Capital One Cash Rewards Card “More Cash” Ad

In this commercial for the Capital One Cash Rewards Card, Jimmy Fallon says everyone wants more cash; well, everyone except for one person: a toddler. This young child says he doesn’t want more cash, throwing various and sundry objects at Mr. Fallon to display his displeasure with this reckless throwing around of valuable monetary resources. You see, toddlers, babies, and other little children see what’s been going on lately with the financial crisis, and its resultant reckless overspending by governments worldwide, particularly here at home, with President Obama spending the country practically to the brink of bankruptcy. Well, Republicans have spoken out against such policies, as well as conservative pundits like Glenn Beck, and since children are such avid followers of conservative talk radio, they’ve become alarmed at the irresponsible and reckless monetary and spending policies implemented by governments and banks worldwide: for their generation is the one who will suffer for these misbegotten policies of overspending.

Yes, it’s this child’s generation who will be on the hook for paying the debts when the bills come due for all the bailouts and stimulus plans, and they’re becoming very angry and vindictive about it, and understandably so! So when Mr. Fallon shows up, saying everyone’s going to get free money, and then he literally throws money up in the air, saying he’s going to “make it rain up in here”, this young fiscally responsible child sees this as a blatantly pernicious scam endangering his and his whole generation’s financial future! That’s why he’s throwing stuff at Mr. Fallon: to indicate his outrage at Fallon’s disrespect for responsible spending policies, and his complicity in propagating the criminally negligent generational theft being perpetrated against today’s children. (At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on here; otherwise, why wouldn’t the kid want more money? Then he could buy more stuff to throw at Jimmy Fallon!)

But what I don’t understand is why they didn’t just get some greedy, money-grubbing miser toddler to make their Rewards Card’s “more cash” approach seem more attractive. Because when they show this little kid obviously demonstrating against such reckless fiscal behavior the only way he can, surely this will remind us all of what a desperate financial situation we’re all in at the moment, and we’ll recognize that we really need to be saving our money, rather than getting a new credit card and buying more stuff we really don’t need. I mean, sure, America has a proud tradition of empty-headed consumerism, but the revelation of this child’s protest against irresponsible spending will surely wake us all up to our obligations to stop this policy of unsustainable spending before it truly bankrupts the country and irreversibly destroys our children’s future! Right?

But you know, perhaps this is Capital One’s secret plan! Maybe what they’re doing here is disseminating fiscally conservative propaganda disguised as a credit card commercial! And in so doing, nobody will realize that they’re actually a covert committee of Republican activists trying to stop President Obama’s reckless spending agenda. But then again, they are a bank, so I suppose it’s pretty obvious that they’re mostly Republicans anyway, so perhaps the hidden agenda embedded within this ad isn’t so surprising after all. Unless I’m misreading this spot, and it’s just supposed to be a cute and playful commercial for a credit card with a darling little child abusing a well-loved comic and late night host for humorous effect. But I don’t think so, because why would anyone want to just make a silly and fun ad like this when we’re barely teetering on the cliff’s edge of irreparable worldwide financial ruin? Why, that would be like fiddling while Rome burns! And surely banks aren’t so blatantly irresponsible about dangerous financial stuff like that, are they? Because if they are, then it might start to look like banks may have had something to do with the worldwide financial crash, and that would be bad for business!

Here’s the barely concealed financial policy criticism cleverly masquerading as a commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME5NJj_iEbw&feature=relmfu

And here's the one where Jimmy Fallon "makes it rain up in here":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee1yrkDgkh0