Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Sky Captain and the Mall of Tomorrow, Part II

I had too much stuff to fit into one post. Here's the second one.



"Mary, no! You had so much to live for! Oh, she's not dead, she's just relieving back pain in the most awkward, glassy-eyed way possible." With that kind of facial expression, are we sure this is helping her back pain?



Remember when you got married, and the entire wedding party was crushed by a runaway train? Relive the moment forever with Fucking Weird Photo Paintings™!

I love the bubble in the top right corner - "Makes a thoughtful anniversary gift!" If you had to tell the guy (it's always the guy) to buy it, no, it's not a thoughtful anniversary gift. Can't you just picture someone frantically flipping through SkyMall at 11:59 PM the night before his anniversary? "Come on, come on! Oh, Fucking Weird Photo Paintings™! That's so true, this would be thoughtful of me!"



If you actually hang this on the wall in your house, it's going to be "No sex for you," too.

(Seriously, no one is actually this big of a Seinfeld fan, right? Or is there just one guy who has a whole wall of autographed pictures of Seinfeld bit characters? "This is so great! I'm putting the Soup Nazi right between the Bubble Boy's 'It's Moors, you idiot!' picture and the picture of the Fusilli Jerry autographed by Jerry Stiller! This is so much better than having a girlfriend!")



Man, calm the fuck down. Can you imagine spending 200 dollars on a baseball autographed by someone with three career wins? Also, even when he was a reliever - when this copy was written, I assume - "Joba Time" never meant the end for the opposing team because he was a setup guy, not a closer (that job being held by Mariano Rivera). Maybe I'm biased, since I hate the Yankees, but come on - he has 42 career appearances. Isn't there some Little Leaguer somewhere that I can get a framed photo of?



This is the nerdiest fucking thing I have seen in my life. And I like geography. But this is barely a rung above buying one of those AT&T shirts, and then only because you're not paying a company to tacitly advertise for them.

Shirt-Wearer: Hi, everyone!
Friend: Uh, Bill, what the hell are you wearing?
Shirt-Wearer: Heh, yeah, pretty cool, huh? "Oh, check out my latitude!" Heh.
Friend: I'm sorry, are you my grandmother? I can't think of anyone else in the world who would wear that.
Shirt-Wearer: But it's like, my zip code... I'm, um, representing...
Friend: Okay, you know what? You are hereby uninvited from my bachelor party, as of right now.
Shirt-Wearer: Wait, dude, wait. Okay. If the stripper thinks it's cute, I get to stay.
Friend: Get out.



Finally, a couple bits of stupidity from Rosetta Stone, the language software. I just love how awkwardly that box is Photoshopped in there. Could it be any more obvious that he's not really holding it? Also, where is he supposed to be meeting this supermodel? Is he going to leave the farm, travel to Rome, and then stalk her? Or is her car going to "conveniently" break down in front of his farm, thanks to his payoffs to the guy at the toll booth who gave her directions and the guy at the filling station who let just enough air out of her tires? Next year we're going to see this exact same ad, except "Italian" will be replaced with "French," and this kid's shirt will, if you look closely, be made of human skin.



Nothing too horrible here, but I love the way they punctuated Phelps' endorsement, which makes it look like he was tricked into giving it.

Reporter: Michael, I understand you wanted to learn Chinese for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Phelps: That's right, and I discovered a way to learn Chinese in record time!
Reporter: And how was that?
Phelps: Well, I hired a private tutor, and she worked with me five days a week, and I worked really hard at my lessons.
PR Guy Posing as a Reporter: Uh, Michael, I understand you're an amateur historian. Can you tell us how the French scholar Jean-François Champollion was able to crack the code of Egyptian hieroglyphics?
Phelps: Uh, well, thanks to the Rosetta Stone, he could see that -
PR Guy: [clicks off tape recorder] Got it.

2 comments:

Quivering P. Landmass said...

Man, $200 for a Joba autograph? Right now on ebay you can get a signed rookie card of Joba for under 70 bucks. AND it's certified.

Then again, it doesn't have that fun, cheeky headline. "It's Joba Time!" You're so clever, SkyMall!!

Tyler said...

There's no earthly way that farm boy is getting any Italian supermodel.