Let KGB Google that for you

Good news, everyone! KGB wasn't satisfied with the crappy commercials they started with. Time for some more inessential nonsense:



Female Agent: "What do we know?"
Male Agent: "38 year old Caucasian male. This is the wife, she called it in. Doesn't sound good."
Wife: "Thank goodness you're here. One minute he's fine, and then this."
Male Agent: "What is it?"
Female Agent: "It's brainlock. What was he doing right before he froze?"
Wife: "He was trying to remember who played first base for the Red Sox in '86."

God, KGB, really? Anyone who cares about the answer to that question is going to remember it unless they are actually having significant memory problems, because the answer to that question is Bill Buckner, owner of the most famous error in World Series history.

Wife: "It was, like, right on the tip of his tongue."
Male Agent: "Bill Buckner."
Husband: "Buckner!"
Male Agent: "There you go, sir."
Husband: "Right through his legs!"
Male Agent: "Right through his legs."

I'm sorry, did I fall asleep and wake up twenty years ago? The Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and 2007, meaning that Red Sox fans have no reason to continue to fixate on Buckner's error in the woe-is-me way this guy is doing. (In addition, serious Red Sox fans never spent nearly as much time blaming Buckner as the media would have you believe.) This commercial was clearly written by someone who knows like four things about baseball. Although, if it's twenty years ago, that would explain why this guy - who is in his own house - can't just go to his damn computer and look it up himself.

Male Agent: "And if it happens again, just text us at 542542."

If it happens again, learn how to operate a computer, maybe.

Wife: "It's a miracle!"
Female Agent: "No, ma'am. It's KGB."

Good call - there is nothing miraculous about coming up with easily retrievable pop culture nuggets. At least in some of the other ads they show a guy in a bar texting for an answer - the only possible use for this service, at least if you don't have the internet on your phone - but, again, this guy is in his house. The sheer inessentiality of the KGB service as depicted in this ad staggers me. Why run it at all?

Boosting the ick factor

When you're down the ladder in terms of market share, I suppose I can see why you might feel a need to do something "out there" to get people's attention. But when you're doing something like this? Something so repugnant it just makes me want to look away and change the channel as fast as possible (and long before you've gotten your product name out there)? I'm not sure what you're really going for with that.



How bad is this ad? Bad enough that the first place I saw reference to it was in the comments section of this very blog, in a comment by reader Capewood. What did he say about it? Well, here's his first sentence: "I don't remember the company but some cell phone service provider is running a commercial with a woman and a guy riding a bicycle." (Bolding mine.) Sounds like a memorable ad! Good thing Boost Mobile went for the "hook" of a horrific image that no one wants to look at!

At least it's in service of a hilarious, hilarious joke, right?

Girl on bike: "What, you think this is wrong? It's a little gift from Mother Nature. I'll tell you what's wrong - it's cell phone companies charging hidden fees."

*spits out water* Pahahaha! Oh man, Boost Mobile. You got me. You told me what was wrong. I thought I knew what was wrong, but I was wrong! Oh man! There it is again! The wrongness!

I don't think Boost has gone far enough, though, if they really want to catch people's attention. How about... animal cannibalism? Oh, you did that. Not gross enough, right? You need humans involved. Well, how about a coroner eating food that was just sitting on a dead body? Man, that would be pretty out there... oh. You also did that. Well, I've got one suggestion left. But be warned: it's comedy gold.

[Setting: a suburban living room. The doorbell rings.]
Girl's voice: Come on in!
[A 35-year-old man enters through the front door. He is carrying a six-pack of Smirnoff Ice.]
Man: Katie?
Girl's voice: I'll be out in a second! Make yourself at home.
[The man sits down on the couch. Suddenly, Chris Hansen walks out from the kitchen.
Chris Hansen: What are you doing here?
Man: Uh, well, I just came to... uh...
Chris Hansen: To have sex with a 15-year-old girl.
Man: What, you think that's wrong? I'll tell you what's wrong - cell phone companies that charge hidden fees!
Chris Hansen: You do realize you're on Dateline NBC right now.
Man: Heck yeah - I just looked you up using my sweet web-enabled phone.
Chris Hansen: Well, you're free to go.
Man: I will go - go call my lawyer on this awesome unlimited plan from Boost Mobile!
[As the man leaves the house, he is tackled by twelve police officers.]

Boost Mobile - where you at? Hopefully not a 15-year-old girl's house.

Math is hard! Let's bake some cookies for the boys!

You might remember this gag from when Breyer's did it first, years ago, using cute preschoolers and ice cream in place of grown women and canned soup. Sadly, that ad could not be located online, but the premise was that a preponderance of ingredients that the children could not pronounce, like "polysorbate 80," meant frankenfoods, while Breyer's, which contained only "milk, cream, sugar and natural flavors," was clearly wholesome and nonthreatening. Adorable. Effective.

Now here's this:

Announcer: What might you find in Progresso Light?

Woman #1: [surprised] Artificial flavor!

Woman #2: Wonolatteeee, uh...

Woman #1: Monosodium glu- gluta- mate?

It's cute when small children stumble over big words. It's ridiculous when adult women are hired to act like wide-eyed dumbasses, and you know they're struggling to act when the blonde says "monosodium" perfectly and then has to remind herself to stutter through "glutamate."

Woman #3: That's MSG.

Announcer: All light soups are not created equal. Select Harvest Light has good stuff.

Thank goodness for abbreviations and shorthand like "good stuff." All those other details and syllables make tiny female brains hurt.

Woman #4: Pasta with whole grain!

Woman #5: Natural sea salt.

Woman #6: There's roasted natural chicken in here!

Through the miracle of modern science.

Announcer: Progresso weighs their light soup down with MSG and sodium.

Woman #1: Sodium, sodium, sodium.

She's certainly got "sodium" down. I can tell she practiced for hours. Probably with a coach.

Woman #6: This is heart healthy.

Woman #5: 80 calories.

Announcer: New Select Harvest Light, from Campbell's. Real ingredients, real taste.

Woman #6: [smiles cutely and holds up her bowl] More please!

As we've established earlier, you are a grown woman. Go get your own damn soup.

And thus ends the unintentional theme for today, which is that women, like children, become overwhelmed by all your polysyllabic words and science-y chemical mumbo-jumbo. It's unintentional because presumably, every actor in this commercial was cast to act confused and naive, and presumably the reason that all the actors were women was that women are the key demographic for light soups. This commercial would have been off-kilter even with a mix of male and female adult actors, but manages to strike a worse note because only females appear.

I don't buy your script, because it's obvious that all of these people are playing dumb. And I won't buy your soup, because your commercial is a damn mess.

Melts in your mouth, not in your pants

Having talking spokescharacters can get a little weird if the characters are items of the food product you're selling, and using sex to sell candy creeps me out. So when M&Ms manages to make an ad that goes wrong in both of these ways? I'm not a fan.



There are about a million ways this is wrong. Let's enumerate just a few of them:

1. The attempted sexuality of the bare legs and high heels.
2. The purring, bedroom-voice voice-over.
3. The horrible "seductive poses."
4. The wink.
5. The fact that an M&M is eating other M&Ms.

Why, M&Ms? Why do you think it makes sense to sell your product with creepy, utterly repulsive "sexually appealing" candy? Your audience is not made up of M&Ms (even if it were, M&Ms quite clearly lack genitalia, so I fail to see how they would put their desire into action). Your audience is humans, and humans don't want to have sex with M&Ms. Therefore, you do not need your main spokescharacter to be a "sexy" M&M; really, there's no such thing, in spite of how you pretend otherwise.

Now yes, I'm aware of the longstanding rumor (spread by complete idiots) that green M&Ms serve as some sort of aphrodisiac. And I'm also aware that M&Ms started to use the "sexy" female green M&M to play on that (only, what, two decades behind the curve of the urban legend). But if you're going to do that? You use sexy humans and regular green M&Ms. You do not use sexy M&Ms. This would still be terrible - because when I think of sex, I do not think of M&Ms - but at least it doesn't make me think that you think I want to fuck your candy.

The cannibalism subplot of this ad is underrated, by the way. This is the same company that ran a surprisingly sadistic ad ten years ago in which Diedrich Bader mockingly consumes Crispy M&M's entire family while Crispy watches helplessly; now, however, it's apparently okay for new M&M brands to be eaten, even by existing M&M brands. Unless that's really why the other M&Ms are staring at the end of the ad. "I can't believe she ate Jerry in cold blood! I mean, in cold chocolate! Just right down the hatch! Also, do we even have digestive tracts? Where do you think he went?"

Money well flushed

Trashing a marketing campaign as a waste of resources is a pretty easy, even facile, argument in most businesses' cases. When it comes to financial services companies in the recessionary year of 2009, however, I think a strong case can be made. Especially when rotoscoping is involved. So, here's brokerage house Charles Schwab pretending like they understand (and weren't partly the cause of) your financial predicament:



Man: When I think of the mess we're in right now, it's just not right.

I love the vague generalizations throughout this ad about the recession. No one comes out and says "When I think about the fact that we're in a recession" or "When I think about how the Dow has lost half its value in less than two years." I get that they aren't buying commercial time to bum people out, but this just rings hollow to me.

Graphic: Last year over 225,000 people didn't just accept it.

"They pulled the money they were losing in their retirement funds and lost it with us instead."

Face it, unless Charles Schwab offers a money market account, anyone trading stocks with Schwab lost money. Everyone has lost money in the stock market, except Warren Buffet and like three other people. It wasn't just investment bankers losing that cash, it was regular people making trades online, too.

Woman: We had our whole retirement in place and then it just went boom. You know, just up in smoke.

Where was that retirement money that went "boom" invested? The stock market. Where does Charles Schwab want you to put it? The stock market. Ahh -- logic!

Graphic: They did something about it.

"It's so much more fun when you control where your money goes down the drain!"

Man: Well I'm still being nickled and dimed, you know, like I, like I haven't lost enough already.

To me, this is the only strong part of this commercial. Charles Schwab is a lot cheaper than most places if you want to be a hands-on investor. This is probably the biggest selling point for their business in this economy.

I'm not a financial guru in any way, but it strikes me as irresponsible to appeal to people's anger at the financial industry and convince them to reinvest by themselves. This is a wildly volatile market, and if most investment firms can't read it, why would normal, non I-banker people fare any better?

Woman: One of my friends are (sic) still kind of having a hard time, and instead of dwelling on the past, I think it's time to move forward.

Utterly vapid. Truly, you have to wonder why this particular, meaningless comment was worth rotoscoping. And using up 5 seconds of air time. Also, only "one" of your friends is having a hard time? And you somehow came out totally unscathed from the financial turmoil? Maybe we should be investing with you, and not Charles Schwab.

Graphic: DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

"DUMP YOUR MONEY INTO THE STOCK MARKET RIGHT NOW! IT CAN'T GET ANY LOWER!! Unless of course it does, in which case, we totally ran an ad telling you to buy bonds."

I wonder if there's a publicly traded rotoscoping studio I could buy some shares of....

Keep dusting it off

It's fitting that this spot talks about antiques, given that AT&T has now dragged out the same joke so many times that they've forgotten to use it in a context that even makes sense.



What? Look, I get the joke here - "ha ha, these minutes are so old!" - but it was never more than mildly amusing to begin with, and now it's just tiresome. In addition, the garage sale context is nonsense, because you can't sell your old minutes to other people. That isn't how phones work. I don't think AT&T is trying to suggest that you can... but would it have been difficult to make another ad that used a premise that, you know, works? I guess they couldn't have gotten away with showing the kid wiping his ass with the old minutes, but I'm pretty sure there are other possibilities.

Negative bonus points for a cringe-inducing reference to the current economic climate in terms so generic that AT&T will no doubt pull this one out of the archives for each of the next five recessions. Maybe their next ad can cover every last base for the next century:

Mom: Junior, what are you doing?
Kid: Aw, Mom, I'm just getting rid of these old credits for my personal communication device!
Mom: Don't you dare, Mister - we exchanged something for those old credits and with AT&T, we can continue to use them on our communication devices even now!

Delightfully non-specific. And then you can always just edit in a final scene that refers to whichever alien civilization is invading at the time.

Their flower power is no match for my glower power

I've said this before, but be wary of attacking competitors when your own product is hardly the pinnacle of necessity. Right, Teleflora?



See, Teleflora, here's the thing. When you're talking about what flowers in a box might "say"? What they're "saying" in reality would already be determined before the person even opened the box. Because if there's actually a problem with getting flowers in a box, the script for this commercial would not start like this:

Gary: "Hey Diane, flowers came for you!"
Bald Guy: "Oooh, flowers for Diane!"
Woman: "I never get flowers!"

They sound pretty impressed, in spite of the fact that they can all see that the flowers are in a box. Therefore the rest of this commercial (which we'll get to in a minute) is actually completely meaningless. I would probably have started it more like this:

Gary: "Hey Diane, flowers came for you!"
Bald Guy: "Oooh, flowers for - wait a second, are those in a box?"
Woman: "I don't know about this..."

And then, on to the rest of this nonsense.

Flowers: "Oh no! Look at the mug on you, Diane! You're a train wreck! That's why he only sent a box of flowers."

Why would the box of flowers insult itself? Whatever. Look. If he bothered to send flowers at all, there's no way he actually thinks this. For the sake of argument, let's say that sending a box of flowers is, in fact, totally lame. What woman would receive said flowers and decide that he thinks she's ugly?

Flowers: "Go home to your romance novels and your fat, smelly cat!"
Voiceover: "This Valentine's Day, don't send flowers in a box - you never know what they'll say."

They'll say, "I cared only just enough to send a trite gift that required effectively no thought on my part." Here's the problem where Teleflora is concerned: so would any flowers. Because sending someone flowers is a lame gift. I realize it's traditional, but let's not pretend that it takes any more thought than, "Hey, maybe I should get her some flowers! I'm so getting laid tonight." It's just like a box of chocolates - sure, you might like getting a box of chocolates on Valentine's Day, but no one in their right mind really thinks of that as some grand romantic gesture.

Flowers: "No one wants to see you naked!"

I'm a little surprised they got away with this. But, again, I call bullshit. If he sent flowers at all, and there wasn't a card included that said "It's over," then he wants to see her naked. I'm confused as to what perspective this ad is even taking. No guy who's sending flowers in a box is doing so thinking, "That hideous hag only deserves a box of flowers," and no woman receiving them is thinking, "He thinks I'm a hideous hag who only deserves a box of flowers!" Does Teleflora think they're actually going to convince people that they should be thinking that? I'm guessing it isn't going to work.

Voiceover: "Teleflora's bouquets are hand-arranged, hand-delivered in a keepsake vase, not in a box."

"Keepsake"? Seriously? Whatever. Anyway, who gives a shit if they're "hand-arranged," honestly? Unless your boyfriend hand-arranged them himself, ladies, I don't see any compelling reason to give him more credit for calling one flower company instead of another. I guess it's nice that you don't have to scrounge up your own vase, but let's face it, these things will be dead in a week no matter what you do with them. Maybe you could put them in your "keepsake" Star Wars collectible glasses.

Voiceover: "That's the Teleflora difference."

If you actually do a little research on the interwebs, it turns out that sending flowers in a vase is pretty much standard practice. In fact, I Googled "flowers in a box," and after a wholesale florist site, the next two hits were links to videos of this very commercial. 1-800-FLOWERS, FTD and ProFlowers, the top three hits on a search for "flowers," all include vases, and 1-800-FLOWERS and FTD both tout that a local florist will hand-arrange the flowers for you. Who is Teleflora even attacking? It's like that ad Pepsi ran during the Super Bowl:

Teen 1: "Yo, man, I'm thirsty."
Teen 2: "Me too. Hey, let's crack open a frosty can of Coke with Anthrax!"
Teen 1: "That's what I'm talkin' about!!!"
[they open the can]
Talking Can: "Whoa, you two are a bunch of losers! Coke with Anthrax? Enjoy dying of anthrax!"
Teen 1: "Quick, recycle it!"
Voiceover: "Coke with anthrax in it - that isn't refreshing! Drink Pepsi and refresh everything!"

Oh, wait, that didn't happen, because only Teleflora is dumb enough to make an ad suggesting that you don't buy a product that none of their competitors is trying to sell you.

Gary: "I'd like to see-"
Diane: "Gary!"

"Don't send sexual harassment lawsuit papers in a box - you never know what message you'll send! Teller and Flores, Attorneys at Law will hand-deliver your sexual harassment suit and even give that sleazy coworker a withering look as they do so! That's the Teller and Flores difference."

Quarter Pounder with Lawsuit

McDonald's has launched a website to remind us of one of their longtime products, the Quarter Pounder with Cheese. There's a picture of a grease-covered burger, and some different "Lessons in Confidence" you can click on. Would you care to know how a cheeseburger with 70% of your saturated fat intake and 49% of your sodium can help you fight a bear, waterski among piranhas and win a slam dunk contest? Oh, well then read on, friends!

How to deal with a North American black bear
When you encounter a black bear in the wild, it's important to muster the confidence of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese

Sometimes I think this site should be called "Who Are the Corporate Attorneys Who Approved THAT One?" I mean, come on -- this is the company that gets sued when someone spills coffee on themselves in the drive thru. And loses. And here they are actively encouraging people to fight a bear. And fight one using a fucking cheeseburger. That is one potentially expensive not-that-funny joke, McDonald's. How much do you want to bet they get some nasty phonecalls from parents on this one?

1. Stand your ground. Running away makes you fun to chase. Plus, black bears usually bluff when attacking. Your bluff just needs to be better.

Jesus, this is amateurish. I realize McDonald's isn't trying to be a wilderness guide, but since I've hiked in bear country before, I feel it necessary to link to an informative bear safety site.

2. Fight back. When a black bear sees that their (sic) opponent is ready to go for broke, they'll ease up. But you've got to really sell it. During the whoopin', don't forget to stop and realize how killer it is that you're totally schooling a black bear.

Uh huh. Because a human would win in a fight against a charging black bear in the wild. I don't care how many QPCs you had for breakfast, you are not winning a fight against a bear.

Also, what 22-year old faux hipster wrote this shit? This is like late-90's high school yearbook-level copywriting. "Whoopin'"? "Schooling"? "Killer"? Maybe Diablo Cody is moonlighting for McDonald's. Wait! This just inspired me to come up with the best, totally non-outdated new slogan for McDonald's:

"I'm McLovin' it!"

3. Enjoy a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. You deserve it.

I love the pencil graphic of the guy all beaten up eating a Quarter Pounder. Is there a more appetizing image that someone who just got mauled by a wild animal?

There are some other painfully over-written "lessons in confidence." Because, apparently, the inanimate Quarter Pounder with Cheese is somehow endowed with personality traits. Check out this one:

How to buy a big ticket item with only change
Do you have what it takes to make a purchase with nothing but full metal coinage? The Quarter Pounder with Cheese does.

Okay, A. No, it does not. Since it's a piece of fried beef smothered in fake cheese on a 2-cent bun. And B. "Full metal coinage?" Who are you, Jack Black? This is the work of a hack. This kind of copywriting was shat out by someone at 10pm on a Sunday night after polishing off a seventh Smirnoff Ice, and then turned in on Monday morning, riddled with typos, 5 minutes before it had to be sent to the client. This is soul-crushing copywriting. Whoever wrote this lacks human emotion.

1. Act natural. You know you're carrying around a pillowcase full of change, you don't need any nasty looks to tell you that. So just hold your head high and go with it.

2. Don't take no for an answer. No matter how much they complain or how many people are in line behind you, don't back down. It's real money. They have to accept it.

Funny thing. No they don't. I love when shit is just factually inaccurate. Isn't that the best when people don't even spend two minutes to look something up?

So, not only would a person paying with a pillowcase full of change in front of a huge line of people be a complete dick, but s/he would also be legally wrong to force the retailer to accept the coins. Oh well, at least this "Lesson in Confidence" is laugh-til-you-cry hilarious, right?

3. Drop a bag of coin on a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. You're worth it.

Oh my gosh, you guys. Let's all totally do this!!! Go into a McD tomorrow and be like, "I'm paying for this Quarter Pounder with 400 pennies." Or, if you wanted to talk like the hack who wrote this website, you could be all, "Wassup, peeps!! Hook me up with a fly QPC. Now let me lay down some sweet Lincoln heads for y'all! 23 Skidoo!"

Wouldn't you love to be the person at McDonald's getting the calls from the franchisees after this? "I just had four assholes pay for their Quarter Pounders with a jar of change! And they made me take it because that retarded McDonald's web site told them to!!" Seems like a smart move on McDonald's part.

Oh, there are more lessons, but they're all equally moronic. Owning a slam dunk contest ("Dunk like whoa"), fleecing a car salesman, becoming a reality TV star. Some of these are so awful they're almost depressing. But I think the last part of the "waterskiing with piranhas" lesson sums up the essence of the whole goofy campaign:

You're awesome. You know what else is awesome? A Quarter Pounder with Cheese. So, get one.

"Awesome. Awesome. Product name. Call-to-action."

Did you just fall asleep reading that? If you did, you missed what is perhaps the laziest, clumsiest, hackiest line of copy ever written. For anything. Congratulations, McDonald's.

Oh, and if you're a recently laid-off lawyer -- you may want to look into positions at McDonald's. I bet they'll be hiring soon.

I once got busy in a Burger King dining room

If you read this blog regularly, you'll know by now that ads by the agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky - specifically their ads for Burger King - have a tendency to get our goat. Why? Well, there's just something about an agency that seems to focus on every unpalatable aspect of television advertising - and seems to refrain from actually selling a product whenever possible - that really gets under our skin. Unsurprisingly, their Whopper Junior ads are not what you would call an exception to this rule.



Yes, that is all the Whopper Junior ads in one go. I had hoped only to write about one in particular, which I saw on TV the other night and which profoundly disgusted me, but I couldn't find it individually and hey, it's not like the other ads in the series were any better. Let's go.

Whopper Dad: "You can't sell yourself for a buck, Junior."
Whopper Jr.: "Why not?"
Whopper Dad: "Because as long as you live in my house, you'll live by my rules, you got it?"
[Mom sighs heavily while the daughter disinterestedly pokes at her cell phone]
Whopper Jr.: "I thought Burger King was the home of the Whopper."
Whopper Dad: "Oh, what is that supposed to mean?"
Whopper Jr.: "All my life you've been off being America's favorite burger, and now you want to come home and be Dad? No!"
Whopper Dad: "You get back here! Get back here!"
Whopper Jr.: "I wish I'd never been broiled!"

Mmmm. Nothing makes me hungrier for a hamburger than, uh, a nice awkward family tiff. (The 15-second version, which airs much more frequently, conveniently edits out almost all of that nonsense.) Also, does it seem odd that the "you are a talking hamburger instead of a person" gene appears to be resident on the Y chromosome? How exactly did this work that a hamburger and a woman had a male hamburger kid and a female human kid? (Ridiculous nitpicking? Maybe. But how hard would it have been to scrounge up two more hamburger costumes?) And shame on this ad for making me think about hamburger sex (although - spoiler alert - it only gets worse from here).

Also, the "America's Favorite Burger" claim dates back to a 1999 survey in which 33% of 700 respondents said the Whopper was their favorite burger. 700 people? Is that enough to proclaim yourself America's Favorite Burger when McDonald's leads in market share? Whatever. Next ad.

Whopper Jr.: "I'm just saying that with me, you always have it your way."
Girl: [giggles]
Whopper Jr.: "'Cause girl, I am made to order."
[Whopper Dad bursts in]
Whopper Jr.: "What the- Dad! Don't you knock?"
Whopper Dad: "What's going on? First you're selling yourself for a buck, and now this?"

Was that girl going to devour him, or have sex with him? And did he sell himself to her for a buck? Whopper Jr.: adding some prostitution to the BK value menu.

Whopper Jr.: "Stop treating me like I'm on the kids menu!"
Whopper Dad: "You get your buns downstairs right now!"
Whopper Jr.: "Eat me."

Oh, the hilarious plays on words that result when you are a hamburger and also kind of a person. Next.

Whopper Dad: "Junior, now that you're selling yourself for a buck, you're going to meet a lot of girls."

For the record, this was the one that I found really, really gross. Also, another allusion to male prostitution here, I'd say.

Whopper Jr.: "What?"
Whopper Dad: "When a Whopper loves a woman, they... boy... mix up their... sauces and stuff..."
Whopper Jr.: "Oh, Dad, please, stop!"

My sentiments exactly. What? They mix up their sauces? That imagery is revolting. What is this woman doing with that hamburger? "Ooh, the Whopper - I just love to cram it in my hoo-ha." If they had only done the earlier ad where you see that the female members of the family are humans, I would have picked the nit as I did and not really thought about it again. Now they're actively making us think about how a Whopper would have sex with a woman. Which, again, is in no way making me hungry. It's making me want to be sure I never, ever have mayonnaise on a hamburger again.

Whopper Dad: "Here, take this."
Whopper Jr.: "What's this?"
Whopper Dad: "It's an extra napkin, put it in your wallet."

No. Jesus Christ, no. If there's one thing even worse than trying to describe how hamburgers go about fucking human females, it's the idea that a napkin also constitutes some form of hamburger birth control. "Quick, wipe off that ketchup before it goes anywhere!" Hey, new slogan idea, BK: "The Whopper Jr.: It'll knock up your mouth!" You know, to be really sure that no one ever wants to order another one.

Whopper Jr.: "Yeah, thanks, 'Dr. Love.'"
Whopper Dad: "Don't mention it."

"By the way, they give those out for free at Planned Burgerhood."

This, to me, is just lazy advertising at its finest. It goes for cheap, vaguely shocking jokes while virtually ignoring the product it's trying to sell (what food product couldn't you have plugged into that ad?). And honestly, respond if you disagree, but how does this kind of weird food-having-sex association make anyone want that food? Remember a few years ago when some clueless admen on the McDonald's account gave us the "I'd Hit It!" banner ads that got laughed off the web? How is this different? How is it not much, much worse? Yes, CPB is clearly aware of what they're doing, whereas the extent to which McDonald's was out of touch was pretty hilarious on its own terms. But the association of food with sex is so much more direct and that much more distasteful in the BK ads. We've talked about this a number of times on this site and it doesn't get any less creepy the more I see it happen. CPB wants brand awareness and thinks hilarious burger-condom jokes are the way to go. I say brand awareness is no good when I am forever put off the brand because of your nasty burger-condom jokes. Maybe I'm crazy.

Okay, last one.

Whopper Dad: "Listen, I don't care if you want to sell yourself for less, but a buck?"
Whopper Jr.: "People are psyched about this, Dad! You'd know that if you'd pull your head out of your bun."
Whopper Dad: "Watch it, burger boy."

And another hilarious "burger things that sound like human things" joke rears its head. Given that there were only four ads in this sequence, what does it say for CPB's creativity that they managed to have fully half of them end with jokes in which "bun" is used in reference to its human meaning? Couldn't think of anywhere else to go with that?

That slogan also kills me: "Bringing some attitude to the BK value menu." What? Attitude? It's a hamburger. It's a hamburger, in fact, that is identical to its larger version in every way but size. That's "attitude"? I'd buy this tack with the Angry Whopper or something, but come on. Also, as I've pointed out before, I'm not sure how portraying a menu item as an obnoxious teenager is supposed to sell hamburgers. Still, if they hadn't forced me to think about burger sex, all might have been forgiven. Instead I'm just left wondering what Crispin Porter won't do in the name of being "edgy" or whatever the fuck.

Mistress Joyce's Ford Dealership

We try to stay away from local ads on this site, mostly because it's just not fair to pick on the little guys when there's so much bad advertising being created by Fortune 500 companies. But sometimes a commercial comes along that's so laughably stupid that we just can't stay away. Check out the link below (and you can probably guess which local market this is for based on the accent alone):

Click here for video (embedding disabled)

Maureen Joyce: At Joyce Ford, accessories come free of charge.

Note: In the following commercial, "accessories" apparently means grown men.

Hey ladies, how's this for an incentive. If you're looking for something sporty, how 'bout takin' Johnny (shows cheesy white guy in a Mustang) for a ride?

So a car dealership is forced to do double duty by selling both cars and male prostitutes. Damn this recession! And it's a sad day indeed when a gigolo airlifted out of a John Hughes movie can't even afford a shirt to match his stylin' grey/black tracksuit.

Maureen Joyce: Want something big and tough? Then you want Bruce (shows bearded white guy in an Explorer SUV).

When I think "big and tough," I think of a man with the name of "Bruce." Does Maureen Joyce realize that she's referring to her cars by the made-up names of average looking male actors? This seems like a curious approach in the worst car sales environment in decades.

Maureen Joyce: How about something environmentally friendly? How 'bout Mario (shows skinny black guy in a hybrid)?

If a blind person were listening to this ad, he would be really confused right about now. I fail to see what's environmentally friendly about Mario. Because he has glasses? Because he looks generally put-together? Because he gives us an awkward thumbs-up? Why pick the one non-white actor in your commercial to play the environmentally friendly guy?

Maureen Joyce: My type is practical and reliable, so I prefer James (shows douchey college guy in a Fusion).

First of all, Mario looks way more like the embodiment of practicality and reliability. Secondly, James is a little young for you, Mrs. Joyce.

Maureen Joyce: No matter what your style, Joyce Ford has something for you.

"Unless your style is women. We don't carry that. You'll have to go across the street to the Toyota dealership -- they sell cars to straight men and lesbians."

Joyce Ford - The Better Half of Car Buying

Is there a sentence in the English language that better demonstrates the stereotypical Chicago accent than this slogan?

Maureen Joyce really wants an all-female clientele, seems like. I understand having the angle of "buy from me because I know how women want to buy cars," but to have a commercial like this that just makes men want to throw up? Maybe not the best approach, especially in this economy.