Cute commerical!

I've complained about awful commercials in the past on this blog, but it's nice to celebrate a good one on occasion.

Let's give it up to Heinz for this adorable take on the non-nuclear family!



So adorable, it makes me smile every time.

Thanks to Joe for the heads-up on this one.

Charge It!

One of my favorite commercials recently is the simple one put out by Visa. It features a soul-singin' mama crooning the Petula Clark classic "Downtown," while a little neophyte gets a quick makeover.

For some time, I wondered, "Who is that great diva singing the song?"

Thanks to some expert internet sleuthing by ScottE, it turns out that it's none other than Niki Haris. She is Madonna's former back-up singer, and co-starred in the documentary Truth or Dare.

The best news (found on her website) is that she plans to release the song on an upcoming album. Awesome!

To check out the commercial, just click on the link below:

Clearly This Is Ridiculous

Did you see this commercial? I hear they've changed it already, but go to YouTube to see it. It's all about the tagline.



File this under, "What the hell were they thinking?"

3 ingredients

1. Twiggy

2. Shirley Bassey

3. a great song from Pink

Mix it all up, and you have one very fun commercial. Enjoy!

Commercial rant

OK, so I know that this is a bevy of posts in one day. But I had a lot to catch up on, and the SNU was needling me to get with the program. After all, how will I ever have a blog quoted in the Washington Post Express like Sterfanie, if I don't make loads of wry commentary?

And so I return to my favorite thing to rant about...bad commercials.

My latest is without question the one for a cell phone - can't remember if it's Cingular or Sprint. Anyway, in it there's this dumb blond chick who extolls the virtue of her cell phone offering her the chance to delete a phone number from her phone list. Now seriously - have you EVER had a cell phone that didn't do that? This bitch is all, "I don't even know who he is any more. David who?" Seriously, I hate this girl. And it just furthers the stereotype of women who get completely wrapped up in men to the point that they forget themselves. Also, she has bad fashion sense.



I also hate that Fox has already started commercials for American Idol. And I hate that those commercials will not change and will be on TV every 15 minutes for the next month.

And while I'm at it (boy, I'm really on a roll here) have you seen that annoying Toys R Us (I refuse to write the "R" backwards) commercial where the guy is shaking boxes and keeps saying, "FURBY! FURBY!" He is a complete idiot, and should be taken to prison and put in a padded cell.

I'm sure I'll think of more, just give me time. It was a slow week for TV.

Monday musings

First I'd like to thank my friend Tsukata (who has her own blog), who was pointed out this interesting article on the BK ad I mentioned earlier. I still think it's strange, but at least now I know where it came from.

So the ad that I will bitch about today is the AT&T commercial where the African-American family sits down to breakfast. First we find out that the eldest son was late coming home the previous night, and didn't call. Do his parents punish him? No - they REWARD HIM WITH A NEW CELL PHONE! What kind of crappy negative reinforcement parenting is that? Then we see that the younger son is in disbelief. Yeah, you and me both, kid.

In other news, the SNU and I received our first gifts from our registry via UPS. Let me tell you - nothing excites 2 gay men more than receiving boxes full of place settings. Our new dishware is from Target (pronounced: TAR-zhay), in a lovely "denim blue" pattern. It's awesome. Christmas came early this year!

Also, I'd like to rant about these annoying pop-ups that are plaguing me. I never had this problem before (my Juno blocker would catch most of them). I even downloaded the Google toolbar for extra pop-up blocking. But nothing works! And it's weird - they don't seem to be related to any of the sites I'm on, they just pop up randomly. They all start with an address of "xadsq" or "xlime" - if anyone knows how to stop them, I'm in your debt. I'm emailing Juno in the hopes that they can help. (Possible problem - this all started after I installed the Microsoft Service Pack 2 - coincidence?)

Ranting on commercials

I watch a lot of TV. Far too much, I'm sure. Probably at least 4-5 hours a day, minimum. Hey, gimme a break - it's not like I'm shooting up heroin. Although the cable bills are just as expensive.

All this is to say that you'll hear me talk about TV often, so get used to it. But tonight I'm actually not going to talk about TV shows - I want to complain about commercials.

Frequently I will be sitting in front of the boob tube, bitching about the stupidity of a commercial, and the SNU will say - "You should write about it in a blog." OK, fine.

Let me start with the one on the TV right now. It's for Burger King. What is up with the guy in the king costume being in bed with a hapless sleep-deprived fellow? That is just creepy. It sure as hell doesn't make me want to buy a fucking Croissanwich.

Next up is a commercial for Jif. I hate to rag on them, as it's my favorite peanut butter. (A major source of contention in our house, where the SNU is a die-hard Skippy man.) Anywho, you know the commercial where the girls are having the sleepover? What is with that whiny child? Why are you on the damn sleepover if you don't want to do anything? And who the hell is Princess Moonfire?

I don't know if this is regional, but I'm so glad that summer is over so I don't have to watch those horrible commercials for Six Flags. The music is annoying, and the old bad dancer man just pisses me off. Besides, at Six Flags America they had 2 major accidents in the past year. Their new motto - "Come to Six Flags America - hundreds of patrons didn't die this year!"

Anything by Old Navy. 'Nuff said.