Don’t buy this shit! All you get is more shit!

I don’t have cable TV, just a set of rabbit ears. And my viewing habits consist mostly of Buffy and Glee DVDs, which have no commercial breaks. So advertisers have just a teensy window of time to explain why I must have whatever they’re selling. But even people with satellites full of obscure little specialty channels (like my parents) are bombarded with commercials, all trying to make them believe their product or service is the best in the universe.

I am astonished by the number of colossally horrible ads. I’m don’t mean the cheesy “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” emulators and the ambulance-chasing lawyers and debt consolidators promoting their services. Those are bad because they are low-budget. But how dare those big players who have their choice of the top ad agencies to produce their commercials give us drivel like the following:

1.Cottonelle Saved my Marriage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0CTJj_-nJI&feature=related –

Perhaps something got lost in translation from the French version, but all this ad did was make me cringe.

I’m guessing the intent was to be humorous, but I felt only pity for that woman. She’s gushing over the virtue of a freakin’ toilet paper as we hear hubby make happy male noises off-camera, supposedly from the ensuite bath. She’s smiling in that “he hasn’t touched me since I had the kids and I was desperate to save this relationship! Thank you Cottonelle!” way. And right on cue, hubby steps out of the bathroom in his vintage Herb Tarlek finery ready to dry hump her on the dance floor at the local disco.

If their marital problems weren’t caused solely by hemorrhoids, this campaign is just sad and will not compel anyone to pay that dollar or two more to upgrade from store brand bathroom tissue.

2. Pull Ups training pants (featuring the “potty dance”)

I refuse to link to this one. It has already led to dozens of ill-advised youtube “tributes” made by misguided parents hoping to one day embarrass the crap out of their kids. I for one am embarrassed to be in the room when that bloody song interrupts The Young and the Restless. I’m guessing they paid the poor shlub who sang it a lot of money (though no amount of money can buy back dignity) as well as the potty dancing kids and adults. I can’t fathom why the hell anyone would anyone consent to being seen by millions doing the stupid thing for free.

As my children were all born crack litter box users, I am aware Pull-Ups doesn’t care what I think. But if I were part of their target market, I’d go out of my way to buy the rival big kid pants for fear of catching the stupid that led to those youtube So You Think You Can Potty Dance travesties.

3. Dairy Queen- 1/4 Lb. Bacon Cheese Burger Grill Burger

Disembodied whore lips singing about dreaming of “meat and bouncing pickles” then telling us to “shove it in our mouths.” And then fireworks explode out of nothingness. Creepy. I’d add that it makes me wonder what they put in the secret sauce, but that would be too easy.

4. Tim Horton’s “Worst. Ring Tone. Ever.”

What, because Timmy’s is a Canadian institution they don’t have to pay writers to come up with clever ads (at least I hope they didn’t)? Their commercials have been stupid for a very long time but the recent ad for their Caramel Café Mocha with a grating, synthesized “I Love Caramel” ring tone is just irritating. Wow, this gal must be batshit about caramel.

5. Multigrain Cheerios- “The box says I’m a bad, bad man and have a small penis.”

Television is overrun with ads that portray men (or at least husbands) as overgrown children who can’t be trusted to do anything around the house but can always be counted on to say the wrong thing. Why? Such commercials appeal to women (who still do most of the grocery shopping) who married losers in order to have babies and are now kicking themselves.

“Oh, that’s my husband all right! Lord, how I hate the bastard but I must swallow my resentment and carry on for the sake of our spawn who never, ever stop wanting STUFF—and he thinks I’m FAT! Why oh why did I go off the pill?”

These ads do neither sex any favors (men are morons, women are insecure ball breakers) and have caused me to never want to marry. At least we don’t have to suffer through the horribly dubbed (why the hell do we need to dub a commercial that was already in english? Would British accents make Cheerios seem snooty?) version that got foisted on Americans.

I know times are tough and even very big corporations may have less money to spend on advertising.

But how do you expect to penetrate our collective brain fog with advertising so bland and irritating? Or maybe it’s the brain fog that’s allowing such ads to happen.

You can’t throw a dried up old pen out the window in a major city without it bouncing off a hungry writer willing to compromise art in the name of eating or buying a second pair of trousers. No need to overpay talentless hacks or ask your ten-year old kid to write your scripts.

Dear readers (especially my adoring subscribers), you have the power to stop such ads. Don’t buy what they’re selling! Send your kids Pull-Ups back in protest (especially used ones)!

Please, before I am forced to get rid of my TV.

A hollow threat, yes. But just do it anyway! This revolution will not be televised. But it may end up on youtube.

The Sand vs. Machinery Back to School Special or Is It Summer Yet?

Except for the odd continuing education night class, I haven’t been in school in over a decade. And I still get that feeling of overwhelming dread and nausea every year around this time. It’s just a matter of days until school is back in session. Fun time is OVER.

I feel for the poor kids. I have not forgotten what they are facing as I periodically attend Dream School (see sidebar at the end for more information).

But the heartless adults in the advertising industry have clearly forgotten (maybe they don’t dream). All those commercials featuring kids excited about going back are insulting. In what parallel universe are kids happy about having to abandon swimming pools, swing sets and daydreaming (all the things that make childhood worthwhile) to sit in austere rows of desks, eyes forward and unable to speak or pee without permission for seven hours a day, five days a week?

That Wal Mart commercial is the worst offender (“Ay! Oh! Ay! Oh! We-re goin’ back!”). Children joyfully racing towards to the conformity factory? Please.  No trendy pair of sneakers or shiny Justin Bieber backpack could incite them to burst into song about returning to school. If real kids actually sang about such a thing, it would sound more like a funeral dirge than Mini Pops sings the Ramones.

I’m also perplexed about that new Kleenex ad which features what appears to be a highly choreographed, school-wide game of Pat-a-cake. If this were attempted at a real school, you can’t tell me sooner or later someone wouldn’t slap too hard and end up hitting someone’s face instead of their hands “accidentally.” Germs are one of the least scary things about school. Bullies, being called on, P.E., feeling stupid: that’s what keeps kids up at night.

The only commercials that ever seemed to get it right were the ones for Staples, like the classic below:

Incidentally, I find it hilarious that this guy, who along with his baby mama, probably couldn’t wait to breed a decade or so earlier is now so elated to be getting rid of them for a good chunk of the day. You’d think he’d be at work during those magical hours, though, maybe he’s a stay-at-home dad. The commercial doesn’t make that clear. But the undertaker march of his offspring screams the truth: “the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?” More like “Another Brick in the Wall.”

I remember the night before starting the seventh grade, lying in bed and entertaining an elaborate fantasy in which all the middle schools in the district magically burned to the ground. As no one got killed, I think it was a healthy fantasy. Until I got to university where I was living away from home and taking subjects I chose and were actually interesting to me, I had slight variations on the same fantasy at the end of every summer.

But maybe things have changed? Am I out of touch? Do twenty-first century kids actually anticipate the first day of school with starry eyes and fresh optimism? Has this newfangled Helicopter Parenting and reckless application of Ritalin robbed a generation of their innate ability to amuse themselves?

I asked a group of sulky-looking adolescents at the coffee shop I frequent who appeared to trust me because I was reading Harry Potter if they or anyone they knew was excited about school. One girl rolled her eyes and said “no!” Another said maybe a handful of nerds, but generally no, they were not excited. The others grunted in agreement and went back to slurping what may be their last whipped cream topped frozen beverage of the summer. I didn’t press. Their sad eyes said it all.

I am not advocating getting rid of school. The planet does not need more stupid people, so sadly it is a necessary evil. And I am aware that actual truth in advertising is rare. But most kids are very aware that they will be stuck in classrooms until at least their twenties and that it’s hard to even get a job as a ditch digger without a high school diploma (or does that require a master’s degree now?) But don’t try to tell them they should be pleased about it.

Sidebar: What is this Dream School I speak of? You know, those dreams where you’re inexplicably back in school (usually high school with me but occasionally middle school). Except you haven’t been to class all semester and have no idea where your math final is taking place and you’re terrified of some foul creature lurking in the boiler room. For a better explanation, read Tom Robbins’ Villa Incognito, which I can guarantee you won’t be on any high school reading list.

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hbr/issues/5.2summer03/articles/robbins.shtml