This is a guy whose 1987 album was the very first to carry an "explicit content" warning sticker. The guy who wrote and performed Cop Killer, Body Count, Home Invasion and Born Dead. Then he apparently decided that there was more money in steady television work and has appeared on more than 450 episodes of Law and Order: SVU. And lately he's decided that there's money in pitching non-car insurance non-coverage and...Honey Nut Cheerios.
At which point, we all need to apologize to Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and all the other black entertainers we ever denounced for selling out for the mass audience. Because doing Superman III and Brewster's Millions and The Toy wasn't selling out. Performing in Doctor Doolittle and playing a nameless donkey in Shrek wasn't selling out. Not compared to this....whatever the heck this is.
I'm really, really pulling for this woman to just go ahead and buy that multimillion-dollar house which is on an island and which she clearly is not concerned about paying for, as her anxieties about moving from her already clearly very substantial house to another one is shown to have absolutely nothing to do with money and everything to do with the "hassle of moving." I can really relate.
Peloton- the Exercise Bike for the 1 percent- seemed to come along at the absolute perfect time (seriously, we ought to investigate this company to see if it had anything to do with the actual development of COVID-19.) A pandemic sweeps the planet. Millions of people are forced into lockdowns or at least voluntarily shift to Virtual Attendance at work- and most of those people now working from home are at least Upper Middle Class. Millions see their gyms shuttered and locked and become concerned that hours in front of their computers will lead to sagging stomachs and expanding waistlines.
Suddenly, here's a very pricey exercise bike which streams live spinning classes to simulate the experience of being on the floor of the basketball court where your fairly wealthy friends used to gather to sweat a few times a week. It's easy to order, easy to set up in your huge living room, and fun to use- and the $2000 price tag and monthly fee for the "classes" is of no concern to you because you haven't missed a single day of work- in fact, other than being able to sleep a little later and keeping the Audi in the garage, you really haven't experienced any effects from the pandemic at all (no negative ones, anyway.)
As if things weren't going well enough for Peloton, they even managed to create an "accidentally" (?) controversial ad featuring a terrified-looking, rail-thin trophy wife desperately taking advantage of her husband's "thoughtful gift" of a Peloton bike to get up at 4 AM and sweat off half a pound or so before tending to the kids and hubby (who presumably aren't going anywhere anyway, seriously WTF?) which went viral, creating a wave of free advertising for a company that was already doing extremely well. Hell, that ad even got parodied on SNL, which is the absolute Gold Standard for commercials.
In our winter of despair, there seemed to be no limit as to how big Peloton could get. On December 21, 2020 stock in the company hit $162 per share, up from $25 at the time of it's initial public offering.
And then...the day came that the board of directors over at Peloton, INC must have dreaded: The vaccines began to hit the pharmacies. Delta subsided. Gyms began to reopen. A momentary surge of optimism in the board room when Omicron was detected, but within weeks after that it was clear that the party was over. "Back to Normal" was nothing but bad news for the Exercise from Home market and for Exercise from Home using this Ridiculously Overpriced Toy market. Like the tulips and the .com businesses and the real estate that came before, the Peloton bubble was bursting.
Yesterday, Peloton stock closed at $24.60 a share. There are stories this morning that the company may be on the verge of bankruptcy. I still see plenty of commercials for the bike on my television during football games and (especially) while watching CNBC, a channel geared toward that golden Upper Middle Class with disposable income I'd like to join someday before I die. But the bloom is most definitely off the rose. It's been a wild ride, Peloton. Hope your CEOs invested their money into something more solid and less susceptible to sudden changes in the economic environment. You know, like crypto currency- that's a bubble that will NEVER burst. And I especially hope that the Terrified Trophy Wife Actress can still find gigs. She's really cute.
Not much more to add about this awful Sonic commercial (pardon the redundancy.) Two morbidly obese people yakking about the fatty cheese-and-grease-infused trash they are eating as they sit in their car because where else are you going to find the perfect atmosphere for consuming warm garbage?
The woman would "love" to "be toast" because "then I'd be delicious." And believe it or not, that's the punchline. That's it. Why should I put more effort into my commentary on this ad than the people who got paid put in to writing it? "I'd be delicious?" What the hell?
I watched this with the sound off, so I'm just wondering: was the word "coffee" uttered at any point during its runtime? Because I'm pretty sure I remember Dunkin Donuts making and selling coffee. And I don't see any coffee here. What I do see is a lot of cream and sugar dressed up like a holiday treat, but if you are in the market for something like this it will probably just replace that fatty junk the nice girl in the Drive-thru window hands you when you say "the usual" the other 11 months of the year.
Enjoy turning into a pumpkin. I'll keep taking mine black, thanks anyway. And now I'm sure I do remember Dunkin Donuts selling coffee. GOOD coffee. And if you wanted some sugar with it, you could get yourself a piece of round fried cake with a hole in it. Or a bag of fried holes. It didn't come in the cup along with the coffee. Did I miss something?
1. What is the point of the other presents? Where they purchased by the other guests? Well, those other guests are going to feel really special now that their gifts are probably going to go unopened by this spoiled little brat, as her mother obnoxiously gives her a pony right off the bat. If I were one of these kids, I'd quietly take my gift back. It's not going to be noticed anyway after this ostentatious display.
2. So this pony was actually wrapped in paper? Who did this to the poor thing? Who thought this was funny, or necessary, or even practical? It's just really, really dumb.
3. I just hate this woman, and hate this kid, and feel sorry for the other kids here because they took the time to find gifts for this little girl that might as well be dirt under her shoe at this point. Again- just take your gifts back, kids. Donate them to a toy bank at a shelter somewhere. Some poor kids who will appreciate them will get them. You know, kids without an insane mom who thinks it's a good idea to wrap a f--king pony. Cripes.
You know what I'm talking about- that Dead Zone between Christmas/New Year's and Easter where there's no legitimate reason to buy shiny pieces of rock or candy so Capitalism hits us over the head with the Second-Biggest Guilt Trip Holiday (the biggest being Mother's Day) of the year, Valentine's Day. Smack dab in the middle of the dreariest, coldest month, it's just wedged in there to remind us that if we are part of a couple, it's time to start spending, and if we aren't part of a couple, there's Something Wrong With Us Losers.
In the first scene of this chapter of It Never Ever Ends Does It? we are reminded that if you want her to say Yes, be sure to give her something that glitters and do it while standing next to a cliff. Wait a few dates so you have a good idea of how much she costs, because that Token that Says She's Taken is a big enough waste of money without going overboard. And if there's no cliff around, do the buying asking in front of an audience in some loud, ostentatious way that pretty much guarantees the "right" answer.
Then go out and buy some chocolate, too. Gotta keep the economy afloat until April.
