AT&T Commercial, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways...

 

1.  The doofus customer is outnumbered by the two employees 2-1 in the AT&T store, marking the first time in history that the customers have not outnumbered employees by at LEAST 15-1.  He also has TWO employees providing him information about this "new" service being offered (I don't know what it is, and I don't care.)  This is so reality-bending, my brain will break if I don't quickly move on....  

2.  This guy is INSTANTLY so taken by an "offer" which isn't even described in terms of conditions, price etc. that he whips out THE PHONE HE ALREADY HAS and calls his MOTHER.  Worse, he tells these two women that he's calling his MOTHER.  Which makes me almost want to go back and revisit my first issue with this stupid smoking pile of putrid dumb of an ad.    

3.  This guy is on the phone for all of FOUR SECONDS, but that was enough time for him to realize that he called the wrong number, the name of the guy he reached, AND that the guy he reached "sounded really excited" and he's "on his way here now."  Um, excuse me, but I had to go chase down my brain, which had hopped out of my skull and was making a mad dash for the door.   No, buddy.  Just NO.  You are using a cell phone which presumably has your mother's number saved in Contacts.  Kind of makes it hard to "dial a wrong number."  You did NOT have time to get a response from the guy you inexplicably accidentally called, let alone that the guy is "excited" and "on his way."  Why you be lyin', bro?

4.   Lily breaks the fourth wall in the most uncomfortable, awkward way I've ever seen in a tv commercial.  She looks like she wants to scream "save me from my AT&T contract, NBC wants to sign me to a sitcom and if I do this much longer I'll be typecast out of existence!"  She seriously looks like she's in pain.  But compared to her...

5.  Lily's Black FriendTM- who needed a chunk of her sales pitch to the doofus customer to be whitesplained by Lily- is even more awkward, giving a nervous "that's all we got, I have no idea what to do next" desperate shrug like she wants nothing more on Earth than to hear "cut" so she can step off the set and have herself a good, long cry.  Like the one I have pretty much every time this commercial shows up on my tv, which is roughly 6 times an hour during football games. 

Geico runs out of plausible ideas in record time

 

This is sad even for Geico, the masters of the beaten-to-death ad campaign. 

Remember those people who had a "clogging problem," and it turned out that it was their upstairs neighbors wearing clogs and dancing constantly?  Remember how we were able to ignore the fact that their problem was not one that any insurance could handle, because we were so amused at the play on words?  

And by "we," I mean, of course, "you," because you're all morons?

Remember those other people who had a "rat problem," and it turned out that the 80s rock group Ratt was hanging out in their kitchen?  That made infinitely less sense, because-- well, it's their house, right?  Can't they just kick Ratt out of it any time they want?  Call the police, whatever?  Oh, never mind- it didn't bother you, because Hey It's Ratt and they were popular back when I was young so it's all good!

(And again, by "I" I mean "you.")

Well, THIS family has a "fencing problem."  Except, they don't for most of the ad.  Their neighbors are into fencing.  This is bizarre to the central characters in this commercial, and I don't know why.  Their neighbors like to fence.  That means they are playing with swords.  They aren't dealing in stolen goods, and they aren't erecting fences on anyone else's property.  I don't quite see how this is anyone's "problem," unless these people think that they have the right to police the harmless activities of their neighbors who, by the way, aren't asking for permission to f---ing FENCE.

Ah, but here's where it becomes a "problem" that actually CAN be solved, though not with Geico insurance:  the fencing neighbors are suddenly right in their face, ON THEIR PATIO, IN THEIR DRIVEWAY, doing their fencing thing.  That's when you call- no, not Geico- but the F--ING POLICE.  Or at LEAST the Homeowner's Association.  Because these jackasses are TRESPASSING.  Maybe not quite as blatantly as Ratt, but they are STILL TRESPASSING.  So why are you idiots just rolling your eyes and looking perplexed?  Get on the phone to your local police or use your Second Amendment Freedoms and end your fencing problem, you morons!

Ok, rant over.  Back to my thesis.  Sure didn't take long for Geico to run out of hi-larious "problems" for people to deal with in these ads, did it?  And it isn't at all surprising that, having run out of ideas, they are just going to keep plowing forward, is it?

Bud Light's Cardboard Idiot, and the mouth-breathers who love him

 

This commercial, which runs for two minutes which feel like at least six, is the perfect example of a cute idea translating perfectly into a twenty or thirty second ad but instead dragged out and beaten until every ounce of charm has been drained.  Seriously, it's one joke- the doofus with the idiot look on his face and zero taste in beer is a cardboard cutout because Illness That Shall Not Be Mentioned.  The cardboard cutout gets up and-moves around, for some reason.  The expression on the cutout never changes, of course, so the guy is doomed to be recalled looking like a clueless doof in search for crappy low-calorie beer. 

And then the cutout leaves the stadium, goes down the street, gets on a bus (I guess, I seem to remember that, not watching it again) and does all this other stuff while I guess (judging from the YouTube Comments) half of America just loses control of its bowels with mirth or at the very least rushes to the internet to express admiration and appreciation for this Amazing Ad Should Have Debuted During the Super Bowl It's So Awesome. 

In the end, the cutout shows up at the actual guy's house for Reasons.  I don't know why and I don't want to think about it anymore, except that at this point I really wish the commercial had turned into a take-off on Us and the cardboard cutout had just brutally murdered the actual guy and taken his place.   Now that would have been worthy of an appreciative comment.  This meandering, padded two minutes of pointless crap?  Not so much. 

Dollops of Dumb

 

"Um, mom? Why did you just stick sour cream on my nose?"

"It's a really stupid tradition, but most traditions are.  My grandmother smeared this crap on my mom's face, and she smeared it on my face, and we all thought it was idiotic but for some reason we keep doing it anyway, so here you go, some sour cream on your nose Because Reasons."

"Um, ok....but the bride and groom smashing cake into each other's faces is a stupid tradition too, but when I got married we didn't do that..."

"I know, and the family is still mumbling about it behind your back.  They wonder if you were adopted."

"I wish I was." 

The message of the Mercedes Benz "Plushie" ad(s)

 

I'm going to ignore the fact that this plushie thing is drawn to the almost religious majesty of the Mercedes Benz just sitting in its glorious isolation in the middle of a crappy trucker's diner parking lot (which is absolutely where you'd expect to find a Mercedes Benz.)

Instead, let's look at the real moral of the story:  Hey, kids:  If you find yourself walking out of a greasy spoon diner heading back to your Mercedes Benz and you see what looks like a dirty, limp wounded animal in the road, you should immediately pick it up and hold it next to your face.  Then you should take it home with you. 

Keep in mind, you should only do these things if your parents are the owners of a Mercedes Benz and you live in a magical world where absolutely everything is perfect and nothing that happens to Real People living on the Real Planet Earth could ever happen to you.   If you attempt this and you aren't one of those people, please drop by the nearest Emergency Room on your way home for your rabies shots or, at the very least, salmonella treatments. 

In short, my advice to 99 percent of people out there:  Do Not Attempt.  And my advice to the other One Percent:  Please, Attempt Away.  Pick up that dirty, injured little living thing.*  Go for it.  Nothing bad could ever happen to you.

*Yes, I know it's just supposed to be an abandoned toy and this is all supposed to be super-heartwarming because a piece of cheap fabric stuffed with rags has Found a New Home with some rich kid whose mom will be throwing it back into the trash inside of a week when that kid has lost interest in that wet, dirty, germy thing she found in the parking lot.  Sure doesn't work for me, though.  Especially when it's so easy to imagine some kid watching this and trying to rescue that sweet little injured raccoon with the cute eyes daddy ran over with the Lincoln Navigator while on his way to the brokerage this morning. 

Quickle, Go into debt for the holidays!

 

Eighteen seconds in, the hyped-up-for-zero-reason narrator becomes slightly more socially responsible and suggests that quick-approval, crippling-interest-rate loans are a thing that exists if you find yourself in a dire financial emergency.  But that's eighteen seconds in- which means it comes AFTER he's grabbed you with the stunningly irresponsible idea that putting gifts you can't afford under the tree in order to fool your family into thinking that you are financially secure is a totally normal thing anyone who finds themselves short of cash just before Christmas should Obviously be doing because hey, Christmas. 

That's all I've got, because man, this is just so sad.  And probably a hell of a lot more relatable than any of those Lexus December to Remember ads featuring luxury cars with bows or Lincoln ads featuring women fleeing palaces to sit in their cars or even Toyota ads featuring little children encouraging their mommies to just go ahead and buy a new car because it caught their eye as they were walking past the showroom.  Certainly more relatable at the close of the Worst Year Ever for many, many of us.  Good riddance, 2020, which unfortunately did not mark the beginning of regular financial peril for millions of hard-working Americans, just a significant boost in their ranks.  I'd like to think we'll do better in 2021, but other than saying goodbye to the Disease that Shall Not Be Mentioned, it's more likely that the situation depicted in this ad is just going to be remain the Old Normal for way too many of us. 

Rocket Mortgage treats the viewers like children, again

 

As near as I can figure from about 200 slight glances/half-listening to this commercial over the course of several football games, the guy in the ad is someone for whom English is a second language and common sense/brains larger than those of a turnip a foreign concept.  He heard the phrase "there's money in your house" and proceeded to take a hammer to the walls of the home he inexplicably manages to own (I suspect that the woman we also see following him around with a bemused but otherwise "whatever, he's a guy and I was approaching thirty" look on her face might have something to do with that.)

This woman's response to seeing her Clearly Acquired out of Desperation spouse knocking holes in the wall looking for money (instead of looking for the orchestra he thought was in there whenever the doorbell rang, I suppose) is to whip out her phone and refinance....um...because I guess she suddenly needs to hold on to more of her money (I no longer believe this guy has anything to do with the household income because...come on.)  This is all supposed to be cute and what we are supposed to get out of it is how easy it is to refinance with Rocket Mortgage.  Frankly, the commercial would make infinitely more sense if it was an ad for a legal firm promoting how easy it is to file for divorce.