything for a buck" parade by pitching Select Advisor

 

Anyone who watches daytime television- which means, basically, elderly people joined by a small population of lazy idiots who simply refuse to go back to work as long as they can milk the state or relatives for money- has been buried by these "Medicare Supplement Insurance" ads for years now.  They all feature men (haven't seen any females yet) who were household names in the 1970s - Joe Namath, JJ Walker, Danny Glover, and here's George Foreman- and whose appearance on television probably tweaks a nostalgia bone in the seniors or near-seniors watching the tube.  They all make their pitch with big smiles and earnest voices, urging the viewers to take advantage of all the "great benefits" they may be "missing" because they aren't using all the "Medicare Benefits" that they are entitled to.

What's really happening, of course, is that this sleazy non-insurance is hiding behind equally sleazy semi-celebrities - and the trusted name "Medicare"- to sell a non-product no elderly person actually needs.  Yes, the product is "free"- if you call giving a stranger your phone number, Social Security number, Medicare number and physical mailing address- making you a target for every other scammer who definitely will NOT let you off "FOR FREEEE" if they can get away with it- "free."  This "product" offers absolutely nothing you can't get simply by calling Medicare (it's the number on the back of the card, NOT the number on the TV screen) and asking a few questions.  And Medicare won't sell your number to grifters, go figure.  They also won't charge you for "extras" you are entitled to- which is where Select Advisor gets its money if the elderly person on the other end actually does agree to sign up.  They are the equivalent of an online "service" hiding behind what sure looks like the USPS logo offering to hold your mail for you for the low, low price of $15 per month.  But again, even if you DON'T sign up- they still have your personal information to sell to someone else. 

It wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that Joe Namath and JJ Walker are in need of extra cash and this shameful gig was the best they could do- I mean, neither has been relevant in media for nearly fifty years (man, that's depressing to think about.  Now I'm depressed.)  But George Foreman, after retiring in 1977 having made some $10 million adjusted-for-inflation dollars, returned to the ring ten years later, made another $20 million in purses, rented his name to an electric grill company in exchange for 45% of the grill's profits (he says that he was making up to $8 million PER MONTH at one point,) took in $11 million in compensation for doing infomercials for the grill, and eventually sold out for $137 million.  His current net worth is estimated to be north of $200 million.  In short, HE DOESN'T NEED THIS MONEY.  Which leads me to conclude that HE JUST LIKES BEING ON TV and HE JUST REALLY, REALLY LIKES MONEY.  So much so that he's willing to lend his trusted face and name to Scammer Info Central.

Here's what I really don't get, though:  Why is any company allowed to use the trademarked term "Medicare" to pitch a product that is not in any way legally connected and approved by Medicare?  Oh right, because Capitalism and the fact that the United States has the most lax Truth in Advertising laws in the Western World.  At least we're Number One in something.  Too bad it has to be in something that victimizes thousands of innocent old people every year. 

Domino's "Free" commercials remind us why we can't have nice things, like Universal Health Care

 

Just another "not surprised the comments are turned off it's so stupid" commercial....

Is it just me, or is there something really, really off-putting about watching a bunch of fat, listless suburbanites celebrating getting something extra-awful to go along with the pasty bland carbohydrate load they willingly handed over real money for?  I mean, I totally understand that if you're going to buy a disc of soggy dough, paste and the cheapest cheese available that comes delivered in a warm cardboard box you might be open to the idea of getting something for free along with it, but just look at the free stuff being offered and try to convince me it's anything to get excited about:  Lumps of things that look like sugar-topped chocolate lead weights and probably have the same impact on your stomach if you actually try to digest them.  More bland-as-hell warm bread.  Or just more of the pizza you apparently ordered while being of sound mind and body. 

And just in case we aren't transfixed and convinced by the witless knuckle-dragging slack-jawed yokels who haven't quite figured out how to use those kitchens which came with the houses they inexplicably live in, check out the lunatic who thought she was going to have an actual acting career screeching into a bullhorn about how Domino's is so damn desperate to shove poisonous garbage down America's Cake Hole it's willing to give several cents worth of that poisonous garbage away for free if you just add some stupid App to the 300 stupid Apps already on your phone because you have a phone with a ton of memory and you have no self-control.  And if SHE can't talk you into being hyped, well, we've got a really awful "band" playing "music" at you which is SO stupid it's dismissed by the waste of oxygen using the bullhorn. 

Yeah, sorry Bernie Sanders, but this is the reason why I'm not buying into Health Care for All.  Not as long as we're a nation of smokers, vapers, anti-vaxxers, drinkers and people who think that McDonald's, KFC, Papa John's and Domino's are restaurants and not Obesity/Suicide Assistance Centers.   No thanks, I'm not subsidizing that.

So many stupid, pointless, witless, just plain dumb Questions from Hyundai

 

The only thing I'd be wondering if the person sitting next to me in the car started bleating these stupid non-questions is if I could manage to dig a shallow grave nearby without being spotted by pesky witnesses. Or why this car doesn't come with an ejector seat. 

These ads aren't clever, thought-provoking, or in any way effective at making me interested in purchasing a Hyundai, which I'm told are actually well-built cars that have more than enough positive attributes to fill a commercial.  Making BS like this beyond pointless.   And just think, someone got PAID to write this garbage. 

(BTW, I just realized that this is my 3000th commercial post!  So many terrible ads!)

Obnoxious even for a Charles Schwab Commercial, and that's really saying something.

 

1.  This couple's new Charles Schwab broker can't see the Former Broker, except perhaps as a tiny image in the distance.  Online conferences don't work this way.  When the new broker says "hi" and waves, she's just assuming that her clients aren't insane and that there really is someone there to say "hi" to.  

2.  The new broker probably thinks her clients are insane.  Who could be so dickish as to do something like this?  "Oh hi, person we fired.  Say hi to the person who replaced you."  Seriously,  I'd just tell these people "f-- off, former clients.  I'm on vacation."

3.  And as long as I'm imagining what I would do if I were the Former Broker, I'd remind these dicktards that they are on vacation at a fabulous beach...and this person they are talking to on their little screen is their NEW broker.  That means that I wasn't doing such a bad job now, was I?  You ungrateful jackasses got yourself a gorgeous beach vacation but I guess that wasn't quite good enough, because you dumped me for a new broker who has done what exactly for you?  Snark on me if you are back at this vacation spot NEXT year, after you've given this new broker a chance to play with your money for a while.  And if you find that you aren't in the financial position to vacation here next year, well, sorry but my client list is full.  Go pound sand, you knobs!

Bounty, the Quicker Bringer-Downer

 

Or...you could, you know...just PICK UP THE LOTTERY TICKET.  Instead of screaming like a banshee as that liquid moves in slow motion toward it.

And because this is a commercial depicting life in the United States, we see a fat doofus jackass with an enormous house winning the lottery.  Never mind that people who own houses like this are the LEAST likely to be paying the Stupid Tax that is the lottery.  I mean, he's already got so much money that his long-suffering wife doesn't seem the slightest bit excited that potentially millions have been added to their already overflowing bank account.  

Santa Fe Squeegee Commercial is all kinds of Wrong

Wow, how f--ng entitled can you get?

This isn't complicated, you pompous moron:  If you want to use this gas station's services, you're going to have to make a purchase.  Squeegees and window washer and paper towels cost money.  Maybe that doesn't mean anything to you, but it sure as hell means something to the guy who is operating this station on a paper-thin profit margin.  He doesn't run this place to give you somewhere to pull into, take up a space that could be used by paying customers, and consume products you aren't paying for.  What the actual hell- do you casually walk into stores to use the restrooms, swipe sugar packets from 7-11 and ketchup from McDonald's and respond "oh I've already got coffee/food, I'm good, I don't need anything thanks for asking?"  You really do think the world revolves around you and your virtue-signaling hybrid, don't you?

By the way, the hard-working gas station attendant who will never be able to afford a car like that wasted way too much time arguing with you about the use of HIS squeegee- much more time than I would have.  About the second time you repeated "no gas no squeegee?" I'm pretty sure I would have responded by telling you to pile your privileged ass back into your car and hit the road.  Instead he played along, and you thanked him for his patience by buying fifty cents worth of gas and giving him a smirk which was essentially a middle finger.  You could have at least bought a candy bar, but I suspect you would have insisted on carrying off fifty napkins and a plastic knife for your patronage.  

That Lexus "Bearsquatch" commercial leaves me wishing for a flat tire and a pack of hungry bearsquatches...

 

Elitist Suburban White Family can't be happy just cruising around their neighborhood of million-dollar homes with their brand-new tricked-out Lexus; they have to use it to barrel through the home of countless woodland creatures, driving over what looks to be a hiking path and most certainly isn't a road at maybe 30 or 40 MPH.  While the narrator says something about "responsibility."  Yeah, something doesn't add up there.

Anyway, faux-rugged (check out the unbuttoned flannel shirt and five-days growth) Husband is listening to some podcast about an imaginary creature called a "Bearsquatch," because I guess this is something you're "supposed" to do while illegally plowing through the woods in your LookAtMeTank instead of, oh, I don't know, keeping your attention on the Not-Road you're on to make sure you don't run over something alive or- more importantly- put unnecessary scratches or (perish the thought) dents in that Conspicuous Consumption Middle Finger To the Planet you're driving.  

And this is where the "funny conflict" in the commercial pops up to take the place of any actual information concerning the vehicle featured.  The way-too-old-for-this-scenario pale, freckled, spineless product of Mom and Dad's DNA in the back seat announces that the mention of "bearsquatch" has caused him to wet his pants with fear and very badly want his security blankee.   This lets the viewer know that, once again, Dad has Failed as a Parent for listening to a Very Scary Podcast that will give his offspring nightmares.

"He's usually asleep" dad alibis.  Oh, really?  Your son "usually" sleeps through your jaunts through forests?  Maybe the constant bumps causing the car to go temporarily airborne woke him up this time? Or do you mean "he's usually asleep" during car rides, just figuring that it didn't matter if the vehicle he was in was crashing through a wilderness area or negotiating Entitlement Court and Whitebread Lane on the way home from soccer practice?

"He'll never sleep again" snarks Mom in her best "it's a good thing you have money because that's the only reason I married you dumbf--k" voice.  Mom looks for all the world like she's only in this car because Going Along for the Ride is literally part of her job as Good TrophyWife, with the other part represented by that kid in the back seat.  Yes, this 12-year old kid will "never sleep again" because he heard a few seconds of a podcast about an imaginary monster while cruising around in a Lexus in the Middle of the Freaking Day with his parents.   Because 12-year old kid is made out of Putty, Pediasure and Mommy's Apron Strings. 

The commercial ends with Hubby wondering if he couldn't do better than a nasty, overly-protective, ungrateful shrew when he went shopping for a trophy wife 13 years ago, Wife wishing she had just bit her tongue because after all, this is a damn nice Lexus, and son trying to find a towel to wipe off his seat before the smell reaches his parents and they realize they have to get the family pride and joy detailed again.