What is this I don't even

Speaking of a lack of creativity...



See, McDonald's, here is the problem. You hired an ad agency to make a commercial for your new McCafe drink. And then the person on your account forgot about the presentation until the morning of, and just grabbed something he found on YouTube.

The bigger problem, though, is that hand dancing is annoying. I'm sorry to all you hand dancers out there - it is. Well, let me qualify that. If I decided to go to a hand dancing show (I'm assuming such things exist? I have no idea, since until I saw this commercial I was not aware that hand dancing was a thing at all), then fine, I know what I'm getting into. This commercial, however, posits that I would like to see a hand dancing show spontaneously break out in the middle of a McDonald's at like 9 in the morning. Look at all the editorial bullshit that gets worked into this ad in just 15 seconds: multiple people look over and smile, and one dude even whips out his smart phone for a little video. Can you imagine reacting like that if you were there? I'm fairly sure I would leave at the first opportunity and stare a hole in them up until that point. Because that is fucking annoying as all get-out.

These two are also revoltingly proud of themselves - look at the way they finish, like they're concluding the gold medal pairs skate at the Winter Olympics. Of course, if I put up a video of my more or less useless talent on YouTube and the world's biggest restaurant chain paid me thousands of dollars to do it in a commercial, I'd probably be all smug too. Doesn't make it less obnoxious. Things aren't helped by the ridiculous song - there are multiple YouTube comments that are like "I love this song, do you know the title?" Are you fucking kidding me? If you "love the song" surely you must have been able to understand the lyrics, which as far as I can tell go like this:

"Is there chocolate / is there whipped cream / is there caramel / in espresso they're mixing"

The end part was a little harder to pick up but it's something like that. Whatever. The first three parts are certainly right. The chances that there was an existing song that just happened to describe a caramel mocha espresso are roughly 975 quadrillion to one against. Who would think this was a real song? Also, real or not, it sucks. (And is it me or do those whipped cream toppings fail to move at any point during the commercial? I call bullshit.)

You know what this reminds me of? 80s movies. In the 80s, no matter how lame your sport or activity, no matter how unable it was to sustain a movie for two hours, there was still a movie for absolutely everything. Breakdancing? Hell, there was Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. BMX biking? Rad. Skateboarding? Gleaming the Cube. Arm wrestling? Over the Top. Gymkata? Gymkata. Were all these movies shitty? Of course they were! And one reason why is because a movie should never have been based around a niche activity in the first place. Granted, this is a 15-second commercial and not a two-hour movie... but hand dancing is way less interesting than any of those other things. The point is that just because someone has a YouTube video does not mean you have to put them in a commercial. Are you listening, Wonderful Pistachios and Geico?

The P List

I don't think Wonderful Pistachios is going to run any ads during the Super Bowl, but if they did, they'd be a shoo-in for the "Most Egregious Use of B-List Celebrities" award. Frankly, they might deserve the lifetime achievement award in that category just for their most recent series of ads.



That's probably the one I find the stupidest, mostly because (a) Keyboard Cat isn't even a celebrity and (b) that's not even the real Keyboard Cat (who is dead, as we all know by now). Also, the way the guy says "purr-fectly" drives me up the fucking wall. But I mean, here's a list - not sure if it's fully complete - of other people appearing in this series of ads:

Lewis Black
Chad Ochocinco
Rod Blagojevich
R. Lee Ermey
Lucy (and Charlie Brown)
Wee Man
Snooki

If you have no idea what's happening at the end there, you are probably over 40, and I envy the hell out of you.

Look at that list. Granted, it's not completely terrible - Ermey appears in other ads, for instance (though it is worth noting that Ermey is not mentioned by name in his ad, implying that he is the least famous person on the list). But Rod Blagojevich? A guy who is only famous for beating corruption charges despite permanently looking like the cat who ate the canary? Wee Man, at best the third-most famous person from the inexplicably long-running Jackass franchise? And even though I will grudgingly admit that Jersey Shore's popularity means Snooki is famous enough to appear in these ads, is she really someone well-liked enough to constitute a positive endorsement?

I also don't really care for the construct of the ads. I'm sure they're cheap to make, and I suppose they're sufficiently original among what's out there as to be memorable... but we're talking about a gag ripped off of any one of a hundred bumper stickers that say shit like "Teachers do it with class." And then all they do is take that and cram pretty much whatever random quasi-famous person comes to mind - probably not even the first ones, just the ones they can most easily write puns for. It's like Mad Libs: "[person/thing of note] does it [adverb/simile]." That's it. Even if it's successful, I don't think such a lazy excuse for creativity deserves to be praised. Or to put it in terms they'd understand: Wonderful Pistachios ad writers do it... hackily.

Avocado's number

What the fuck is happening here?



[We open on a super-fake-looking party with goofy background noise and two people not actually talking to each other but rather holding hot dogs at strange angles. Cut to a woman who was clearly just standing there waiting for her cue, striding forward with... a bag of avocados!]
Host [I assume]: "Perfect!"

So this is some sort of weird avocado party? "Everyone just show up with a bag of avocados! All other food will be provided."

[The doorbell rings. Some woman opens it.]
John Lynch: "Hey!"
[The two people who were holding hot dogs look at each other and shake their heads.]
John Lynch: "Wait! I'm- I'm John Lynch! Nine-time Pro Bowler! World champ!"
[He flashes his Super Bowl ring, but it's no use - the door closes in his face.]

Was John Lynch invited to this party? Or does he just walk around neighborhoods wearing his Super Bowl ring, looking for houses with a lot of cars parked outside, trying to get into strangers' parties based on his extremely tenuous fame? (For the record, I watch a lot of football, and I would not have recognized John Lynch had he not introduced himself. Peyton Manning he is not.)

[The doorbell rings again; Lynch offers a tray of some sort of snack - chicken wings? - but the door closes on him again. He tries again with a football-shaped cake - no dice. The woman bulges her eyes as if to say, "I don't think so."]

This makes sense. I don't think I'd let some random dude into my party even if he used to play football and even if he brought his own cake. But wait until you find out why he can't come in.

Voiceover: "What do you bring to a party that has everything?"

Not chicken wings or a football cake, I guess. Although this party does not seem to have those things.

Voiceover: "Fresh, creamy Hass avocados!"

Um, question. How exactly does this party have everything when apparently all it has are Hass avocados? Hot dogs? Throw some Hass avocados on there. Canapes? Better be topped with tiny avocado pieces, asshole. Chicken wings? I can't think of any way to add avocados to that, so basically get the fuck out.

Voiceover: "Nothing else will do!"

Aside from making guacamole, who does anything with avocados for a big party they're hosting? If I went to a party and everything had avocados in it, I would make one of two assumptions: either the hosts have been growing avocados in their backyard and just experienced a bumper crop, or the hosts are in some weird cult that pushes the benefits of the avocado for some reason.

John Lynch: "Puppies!"

Lynch has learned a lot from Pierce, it would seem. But it's worth noting that this commercial ends on a cliffhanger. Do puppies get Lynch into the party? Does the fact that the puppies are in a Hass avocados box win him any points? Or are the guests just even more furious with him? "You took perfectly good avocados out of that box and filled it with puppies? I couldn't eat a puppy with avocados even if I wanted to. Get lost before we call the police on you for avocado-related harassment!" Dammit, Hass, I must know! I smell sequel! Maybe you could get another ex-football player who is not famous enough on sight to warrant appearance in a national ad to appear. I just hope you're paying them in avocados.

The unfunny valley

You guys know the cartoon dude on the Airborne package, right? What? You don't? You barely even know what Airborne is? Oh, inexcusable, friends. That is a famous cartoon spokesman, right there. So famous that he has to be used in a commercial, even when it's completely awkward and weird-looking.



Yes, that classic character, "Mediocre illustration of some guy in a suit on a plane." If you can come up with a single reason why they couldn't just have had him transform into a real guy for this ad, I'd love to hear it. I'm almost positive that would have been cheaper and taken much less time, and it would not have looked horribly creepy to see a human baby being handed to a human man. Unlike here, where it's completely weird to see the baby awkwardly loaded into the arms of some guy in a green Lycra bodysuit our "hero." Is the baby so upset because it's half-human, half-cartoon and is teething with garish, animated teeth that will sing and dance across its gums?

I do enjoy, on some level, how delightfully desperate this ad is. It's almost like it's a response to dwindling business travel as a result of the recession. "Wait, Airborne isn't just to help boost your immune system while traveling on planes, where diseases can run rampant! You can use it at literally any time! For example, when life gets 'out of control' or 'catches up to you!'" Come on, Airborne. Those aren't even really two different things, to say nothing of the fact that the situations involved are textbook examples of "this is structured like something that's supposed to be funny, but you could not point to a single thing that is actually funny about it." My teenage daughter brought a questionable boyfriend home? Oh no, my immune system! Maybe if she had an actual human father she wouldn't feel such a need to rebel. Or maybe she's lashing out because he's clearly never home - at the end of the ad, his wife kisses him and says "Night, dear," and what does he do? He gets right back onto the airplane on the box! "Well, that's my 15 seconds at home for the year. See you in 2010, kids!"

Also, isn't the whole point of Airborne that it's an "on the go" type of thing? Look at that little tube it comes in! I'm supposed to use this even at my own house, where I surely have orange juice and vitamin supplements already if I'm that concerned about my immune system? This reminds me of those Cookie Crisp ads from the mid-90s that tried to sell a children's breakfast cereal (albeit an inappropriate one in the first place) as a snack to adults. If your product already has a very clear role in the marketplace, trying to ridiculously reposition it is rarely a good move. "No, really, you can use Airborne anywhere! Please use Airborne anywhere!" Not happening.

It's all about the no

Remember Overstock.com? One of like five companies that survived the dot-com bust of the early 2000s? Sells surplus stuff? Well, if you haven't heard of them recently, surely this commercial starring two people you've never heard of will jog your memory.



On-Screen Title: "A Love Story"

Whatever.

Rory: "Hey Joey, I wrote a song about you!"

Actually what he says is "I wrote a song aboutcha," but I'll be damned if I'm going to type all the dialogue that way.

Rory: [unfortunately, singing] "Her hair is yellow like a bale of hay, blue eyes like a sky on a summer day..."
Joey: "Yellow hair? Blue eyes? Sounds just like me." [hangs up phone, returns to surfing Overstock.com]

"Let's see here... Overstock.com... books... ah, here we go: Chicken Soup for the Soul's Divorce and Recovery. Ooh, and it's in paperback!"

What she actually does is buy him a guitar. Because the problem with the song was the music and not the lyrics. (Okay, it was also the music, but I don't think the guitar is going to help matters.)

Rory: [singing again, sadly] "Her eyes are brown... her legs are long..."

Stop.

Joey: [cutting him off] "His hair is red, and his love is strong."

So strong that he didn't know what color your hair was until you bought him something? What is the point of this ad?

On-Screen Title: "In Hardison Mill, Tennessee, it's Joey and Rory"

Who else is there? Who else? I demand to know their dog's name!

"and Rufus"

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"At home with the 'O'"

What the fuck? No, seriously, what the fuck? Is Overstock taking credit for saving their marriage by magically allowing Rory to figure out what color Joey's hair is through the power of instrumental music? (Fuck that a cappella shit.)

If you haven't heard of Joey and Rory, you're not alone. Apparently they're some sort of country duo who placed third (all of third!) on Country Music Television's show Can You Duet?, which I'm forced to assume is some sort of half-assed American Idol substitute. I hope Overstock.com didn't break their advertising budget signing up these two when any two people who were capable of carrying a tune would have worked exactly as well. (Of course, when you hire Joey and Rory, Rufus will actually waive his usual appearance fee, and I mean, if you can get Rufus in your commercial, you might as well start printing money.)

"Overstock.com. Touchingly low prices."

Apparently this ad was supposed to be touching. And I'm guessing they don't mean index finger touching uvula.

Rory: "My hair's not red!"

Oh, shit, y'all! Better buy Joey her own guitar, dude. Because Overstock guitars will give you the power of color vision, or so I've been led to believe.

So, the only real explanation I can come up with is that Rory is supposed to be a songwriting incompetent - to the extent that he has no idea what his own wife looks like - until he receives a magical Overstock guitar? Or, I guess, the guitar proves that she loves him, which thus enables him to realize what she looks like, having forgotten during the like two hours he didn't see her after she left the house that morning. (Absence makes the heart grow dumber.) Or this is a really stupid commercial.

You know what doesn't make for a good commercial? One that has nothing to do with the product it's advertising. I don't care that she's shown ordering a guitar from Overstock, this ad says basically nothing about Overstock.com that a five-second title card reading "Overstock.com: We sell everything" couldn't. Other ways this ad could have gone:

* Show Rufus chewing on a dog treat; Milk-Bone graphic

* Show Joey and Rory sitting outside in bathtubs; Cialis logo (on a related note, those two are married? Really? Either Rory's hung like a stallion or Joey is so crazy no other man would go near her)

* Show Joey slapping Rory when she gets home; title card for Hardison + Mill, divorce specialists

* Just have the Kool-Aid Man jump into frame at the end; it makes as much sense as anything else

Money well spent

Oh, Hyundai. Why didn't you just hire Maria Sharapova, tennis champion?



(Skip ahead to 0:17, since the first part of the video is just some bumper that precedes the ad.)

Salesman: [yammers about features on the car, then says] "Plus, right now you can get $2000 cash back!"
Customer: [sounding utterly unimpressed] "Pretty impressive."

This should have been followed by a massive, cartoonish yawn take. Am I right?

Larry Winget, Best-Selling Author of You're Broke Because You Want to Be, Who Is Creepily Hiding in the Back Seat: "Pretty impressive?"
Customer: "Larry Winget? Best-selling author of You're Broke Because You Want to Be?"

First of all, bullshit. No one outside of the Winget family knows Larry Winget on sight. Second of all, if Larry Winget were famous enough to justify an appearance in this ad, you wouldn't need to mention both his name and the book he's "known" for having written. I also love how the customer still sounds totally underwhelmed. Did they spend too much money getting Larry Winget, Best-Selling Author of You're Broke Because You Want to Be for the ad and not have enough left over to hire an actor who could modulate his voice?

LW, B-SAOYBBYWTB, WICHITBS: "Take the money you'll save and pay down your credit card debt."

I love that this is what passes for sage financial advice. It's not Larry Winget's fault that the American public is so stupid with credit, I guess, but really? "Hey, maybe pay off some of your credit card debt?" Good call, financial guru. Also, if you're that serious about needing to pay off your debt, maybe don't buy a new car, much less a gas-guzzling SUV (17 mpg city, 24 mpg highway). Larry? Maybe? I bet if you asked him when Hyundai wasn't paying him, he'd tell you the same thing.

Customer: "Probably should."
LW, B-SAOYBBYWTB, WICHITBS: "Did he just say probably?"
Customer: "Definitely. [sotto voce] Probably." [flatlines]

God, you are so boring. This is what passes for a joke in this clunker of an ad, by the way.

I kind of feel like if Larry Winget gave financial advice to large corporations, he would take Hyundai to task for wasting their money on a pitchman who is so not famous that he has to be addressed by his full name and what he's (not actually) famous for doing. "Hell, what are you guys thinking? Is my appearance in this ad really any more convincing than any random actor saying the same lines? You could have taken the money you saved by not hiring me and bought a pool table for the company break room to boost morale!"