Someone's Not Gonna Like This. . .

Wow, two posts in one day!? Actually, I wrote that last one 2 days ago (which you could probably figure out since I set it up to post at the ungodly hour of 6:21am; I like you guys, just not enough to be writing awesome blog posts for you any time before 10 o'clock), but Pat had sent me something already and I don't like pushing other people out of the top spot until everyone's had a chance to read it. How's that for a run-on sentence? On the other hand, I have no such qualms about pushing out my own stuff, since it's so awesome that you should be searching it out no matter how far down the page it gets.

Have you ever heard of Powermat? It appears to be some sort of. . . mat that wirelessly charges electronic devices such as Blackberries, Droids, iPods, iPhones, iPugs, etc. Sounds interesting, although I don't find myself hating cords enough to invest in it.

Here's their commercial. Well, one of them anyways. Go watch it, or else the rest of this isn't going to make sense.

So how long until people start complaining about this? I'm giving it a week tops before I find a random link to someone's bitching about how the ad is completely inappropriate and juvenile. People are far too sensitive these days. Thanks a lot, bin Laden.

-Jon

The Worst Commercials on Television

It's been a while since big Slick brewed up a fresh batch of commercial haterade, but have no fear; this week I've seen the trifecta of shitty ass commercials. Right to the hatred. Those swears aren't going to write themselves.

The Shake Weight: One of the most baffling commercials in the history of mankind. The commercial claims that in only six minutes a day you can get ripped like your on some sort of hgh. The only problem is that every guy, ever, in the history of mankind already uses a shake weight six minutes a day and most of them are fat slobs. Get it? It's because the shake weight makes it look like you're giving yourself the "low five." Back when the shake weight for women came out there was a video from either Funnyordie or Collegehumor or some website like that that redubbed the commercial to say, "It's like j-ing off d after d." I can't believe that no one in product development or market research or advertising or really anybody associated with the product wasn't like, "Ummmmmm yeah but it looks a lot like masturbating." I'm gonna have to guess that there were no men involved or they just thought it was funny. Heh heh. Masturbation.

The New Snuggie Commercial: In a very close second for Slick's Worst Commercial on Television is the snuggie remix. The snuggie is a robe that you wear backwards but looks twice as retarded. I don't really remember how this new commercial goes because I've tried to block it from my memory, but I believe it's the "Macarena" remixed with horrible, horrible, really just god awful snuggie lyrics. I saw a person wearing a snuggie once and I immediately lost all respect for that person but since I'm apparently as old as Kathryn my memory is starting to go and I can't remember who it was. I have to assume my brain was so horrified by what I saw that I instantaneously repressed that memory. The snuggie incident and that time that "Uncle Carlos" stayed at our house . . . wait a minute . . . Uncle Carlos? That doesn't sound right. But really, these people go outside in a snuggie? Wear a sweatshirt, wear a fucking jacket, basically wear anything but if I see you wear a snuggie I'm going to punch you in the man/lady balls (depending on gender) and then run away. Seriously, I will hurt you. All 9 of you have been warned.

The Quizno's 5-4-3 Cat Commercials: Chances are that if you've talked to me for more than 20 seconds at some point I've talked about how much I hate cats. I feel like my passionate but well-deserved hatred of cats is a real conversation piece. I hate cats. The worst dog is still better than the best cat. I can't stand cats. I don't like them. I don't trust them. Any animal that doesn't get excited when you come home is not a pet. Also, I have yet to meet a nice cat. "Oh but my cat is so sweet" . . . blah, blah, blah. Your cat sucks. Deal with it. This piece of shit is set to the tune of "Three Blind Mice" but it's sung in a super annoying voice and it doesn't rhyme. If you're lucky Jon turned this into a link for you so you should go watch it and see how bad it is. I have to guess that they picked the three blind mice tune and then tried to put words to it before deciding, "Yeah it doesn't rhyme but fuck it. That's the commercial. Dance monkeys. Eat our delicious delicious subs." This commercial is bad enough that I would consider never eating Quizno's again and I fucking love that place. You know what would have made that commercial better? Puppies . . . and less annoying voices . . . and getting rid of the commercial entirely.

I'm not very happy with this post. Maybe I'll rewrite it and post it again. But probably not. Hopefully my next one about the Green Zone will be better.

-Slick

The New Heineken Commercial is. . .

a little too close to the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" commercials for me to think they are not inspired by that particular advertising campaign. Slash ripping it off.

Here are a bunch of the Dos Equis ones. And the first one here is the new Heineken one with Maurice. Go watch those, and then come back for the discussion. Also, you may have to sign in to watch some of them because they are about alcohol or some such baloney. Come on, Youtube. I could probably find naked people in a shorter time that it takes me to write this sentence, but you're going to censor my booze commercial watching? That seems ridiculous.

Also, don't you feel blessed that you get 2 posts in one day? You should. This is a rare occasion that will be celebrated by. . . I don't know, something with beer perhaps.

Ok, you've watched both? Let's look at the similarities.

Both characters are older gentlemen who are clearly quite popular with the ladies. The Dos Equis guy (does he have a name? I don't think he does. I am going to call him Carlos for the rest of this post) is some white guy pretending to be something else, possibly Hispanic, while Maurice is a black guy who is being a black guy. Obviously both commercials are going for minority appeal. Carlos has two different types of commercials: ones where he is described by a voiceover and ones where he offers advice on a specific topic. Maurice only has one commercial that I've seen; he recommends Peter Cetera to some nerdstrom (1 point for getting the reference) as a good way to pick up chicks. So advice comes from both of these guys. This is another major similarity. There's probably something else, but I just don't feel like writing any more. The point is that Heineken ripped off Dos Equis, and people need to know that!

Although, to be fair, Dos Equis clearly ripped off the "Most Interesting Man in the World" idea from those Chuck Norris things that go around all the time. So apparently everyone is a crook. Maurice is a ripoff of Carlos, who is a ripoff of Chuck Norris. It's like American Dad is a ripoff of Peter Griffin, who is a ripoff of Homer. And any book I write will probably end up being a ripoff of something else. Making up new things is hard. Except for the Cupcake Saga. The only thing ripped off there is Nanerpus. I think I originally had a point here.

Did you know? Chuck Norris is so tough, there's no chin under his beard; there is only another fist.

-Jon

And One I Forgot

Those Kia Soul commercials where the characters are all hamsters? Just awful. What the hell is going on here? The hamsters seem to be implying that my options are to drive a Kia or to drive some kind of appliance. There are hamsters driving in toasters and washing machines and a few just running with a cardboard cutout. And all the hamsters are like bad stereotypes of black people. Way to go, Kia, you just cut your potential buyer pool by being racist jackoffs. This is the type of commercial that makes me want to be sure I never buy the product. That has to be the opposite of what a commercial is designed to do.

-Jon

The Return of Commercial Hatred!

It's been a while since we've hated on commercials here, so let's bring that back. I will only be dishing out the hate here, and not offering any improvements. For one, these things are just terrible and can't be improved without completely overhauling the entire thing. For the other, I just feel like being negative today. This also could be titled "Companies I Will Not Be Utilizing Until They Change Their Advertising Campaigns," except that that particular title would not fit nicely at the top of the post.

Sullivan Tire

I can't figure these things out. They've got Dustin Pedroia doing various baseball-related activities, and then that crazy looking guy (probably Mr Sullivan) comes on and the whole thing goes to hell. I am not exactly sure if this is the wording, but the commercials always go something like this: "It takes determination to succeed on the diamond. At Sullivan Tire, we'll get you the tires you need to get where you're going." Uh, what? What kind of ridiculous non-sequitor is that? It sounds like something from that Ray Romano Sportscenter skit. And I always say, you gotta get to White Castle before the weirdos show up. Yeah, that's equally nonsensical. Except that I didn't pay someone thousands of dollars to put it on television.

Six Flags

Specifically the ones that have the "old" guy and now apparently his midget clone. Apparently flags are a rating system for how fun things are, and the commercials compare various activities with going to Six Flags, but they always compare stupid things. Making birdhouses? Camping? Everything is more fun than camping! If I had to choose between going camping and having pugs stomp on my nuts for a couple hours, it would be a very difficult decision. They should compare Six Flags to actually doing something fun. Going to Six Flags is a fun rating of six flags? Then going out drinking with my friends is like 11 flags. Playing the new Mario Galaxy is like 9 flags. Sitting around doing nothing is probably at least 5. Then, to make matters worse, they start playing that awful Vengaboys song. That song is from 1998. And it wasn't even good then. And unlike wine or cheese or scotch, time has not improved it. Until that bald jackass and that song are gone, I am boycotting this place. Let's see if it can survive without my $42.99.

Corona

These commercials are hit or miss. There are some decent ones, like the one where the guy changes the time for happy hour from 5-8 to 5-infinity (yay math humour!) or the ones where it looks like the Corona bottles have a hammock between them but the camera pans out and it is actually palm trees. I am not referring to these ones. What I am referring to are the new trio of commercials which appear to be a series. It's a guy and presumably his wife or girlfriend sitting on the beach drinking Coronas and various people walk by. These commercials are bullshit. When an attractive girl walks by, the guy checks her out (hey, it's hardwired into our DNA) and the girl squirts him in the face with a lime. When what I have to assume is an attractive guy walks by, the girl checks him out and the guy has to open a shaken up beer. When a group of attractive girls walk by, the guy checks them out and then apparently has to squirt himself in the face with a lime. So let me get this straight: if a guy checks out a girl, he gets squirted in the face, but if a girl checks out a guy, the guy has to open a beer that is definitely going to explode? That's bullshit. If I'm that guy, I'm going to tell the bitch with me to fuck off and then find a new, non-citrus-assaulting girl. Clearly there are an abundance of ladies around. There's a decent chance that at least one of them is not a bitch.

And that will do it for this episode. Clearly this is a very deep well, and we'll be returning to it from time to time.

-Jon

A Slight Change of Pace

Now, we here at Mmmmopinions have had a lot of fun at the expense of. . . well, pretty much anything. But tonight, I am here to help. As Slick has pointed out a couple of times, most commercials are terrible. However, they don't have to be that way. It's just that the people making them seem to have some sort of inability to be funny.

One of the easiest ways to make a bad commercial better, or to make a good commercial great, is to add violence. It can be either unexpected violence, which is always awesome, or expected violence but delivered in a funny way. Before you get all offended, maybe you should read the following paragraphs. Also, all these ideas are based on actual commercials, which probably makes this plagiarism.

First, we will deal with the expected violence but in a funny way. Remember the Doritos commercial during the Super Bowl? No, not that one. No, not that one either. Yes, I realize there were 17 different commercials. I am talking about the one where the guy goes to see his girlfriend, and she is upstairs, so he sits on the couch and then a little kid slaps him in the face and tells him not to touch his mama or his Doritos. Problem with this commercial? That's where it ends. Solution? Here you go.

Scene: A normal suburban home living room. STUPID LITTLE KID is in the room.

Enter GUY.

[WOMAN's VOICE OFFSCREEN]: I'll be down in a second.

GUY: Hey little man.

GUY sits down on couch and grabs a Dorito.

STUPID LITTLE KID walks over and slaps GUY.

STUPID LITTLE KID: Don't touch my mama, and don't touch my chips.

Cut to outside view of house. STUPID LITTLE KID comes flying out a bay window, shattering the glass.

[MALE ANNOUNCER voiceover]: Doritos. Good enough to throw a kid for.

See? That commercial was almost good on its own, but it failed to follow up the kid slapping the guy with something expected, which is the kid getting his ass handed to him. Believe me, if a kid slapped me, there will be repercussions.

The other company that seriously needs my assistance is AT&T. They used to have those terrible bar commercials where all sorts of different objects mysteriously formed those 5 bars. Those are beyond my abilities, as there is not an easy way to work someone getting slapped into those. Then they had the ones with the little orange clocks representing rollover minutes, which have some hope. Finally, or currently, they abandoned those for whatever reason to sign up with either Fat Luke Wilson, or a fat guy who has killed Luke Wilson and is now wearing him as a suit. They are just stupid, which Slick has addressed.

So it looks like I'm fixing the Rollover commercials. Easy.

Scene: A family sedan traveling along a quiet road. DAD is driving, MOM is in the front passenger seat and STUPID KID and OTHER KID are sitting in the backseat.

STUPID KID is looking down at his phone.

STUPID KID: Hey Mom, I need some minutes.

MOM: What? I just gave you some at the restaurant.

STUPID KID: Yeah, I threw those out; they were old.

MOM (getting irritated): They're Rollover minutes, they're still fine!

STUPID KID: Yeah, but there were old.

MOM stares angrily for a second, then leaps over the seat into the backseat. She repeatedly hits STUPID KID with an open palm.

MOM: Goddam it, how many times to I have to tell you, there's no difference! Stop throwing out my goddam minutes you moron!! I told your father not to smoke around me while I was pregnant with your stupid ass!!

MOM takes STUPID KID's phone and throws it from the moving vehicle.

MOM: There! Now you've got plenty of minutes. Ass hat.

[MALE ANNOUNCER voiceover]: Only AT&T has Rollover, which lets you keep your unused minutes. Sign up now and shut your stupid kids up.

And fixed. You have to figure that there's only so many times that that stupid kid could throw out the minutes before the Mom flipped her shit. So really I'm just giving people what they want.

Any commercial companies out there, I can help you too. Basically I will take your awful crap and make it into something that will sell products and offend losers. Because seriously, you don't want losers buying your stuff. It totally sends the wrong message.

Also, if you laughed at that second commercial, you may be a jerk, so you should probably go donate some money so that it will cancel out your bad karma.

-Jon

Commercials That I Don't Hate . . . But It Doesn't Necessarily Mean I Like Them

I know. I was surprised to find out that there were some. No cream. No fluff. Just some good old fashioned . . . not hate.

NAPA Auto Parts:
I'm not sure if you've seen this commercial so let me break it down for you. A guy gets into his truck and goes to start it, only to find that it won't turn over. He then has the following monologue: "Oh come on. Not today. OH YOU'VE GOT TO BE [BLEEP]IN ME" I'm not making this up, they really censor their own commercial which I think is hilarious. Who intentionally makes a commercial so that it will have to be censored? Well, I mean you've read the blog so you know that I would, but it still shocks me that anyone else would. So kudos NAPA.

Bernie and Phyll's "Two and Half Men" Takeoff:
Now, I'm almost positive that no one's seen this one so I'm definitely going to break this badboy down. I usually make dinner sometime between 6:30 and 7:30 so I almost always throw Two and a Half Men on at 7. So the first time I heard it I was cooking in the kitchen and the episode ended. The "Men men men men manly men men men. . ." song comes on as the credits roll . . . no big deal. But then the song started again. Naturally perplexed, I glanced at the tv to see some chick with really broad shoulders doing the "manly men men" song. Huh? She's then joined by two dudes so at this point I'm confused as all hell. They finish the song and then it's just some regular bullshit furniture commercial with some really bad acting. So apparently the genius advertising department of Bernie and Phyll decided that their money was well spent appealing specifically to the audience that watches Two and a Half Men at 7 on channel 10 on whatever cable BC provides. Now normally I would hate this commercial because it's so stupid, but I'm just too confused by the thought process behind it.

St. Mary's Credit Union:
Because when I think of St. Mary, I almost immediately go to money lending. It's just a little baffling. I've never claimed to be a Bible expert but I'm pretty sure Jesus threw the money lenders out of the temple, but his mother loves dolling out the sheckles. Simply baffling.

And now I'll end things on a less confusing although very frustrating note. I spent the weekend on Martha's Vineyard and we took a much dreaded mystery trip around the island. Eventually we came to a town called Gay Head. Seriously. You can look it up. Apparently they changed the name like 10 years ago but nobody gives a shit and they still call it Gay Head. So we're in Gay Head and we're running around with Patches and he meets a group of dogs. He's jumping around being a maniac when he decides he's going to get a little more intimate, so he started licking another dog's wiener. In Gay Head. The irony was not lost on me.

-Slick

Even More Commercials I Hate

The last day of the month seemed like a perfect opportunity to get out some good old fashioned hate and I HATE commercials. Seriously, it should not be this difficult to make a decent commercial. Do people actually like these? Is it just me? Who thought they were a good idea? I don't know, but here's me yelling about stuff.

Domino's Pizza:
I was angry enough when they decided that their new ad campaign would be "Hey our Pizza used to taste like shit but trust us, it tastes REALLY good now." Well fuck you Domino's because I'm not buying it, and that refers to your shitty advertising campaign and your shitty pizza. I remember eating Domino's in freshman year of high school and thinking that it tasted like ketchup on cardboard . . . and that was 8 years ago. So like I said, their shitty campaign would be enough to receive my wrath, but then they decided to go after my beloved Papa John's. Have you ever had Papa John's? It's so freaking good. But that smug fucknut tries to tell me that their slogan is puffery. Do you think I give a shit? I just want good pizza. I haven't tried your new shit pizza because I assume it still tastes like dick but how DARE you insult my beloved Papa John. You're damn right I used beloved again. That pizza is the fuckin tits. Oh what's that? You have a chart that says more people like Domino's than Papa John's? I'm sure you couldn't have just made that up. So fuck you Domino's.

John Hancock Investments:
I'm pretty sure these are the commercials where some douchebag is sitting somewhere like a coffee shop or a train and they get some stupid message from some idiot concerned about their future. "How do we get back from WILL WE retire to WHEN WE retire?" Are you seriously going to text someone that? Well I'm glad you lost all your money because you fucking annoy me. I've admitted that I'm pretty easily annoyed, but I absolutely despise these commercials. I hate that stupid alert sound that goes off. Thanks buddy, I'm trying to enjoy my coffee and I have to listen to your stupid fucking phone going off. This review kind of sucks so I'm just going to move on to something else. I'll probably edit it but for now my angry incoherent writing will have to suffice. I might actually have to do some research on this one but you can tell that my hate is in the right spot.

AT&T and Verizon Commercials:
Apparently they've both decided that the best way to ensure that I choose Boost Mobile when my contract runs up is to annoy the fuck out of me with maps. I forget which one started this ridiculous map bullshit but I think it was Verizon. Let's see, they have the stupid one where the kid sits in front of the TV, they have the one where the two guys are speed skating and one wins because he has Verizon because that fucking makes sense, and then there's the one where the guys are at a coffee shop and they can't send in their report because they don't have Verizon. Well why don't you work at a fucking office or at home like normal people. But then AT&T decided that they would one-up Verizon by getting Luke Wilson's fatter older brother to do their commercials. He says some stuff and their map falls apart, he says some stuff and tosses some postcards, he says some stuff and ruins a perfectly nice stack of minutes. Here's the thing and I want both of you to listen up: I don't live in the middle of fucking nowhere, you know, relatively speaking. I really don't care if either of you work in West Buttfuck, Wyoming. Just tell me if . . . fuck it, I really just don't care.

As an interesting side not, I just saw a commercial saying that the Olympics are coming soon. Not difficult to see why NBC lost a little bit of money covering the Olympics.

-Slick

3 Days, 3 Posts is . . .

either an accomplishment to be proud of or a reason to look for more extracurricular activities. Either way, here are some things that grind my gears.

The Chase Commercials
For those of you that don't remember what these are, they're the black and white commercials where the wife is acting like a total bitch. First she takes all of their hard-earned points and spends them on a dress. A fucking dress. That's really thoughtful. You could've gone on a nice vacation or to a fancy restaurant, but she picks a dress. Bitch. Then they're on the chairlift and he wants to check how much money they have left in their account or something. I don't know I wasn't really paying attention. But she's all like, "You don't have enough time to check." JUST LET THE MAN MAKE HIS PHONECALL. Even if he had to hang up, which he didn't, why do you have to act like a total bitch about it? I will not "Chase what matters." I don't really hate those commercials, I just hate that bitch. Bitch.

The New LeBron/Kobe Puppet Commercial
I've only seen it once, but I already hate it. I think they're in a barbershop or something stupid when, and this one's a curveball, Zyldrunas Ilgauskus walks in. Oh goody. LeBron and Big Z go through some stupid handshake routine that's even more frustrating than their pre-game antics which I so thoroughly detest. I don't really have much to say about this one other than I'm glad to see that even in a down economy the less-fortunate or "retarded" can still find work. But I suppose I should say the "R-word" so Sarah Palin doesn't throw a hissy-fit. Bitch.

Cooking Pasta
This isn't really an opinion as much as a confession. I know how to cook pasta. I do it several times a week because it's relatively, ok really, simple. I've got a little system: when the pasta's cooked I drain the water. Fool proof. But here's the problem. I usually buy a 2 pound box or something in that neighborhood because it lasts for a while. But I always, always, ALWAYS overestimate the amount of pasta I need. Tonight I cooked some elbow macaroni and even after eating two huge servings and Matt eating a huge serving I still had enough pasta fore 2 maybe 3 meals. I wasn't even close. I haven't overestimated anything this badly since like last weekend when I tried to eat 6 pounds of shrimp.

-Slick