“We Got the Beat” In Ads (New Wendy’s Ad?)

Target has a new ad that uses The Go-Go’s classic song: “We Got the Beat”, but with altered lyrics. I’m surprised I haven’t seen this done more often, but in a more natural way. This Target ad changes the song to where the lyrics are practically unrecognizable, and as such, they lose the context. I always thought “We Got the Beat” could have been so easily and amusingly altered to “We Got the Meat” for a Meat Lover’s Pizza ad, or to “We Got the Beef” for Wendy’s. And for the Wendy’s ad, the ad could start with a replay of that famous “Where’s the beef?” quote from the 1980s ad, and then an all girl band of redheads (The Wendys) could smash through the background and play: “We Got the Beef”, and then show pictures of the enormous Wendy’s hamburgers. It’s so obvious, I’m frankly shocked they haven’t done it before! (Maybe the song was too expensive to license? But in any case, that would be my Wendy’s ad, if I were making one.)

Chinese Synchronized Diving

I watched the synchronized diving events, and the Chinese teams won gold again. One of the announcers said that some famous sportswriter in England* wrote that the Chinese looked like they were diving into a vat of molasses, while everyone else looked like they were diving into water. I don’t know if I agree with that assessment, but it’s a good idea to try it, maybe.

What I think was in the back of this writer’s mind was the possibility of having the Chinese dive into molasses next time, so maybe they’d get stuck, and they’d have to be disqualified. Or else, if they managed to get out, maybe the molasses would dry on them and harden, and it would limit their mobility, so they’d lose. But if they’re going to do this kind of thing, I have an even better idea.

What they ought to do is this: There are six dives in the competition, and so for each dive they could make them dive into a vat of something yummy, but different every time. Like, maybe the first could be molasses, the second one could be into honey, the third into caramel, the fourth into nougat, the fifth into crushed peanuts, and the sixth into milk chocolate. That way, even if they manage to win, everyone would eat them before the medal ceremony, because they’d be like big walking candy bars. Americans can’t resist that kind of temptation! So then the next best team would win the gold! (Hey: it’s just an idea…)

(This is just a joke, I hope you all realize!)

* After a bit of research, I have found it was Simon Barnes of The Times who wrote the article, and it was called: “Chinese divers the human face of excellence”. (I would provide a link, but I can’t find one that doesn’t try to make you sign up to see it, so I’ll let you look it up yourself if you’re interested.) But the Chinese divers are great, aren’t they? Wow!

Bottled Water Olympic Swimming Ad (Joke/Spec)

In watching the Olympic swimming, I’ve noticed that many swimmers bring a bottle of mineral water out with them, they open it, and then they pour it on their head. I thought it might be fun to have an ad for some brand of bottled water where they first show video of nature, mountains, crystal springs, etc., and then they brag about how wonderful their water is, etc., and then they cut to an Olympic swimmer carrying a bottle out, and they say: “In fact, it’s so naturally refreshing and empowering, (so and so {Olympic champion swimmer}) likes to energize before a race with it!” And then they show the swimmer open the bottle and pour it on their head, and the announcer has a fit, saying: “Wait.. What are you doing? You’re supposed to drink it! And after all the trouble we went to making the best water in the world, you just pour it on your head?” And then they show this swimmer winning the gold medal, and then on the podium, and the announcer says: “Oh, well, in that case, I guess we can make an exception. But for everyone else, you should refresh yourself by drinking it!”

If There’s Olympic Table Tennis, Then Why Not…

Hey, Ping Pong at the Olympic level looks really hard. I guess that’s why it’s called “Table Tennis”, and not “Ping Pong”. But it’s still Ping Pong. And if they’re going to include Ping Pong in the Olympics, then why not Foosball? They can call it “Table Football” or “Table Soccer” if it needs to sound more self-important to be in the Olympics. And then, naturally, they’ll have to allow Air Hockey (“Table Hockey” for the Olympics!) as well. And, of course, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots (“Table Boxing” for the Olympics).

And while we’re at it, since there’s Ping Pong, then why not Olympic Pong? (<The old video game.) And if there’s Pong, then we’ll have to add Pac-Man too* (Ms. Pac-Man for the ladies!), as well as Asteroids, Defender, Space Invaders, etc. In fact, why not just branch it out into a video game Olympics? There should totally be one of those! (I demand Olympic Altered Beast!) Then we could see couch potatoes bragging on ESPN about their thumb & finger pre-Olympics workouts. (Wouldn’t that be fun for a change of pace?)

And if there was a whole new Olympics movement for video games and for home entertainment games, then there could also be a whole new advertising blitz for these “athletes”, where they say they get their energy from Funyuns, Cheetos, Bugles, Pork Rinds, etc. Oh, and White Castle hamburgers and delivery pizza stuff like P’Zones!

And how about a board games Olympics? I’d love to watch Olympic Trouble, Monopoly, Clue, Parcheesi, Stratego, Battleship, Hungry Hungry Hippos, etc., on TV! (And of course, Olympic Twister!) Wouldn’t you?

* The gold medal for Pac-Man would be a gold Pac-Man-shaped medal, of course!

Olympic Equestrian Taekwondo

I was watching the Olympic horsie stuff, and it occurred to me that the horses were doing all the work, while the people were getting all the credit. I think if horses are going to be involved in Olympic competition, the least we could do is give them the credit, and let them get a little revenge on humans for forcing them to do our bidding for so long. (PeTA will agree, I’m sure!) But how to do it? Well, in the recent Olympic tradition of whittling away events, how about combining some to keep everyone in the game somehow? And what better way than to combine Equestrian with Taekwondo for a new event: Equestrian Taekwondo?

Here’s how this would work: The guy who usually rides the horse and bosses it around will poke the horse in the butt from behind with a stick until the horse kicks them. Then, Olympic officials measure the distance of the kick, and the longest kick wins. And just to be nice to the people, they get to wear umpire pads or whatever works best to protect them from serious injury. (Although the horse gets bonus points for injuring them through the pads.)

Seriously: wouldn’t you watch it? I would. I’ll bet it would be the highest-rated event in the entire Olympics! (Especially since horse people tend to be rich, and there is a big worldwide recession going on.)

(You know, one of the most fun parts of this idea for me is imagining the training regimens teams will develop for this event. I mean, you know someone will invent a robotic device to poke horse bottoms and then measure the force of the kicks, right? And then, obviously, the human part of the team will have to toughen themselves up by getting beaten in the solar plexus with cricket bats and baseball bats, or else train by having cannonballs shot into their chests.)

Game Changing Medal Spray

You know, during the Olympics, the color of people’s medals seem to mean a lot. And that’s why I’m surprised that no spray paint company has come forward with ads for a quick-fix solution to not making the color medal you wanted. You see, nowadays, there are instant spray-on gold, silver and bronze finishes that look just as shiny and real as the real thing! So what they could do is have an ad campaign that tells Olympians how to change their bronze or silver to gold in one easy step. (And also how to change their opponent’s gold to something else.) Simply point and spray with (whatever brand’s) gold chrome finish, and win gold immediately! (And then you just have to corner your opponent in the Olympic Village and spray their medal bronze. Or maybe do it secretly while they’re sleeping!)

Yes, get yours wherever bad sportsmanship products are sold!

The 2012 Olympics Logo

I love the Olympics, and these London games are just wonderful! But that does nothing to improve the look of the London 2012 Olympics logo, which is just awful! It’s the one with all the jaggedy-looking angular stuff that looks kind of like a broken mirror or something, but in ugly, tacky colors. When it was first unveiled, apparently they posted an animated motion graphics version of it online, and it caused people to have epileptic seizures when they viewed it. (Yes, really.) I must say, when your logo causes people to become seriously ill, and indeed sends people to the hospital when they see it, I think it’s time to reconsider your design. Oh, but displaying the true Olympic spirit of never giving up and never backing down, they refused to change it, so now we’re all being subjected to it anyway. And while it doesn’t make me sick enough to require hospitalization, it’s still pretty unbearable to look at. (Sorry, designers.)

I’m sure you all know what it looks like, but here it is again:

http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img/upload/2012/04/24/london-2012.gif

And here’s the proof I’m not inventing any of this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-460205/Now-Olympic-logo-triggering-migraines.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6724245.stm

“The Campaign”/Tide Laundry Detergent Tie-In (Proposed)

There’s a new comedy movie coming out called The Campaign, which is about all the silly mud-slinging competition in a political campaign. It’s about the perfect time to be making fun of it, with perhaps the silliest presidential election campaign of all time going on around us at this very moment. And with all this mudslinging going on, it made me think of something: a tie-in for a laundry detergent!

So how about this? The candidates from this movie, Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis could both walk into a house together, and say: “Politics is a dirty business!” And then they take their shirts off (Will Ferrell seems to love to take his shirt off, so here’s another chance for him) and drop them into a sink full of water, and the water instantly turns dark gray/brown. And then they say that’s why they use Tide: It gets all that deep, ground-in dirt from political mud-slinging out in one wash, so they can get back out the next day and at least their clothes will be squeaky clean, even if they’re not!

Three-Tenth Hop (The New Song & Dance Craze)

Remember back in the early Rock n’ Roll days, where there were lots of songs that started new dance crazes, like “The Hop”, “The Twist”, etc.? Well, all these Olympic gymnastics events have the announcers talking about one-tenth and three-tenth hops, and that reminded me of the dance “The Hop”. So I was thinking maybe some band could write a new song about the three-tenth hop and start a new dance craze for the gymnastics fans. And the song would be called “The Three-Tenth Hop”, and it would be about some Olympic gymnasts who were doing the winning routines of their lives, about to win gold, and at the end, they started getting nervous, or over-confident, and they just barely blew their dismount enough to have to take the dreaded three-tenth hop, and they lose the gold medal. And the dance could be where everyone spins around, does a back flip, and then they all take the three-tenth hop, do the ending presentation stance, and act all mad at themselves.

The song could go something like this (The chorus could be like “Jailhouse Rock”):

He was winning for his team, with his clean routine,

He thought he had it in the bag, won the gold for his flag,

That’s when he did the hop: the three-tenth hop,

Yeah, he took a hop: a three-tenth hop!

Well, he lost the gold medal on the spot,

When he had to take the three-tenth hop!

His heart was full of passion, to hear his national anthem,

But I’m afraid he didn’t count, on his clumsy dismount,

That’s when he did the hop: the three-tenth hop,

Yeah, he took a hop: a three-tenth hop!

Well, he lost the gold medal on the spot,

When he had to take the three-tenth hop!

Everybody let’s hop, the three-tenth hop!

Yeah, Everyone hop, the three-tenth hop!

(Three, three, three-tenth hop, you flop!
Three, three, three-tenth hop, scores drop!)

The Most Decorated Olympians

Yes, it’s the Olympics again, and in the coverage, we keep hearing the phrase: “one of the most decorated Olympians”. And this idea of the decorations made me think of something. Wouldn’t it be fun if NBC hired some titan of the fashion world to come and critique the decorations? They could have the most decorated Olympians walk out like in a runway fashion show with all of their hardware, while the critic talks about the aesthetics of the decorations. Like, he might say: “Yes, he’s the most decorated, but is he really the most tastefully decorated? I mean, look at all these medals hanging around his neck: it makes him look arrogant and tacky, like one of those gauche braggadocio rappers from the ‘90s with the too much ‘bling’ look. And just look at those medals: all that gold, silver and bronze; I mean, they all clash with one another! Pick one color for your jewelry, please! And look at those ribbons: they’re all different bright flashy colors! I mean, it’s a disaster! Why not just wear one: it’s simple, elegant, and it looks so much more tasteful and modest, doesn’t it? Sometimes less is more, you know what I mean? The hodge-podge of styles and colors is just too busy to be pleasing to the eye. Simplicity is key here, otherwise it’s just too busy.”

Oh, but then it could turn out that this critic was a former Olympian who is mad that he only won one medal, so he’s jealous, and he’s trying to make it seem lame to win lots of medals.

Bud Light Rejected Olympic Sports Ad (Spec)

Ah, yes: the Olympics are upon us once again, and it makes me think of Olympic advertising possibilities. So while real beer ads will use the real Olympics as a basis for their ads, I will think of those denied Olympic glory just because their drinking games are not deemed fit for Olympic competition. (I'd like to see these Olympic athletes beat me at one of these games!) So here’s my fake Bud Light Olympic Drinking Games Ad:

The announcer says the following, while images of the games mentioned play out in loving coverage, like that of a real sport:

While we all applaud the Olympics and the athletes that compete in them, we can’t help but bemoan the fact that they’ve overlooked the potential of these fine athletic sports: Olympic beer cap flicking; Olympic quarters; Olympic Major Moose; Olympic paper football; Olympic charades. For all these great athletes denied Olympic glory, we offer them a Bud Light in recognition of their talent and struggle! And while we’ll continue to push for their future inclusion, all we can say now is: Potential future Olympian: This Bud's for you!

Super Beta Prostate Joe Theismann Ad

Joe Theismann, a formerly famous football player (Quarterback for the Washington Redskins), shills for Super Beta Prostate in this commercial, saying he feels so good after taking it, he’s “ready to tackle anything”. But he was a quarterback, so he didn’t really tackle anyone so much as he got tackled, right? (In point of fact, a particularly hard tackle ended his football career when he was badly injured.) So maybe they should have used more quarterback-related terminology for his dialogue? Like, for example, he could have said he can “pass” urine all day and control it well, or that once it starts, it will “run all the way”. Maybe that would have been more appropriate for his position, and then they could have gotten some famous defensive player, like Dick Butkus, to say he can “tackle anything”. (But Butkus could tackle anything anyway, I think.)

Here’s the prostate pill promotion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0w5bca2TUo

Fiat 500 “New Wave” Ad

Oh my God! The Fiat 500s are so miserable in Europe, they’re committing suicide en masse by driving off cliffs into the ocean and drowning themselves! Oh, the, um, automotivity? And to try to cover it up, Fiat then pretends that these cars drove across the ocean floor and popped out of the water like the zombie hordes in Land of the Dead, invading America! So, now we’ve got a bunch of new illegal immigrant cars, taking jobs away from American cars? And they’re admitting it publicly in this commercial? Wow, talk about shameless: covering up suicides and encouraging illegal car importation. Oh, for shame! (You thought it was hard to find the heroin in The French Connection? What if their smuggling cars were driving up out of the ocean all willy-nilly? They'd never stop them!)

But hey: at least we know these new Fiats are impervious to salt corrosion, so drive them into the ocean all you want and no problem! I’m sure if they get any rust damage, they’ll be happy to replace them free of charge! Right?

Here’s the auto-asphyxiating automobiles ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKUrYf1z9Bg

The Bourne Loser

There’s a new Bourne movie coming out soon (The Bourne Legacy), and that reminded me that if they ever run out of ideas for this series, but it’s just too profitable to let it die, they could use my old idea: The Bourne Loser. So here’s how this movie would play out:

The main character is one of the elite assassin trainees from Jason Bourne’s group at Treadstone, but this guy was the worst candidate in the whole group: he was incompetent, he had temper issues, he was impatient, he was overemotional, etc. So naturally, they kick him out of the program, but they wipe his memory so he can’t come after them for rejecting him. (He also has rejection issues.) Oh, but once those Bourne Identity movies start coming out, he gradually begins to remember his assassin training, that he was rejected, abused, had his memory wiped, etc., and he wants revenge.

So this guy comes after Treadstone, but because he’s overemotional, and because he’s terrible at everything, he always gets noticed early, and the cops get called on him, and he sucks at fighting, so they just beat him up and arrest him, and then he has to wait to be released so he can resume his revenge, etc. Then, he gets into all kinds of other problems trying to get revenge, because he gets into car accidents, he gets mugged, etc. And he never gets to have his revenge because he’s not good enough to get through security to get at the guys who rejected him, because they were right about him to begin with, and he sucks at everything.

So after a series of misadventures, the Treadstone people feel sorry for him, so they let him get into their operation, and then they shoot and kill him, and unceremoniously dump his body into a communal grave where they dump all the other assassins from this group they track down and kill. But he gets a posthumous commendation for conspicuous service, because rather than having to hunt him down and kill him, he came right to them to get killed, so they say his saving them the trouble of finding him was a heroic act, and his family would have gotten a medal, but they were all wiped out years before by Treadstone anyway to cover up the program. If only he was competent enough to avenge them! Oh, well. (Not everyone can be good at everything, you know.)

Ocuvite “Would You Take It?” Ad

This commercial begins with the question: “If there was a pill to help protect your eye health as you age, would you take it?” And then, because so many other pharmaceutical ads ramble on with disclaimer warnings and side effects, I continued the questioning in my head: “And if this pill made you grow a new head out of your own ass, would you still take it? And what if you had to take another pill for the eyes in your new head, would you take that too? Well, how about if that made you grow a new pair of eyes out of your second head’s mouth, and they stared at your own ass all day? Would you still take it? Really, you would? Well, I wouldn’t!”

Okay, so that’s just a silly joke, but there is an odd thing here, and that’s the fact that all the people in this ad are white with these fake-looking blue eyes. So, um, is this stuff for Aryans only? If I take it, since I don’t have blue eyes, will Gregory Peck break into my home and dye my irises blue, like in The Boys from Brazil?* (That is what these actors’ eyes bring to mind.) Because I understand their desire for a uniform look and color scheme in their ad, but maybe they ought to consider what it ends up looking like when you read between the lines. (Like is Ocuvite a secret plot to dye everyone’s eyes blue for the Fourth Reich? I don’t know, but that’s what it looks like!)

(Now, obviously I’m not suggesting Ocuvite is a Nazi plot: that’s just a joke about what the ad’s images bring to mind, because these weird-looking blue eyes that all look the same really remind me of the movie The Boys from Brazil, and I doubt I’m the only one to think of this, either!)

Here’s this silly ad that basically begs us to come up with our own warnings and conspiracy theories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apeNvN3hJI8

* BTW: If that did happen, they could use that song: “Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?” in the ad. Except that I have green eyes. But not for long, I guess...

Another Global Warming Threat: The Blob

TCM showed The Blob again tonight, and it reminded me of something I had forgotten about. Remember at the end of the movie that the Blob was frozen and dropped onto the Arctic, right? Well, if the Arctic melts, then the Blob will be unleashed on us all, and there will be no escape! (Oh, the humanity!) So there’s a whole new reason to fear global warming: The Blob! Aaaaa!

Jägermeister Hip Flask Promotion

These days, Jägermeister is offering a give-away stainless steel hip flask with their 750 ml bottle as a promotion. The nice thing about this is that when you buy your Jägermeister this time, the cash register clerk won’t have to spend time looking for the thing that takes the big anti-theft cap off your bottle for once (They’re usually all broken, so they have to get the manager to find one that works, and it takes 20 minutes.), so you’ll save time. The bad part of the deal is if you decide to use your brand new hip flask for Jägermeister.

Remember, you’re supposed to drink it cold from the freezer! So that means that either: a.) You’ll freeze your hip off trying to carry this thing around, or: b.) You’ll drink your delicious Jägermeister at the perfect temperature of 98.6° Fahrenheit (Yum! Um, I mean, uh, Gag!). Actually, probably both will happen, except that when your frozen flask heats up so rapidly, it will just possibly crack and spill Jägermeister all over your pants. Oh, but that will just start a whole new party-helping drinking game: “Suck the Jägermeister out of the Pants”! (Maybe they should make ads suggesting this for when this eventuality occurs.)

Jason’s Cross?

I noticed one of my movie channels was showing Freddy Vs. Jason tonight, so I watched some of it again. I like how it’s pretty true to both series, and how it definitely uses teen sex to attract Jason, since he’s I guess opposed to it or whatever. But you know, he’s got to be from New England or something, because he died at Camp Crystal Lake, right? Well, there aren’t any crystal lakes in the South: they’re all full of moss and mud and algae and poisonous snakes and stuff. There are some springs in Florida that might be considered crystal (there’re not lakes, though: they’re springs), but I don’t get the sense that Friday the 13th happened in Florida, somehow.

But you know, when I lived down South, something happened a lot down there that didn’t happen as much up North: teen marriages. So, what would happen if Jason wanted to kill a teenage married couple for having sex? Would it work, or is it the illicit nature of teen sex that attracts him for retribution? (Because if it’s just the sex, then they could have Jason Attacks the Old Folks’ Home movies pretty soon, since apparently they’re getting it on a lot there nowadays. Maybe that’s what’s coming next in the movie series?)

But this idea of the married teen couple interests me. If Jason attacked them while they were having sex, and they held up their wedding rings, would it repel him like a cross to Dracula? I’m just curious how this would work. I mean, we all know teenage sex attracts Jason’s vengeance, but I was never clear if it was age-specific, or simply its illicit nature. I guess we’ll find out in Jason Attacks Mississippi, coming soon to a theater near you! (In this movie, everyone is a teenager married to their cousins, and Jason can’t kill anyone, even thought he’s disgusted with the incestuous nature of it all, because he’s only allowed to kill unmarried sexually active teens, and everyone in Mississippi is already married by age 16.)

(Of course this is all exaggerated for effect in the movie, because I think the age is really more like 18.)

Toto Recall

Yes, there is a new version of Total Recall coming soon, but they’re just doing a straight remake. But they could have gotten the whole Wicked audience had they done a reinventing of the subject with a new twist: Toto Recall. Here’s how it would work:

Toto was a soldier of fortune sent by the Munchins to save them from the Wicked Witches, but he was captured outside the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West, whereupon he had his memory erased and was turned into a little dog and sent through time and space to Kansas to be Dorothy’s pet. Oh, but the Good Witch Glinda sent a portal back to Oz in the form of a tornado, and hence Toto was sent back on his mission in a different form! And that’s why the Wicked Witch always said she was going to get Dorothy’s “little dog too”: because she knew he was a highly-skilled commando sent to destroy her (even if he didn’t remember this fact yet)!

And how else do you think Dorothy knew that the pail of water would destroy the Wicked Witch of the West? Why, it’s only because Toto (the dog form of the crack commando) sent her that information telepathically! But he had had his mind erased before, until they first visited the Wizard of Oz, who secretly reinstated Toto’s memory to help Dorothy kill the Wicked Witch! It wasn’t a fool’s errand after all! For the Wizard knew how to kill her, and that Toto was sent for such a purpose, but he wanted to keep his involvement out of it for fear of reprisals from the Wicked Witch Galactic Council, who always sends replacement Wicked Witches whenever one gets squished by a house or melted by water or whatever (But due to red tape and stuff, it always takes so long for them to send new Wicked Witches, it always makes sense to knock them off whenever you can!). And that’s why the Wizard of Oz always pretends to be a charlatan: so the Wicked Witch Consortium doesn’t suspect he’s their deadly enemy (even though he is: but please don’t tell them)!

And at the end of The Wizard of Oz, Toto secretly gets his chance to be restored to his rightful form, but he decides he and Dorothy have been through so much together and he loves her so much that he has his memory erased again and returns to Kansas with her to continue being her dog, rather than take a chance that she might reject him in his natural form, or question his motives at any time of their companionship. (Once again proving the loyal character of dogs in literature! And the end credits music can be “I Wanna Be Your Dog”, by the Stooges.)

Maybe this can be the next big Wizard of Oz spin-off musical?

Protest for Hire

I’m a fan of classic horror movies, and so I have a lot of books on them. In these books, there is the blueprint for success laid out by the guys who marketed White Zombie and Freaks, and then the guys who did later stuff like Blood Feast and Satan movies, and the one thing they all have in common is to advertise salacious stuff near religious communities, because there are always repressed people there who want a thrill, and if the movie is lucky, protest groups will show up and give it free publicity. Then, later movie people became even more sophisticated and would provide their own fake protest group against the movie to drum up more publicity for it. Then tons of people would show up, because otherwise they might not have heard of the film.

This is a well-known strategy for anything edgy, from movies to music to any traveling show: drum up some kind of protest, and all the young people would come out to see it. (This tactic even appears in some old movies as well for circus shows and fortune-tellers, predating even its use for movies, I think!) It even works when the protests are real, like with The Last Temptation of Christ. But not every metal band and independent horror movie can afford their own protest group. And that’s why I think a good business model for hick towns and religious communities would be to have a fake protest group for hire that would come out and protest any band or movie or thing what came to town and paid them to come protest against their thing. (They’d both make a killing, I’m sure!)

March Hare Brand Liquor

I was shaving today, and I noticed something. They always say drinking some strong drink will “put hair on your chest”, but many men don’t have and never get hair on their chest. But there’s one place men always end up getting hair eventually, and it’s where we can all see it: on their ears. I have it now trying to fuzz out all over the place. It’s annoying, but it gave me a brainwave: why not switch up the old saying about getting hair on your chest with putting hair on your ears? Then this liquor that puts hair on your ears could be named after the March Hare, since he’s crazy, and he’s got hair on his ears. (Plus, he’s got “hare”, which is a homonym for hair, in his name!)

So, once established as a brand, this March Hare liquor could play around with ads and slogans in many ways. They could say: “Put some hair on your ears!” They could say: “Put some hare in your chest!” And during Spring Break, they could say: “Spend March with the March Hare!”, or: “March into Spring with the March Hare!” And of course, March Hare could sponsor March Madness on TV!

Plus, with the March Hare being a part of Alice in Wonderland, they could say it will take you to Wonderland when you drink it, etc. And, of course, they could say: “Makes you mad as a March Hare!”, and: “March into madness with the March Hare!” (Oh, and they could take that classic illustration of Alice with the little bottle that says “Drink Me”, and say it’s the very first bottle of March Hare brand liquor! {And then they could say: “March Hare brand liquor: Leading young girls astray since 1865!”})

Hey, maybe there even already is a brand of liquor called March Hare? You never know. (But have I got some ads for them if there is!)

Catheter Scratch Fever?

On some cable news stations at night (okay, just one), there are a lot of ads for catheter services, where they say other catheters scratch, but theirs are great and never scratch, etc. And since this is Fox News we’re talking about, and they love Ted Nugent for being a conservative gun nut, then why not have him in these catheter ads? They could have him remake his classic song: “Cat Scratch Fever”, into: “Catheter Scratch Fever”. (To make it flow better, he could just sing “Cath Scratch Fever”.) After all, surely he’ll be reaching that catheter age soon himself, right? So then it’s perfect! And then he could be the new spokesman for this catheter service, claiming if you don’t get your catheters from them, you’ll risk getting “Catheter Scratch Fever”. (And that’s not as good as “Cat Scratch Fever” either!)

And then Ted Nugent could say the new tagline himself at the end of the ad: “My bladder is badder than ever!”

Here’s the ad I’m referring to (Wouldn’t it be way better with Ted Nugent?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snCFAyQYD3A&feature=related

Midsomer Murders (Passing the Torch)

One of my all-time favorite TV shows is Midsomer Murders. It should be on Masterpiece Mystery, but somehow I don’t think it ever has been one of their shows, and it certainly isn’t one now. (The Wikipedia list does not include it, so I think it has never been on Masterpiece Mystery.) But they have made a major change in the show recently, and I’m not so sure it’s such a good idea.

In the last couple of seasons before DCI (Or did he get to DCS?) Barnaby’s retirement, they were really pushing for the promotion and re-teaming of Jones with some policewoman named Stephens, and I liked her, and her with Jones, who I always thought was the perfect second-banana to Barnaby. Well, just like Inspector Morse passed the torch to Inspector Lewis, I thought Midsomer Murders would pass the torch to Jones and Stephens. (It sure looked like they were planning on it!)

But instead they got some “cousin” of Barnaby to come take over for him. Is this general police practice in England: to get someone’s cousin to take over for them when they retire? It’s truly ridiculous! I mean, I could understand it if the show was called: “Barnaby”, but it’s not; it’s called: “Midsomer Murders”, so who cares what the investigator’s name is? I guess they must have done focus groups who said they didn’t have confidence in Jones or something, or there must be a Barnaby or else nobody will watch it: what else could it be?

But that’s not even what I think they dropped the ball on here. You see, they had one of their last episodes with Tom Barnaby have his wife Joyce think she might have hit and killed someone with her car at night, and Barnaby was trying to tread lightly and make sure it wasn’t her. But they could have ended the series with a bang had they just had Joyce be the killer, and then it turns out that she has a split-personality, and she’s secretly the killer of every victim of the entire TV series, and her husband has been covering it all up all along and framing other people for all the crimes throughout the entire series. (For fans of this show, remember that for most shows, Joyce is involved in some activity, like painting, or theater, etc., and there is a murder; so this would explain why she’s always somehow tangentially involved in stuff where the murders occur: because she’s secretly a vicious serial killer, but she has a split-personality, so she never remembers anything afterwards!) Then at the end, they do a double-suicide pact, and Cully has to call it in, and then Jones takes over, and he has to release all the people who were framed for all the other murders.

Oh, but after all these years in prison, all these innocent people have developed massive egos and revenge plans and they’ve been training for them all along. So now they all become super villains, and so Jones has to become a superhero, and it just so happens that his American cousin is Batman, so Batman comes over to help put away all these new super villains in Midsomer, and that’s what he’s been doing since he took the blame for Two-Face’s crimes. (And that’s why he’s been inactive in Gotham City for a while.) And that way they could bring someone’s cousin into the show in a much more awesome way, seeing as how English law supposedly insists upon someone’s cousin coming into the show whenever there is a major change. (And wouldn’t it have been a memorable end to a great series? They could have the new Midsomer super villains be just regular citizens who, once living for years with other master criminals, have been trained in the dark arts of criminality, and so they name themselves after what they used to do; like for instance, some guy who owned a plant nursery could become “Weed Man” {corrupting the innocent flowerbeds of society!}, or some art history instructor could become the villain “Abstract” {always in an incomprehensible form!}, or some pub owner could become “The Devilish D.T.s” {with the power to hypnotize people into experiencing the symptoms of delirium tremens!}, etc.)

(BTW: Sorry I’m not as up on Midsomer Murders as I could be: because Masterpiece Mystery has apparently never deigned to include it as one of their shows, I have only had NetFlix as a source, and they only go through season 12. So I’ve had to look on YouTube for further episodes and read up on them on IMDB.)

Rotten Tomatoes Throws Dark Knight

Apparently, if a news story is to be believed, the movie review compendium website Rotten Tomatoes has suspended comments on The Dark Knight Rises after death threats were made against reviewers who gave the movie a bad review. I like the idea that people would break the law to protect a superhero who is bent on protecting law and order, but we all know what’s really going on here, right? This was just a publicity gimmick, and Rotten Tomatoes ruined it by overreacting! (Unless it’s just super villains trying to make Batman look bad. Unless it was super villains who gave the movie a bad review to begin with!)

Look, so some comments made death threats, right? Well, then they were going to try to kill the reviewers, and then Batman would show up to rescue the reviewers who gave his movie a bad review, proving he really is on the side of law & order all along, and so we’ll all know he’s innocent of Two-Face’s crimes! (That was kinda dumb for him to take the blame for that anyway, rather than to say The Joker set him up or some other excuse. But please don’t threaten my life for saying so, okay? Because Batman will save me anyway, and then he’ll just beat you up and throw you in jail!)

You know, maybe we ought to have a new law that makes it illegal to give Dark Knight movies a bad review, and anyone violating this ordinance goes straight to Arkham Asylum. Oh, but then I guess all the imprisoned super villains would immediately respect and train those reviewers for future anti-Batman stuff, huh? And that would only create more super villains, like drug prohibitions only create more powerful underworld cartels. (Gee, I guess with great power comes great responsibility, huh? But that’s from Spider-Man, so it doesn’t really apply here, does it?)

Here’s the super-villainous story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2175176/Website-Rotten-Tomatoes-suspends-comments-Dark-Knight-death-threats-bad-reviewers.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Mothra Slogan

“Float like a butterfly, destroy cities like Godzilla!”

The above is what Mothra likes to say about herself. (She’s a big fan of Muhammad Ali!)

Lunesta Nightmares Ad (Starring Mothra)

Lunesta is a prescription medication for sleep. But what about people who are afraid of sleep because they have nightmares, like in A Nightmare on Elm Street? Well, surely they could make a commercial to alleviate the worries of these types of people, right? Of course they could, and here it is!

So the person taking Lunesta is all worried Freddy Krueger is going to kill them, but they need to sleep or they will have all kinds of health problems, so they take Lunesta. And just as they fall asleep, that neon butterfly that is Lunesta’s logo flies past their face, and then Freddy Krueger appears to torment them. But it’s no use, because the Lunesta butterfly turns into Mothra, and it kills Freddy Krueger! And such is the fate of any monster or character that would disturb the dreams of a Lunesta user! (And if you have any doubts, then please remember that Mothra is the only monster ever to have beaten Godzilla in a fight! Look it up!)

Plus, Mothra always drops this rain of golden sparkles onto other monsters, and it starts to make them drowsy, so she would be a perfect mascot for Lunesta! It’s like Sandman sand! Plus this would open up Lunesta to a whole new market of giant monsters as well! (What, you don’t think they have sleepless nights too? Think of their performance anxiety the night before they attack Tokyo: will they measure up to Godzilla? That could keep them up all night, and then they’ll just be repelled by the army! Think of the embarrassment! Oh, but with Lunesta, monsters can always get a restful night’s sleep so they can destroy whatever city they set their sights on! {Unless they’re in someone else’s nightmare, in which case Mothra will kick their ass to prevent them from ruining that person’s restful night’s sleep!})

(On a side note here: The Blogger interface claims Godzilla and Mothra are misspelled. Come on Google: I thought you guys were nerds! You’ve never heard of Godzilla before? That’s some odd nerd who has never heard of Godzilla! Get with the program, guys!)

Goof Off Spider-Man Ad

Yes, Spider-Man is pretty popular, so why not use him to sell more than hamburgers? How about something that might actually apply to him specifically? That’s why I think he’d be the perfect guy for ads for Goof Off (that’s the stuff that gets sticky stuff off of things). And they could rotate in different villains throughout the campaign. So here’s how it would work:

Some villain fighting Spider-Man (let’s say, just for the sake of argument, The Scorpion) faces our hero, and just then Spider-Man sprays him with his webbing. Oh, but the webbing all slides right off of The Scorpion, and he laughs and evil laugh and says: “Mwa ha ha! I sprayed my costume with Goof Off, so your webs will no longer stick to me! Doctor Octopus told me about it! Now I can finally defeat you!” And then he beats up Spider-Man.

And in the further ads in the campaign, it can always be a different villain using Goof Off against Spider-Man, and each one defeating him. And surely this would indicate exactly why you might want something like Goof Off (to get sticky stuff off of things; and to defeat Spider-Man), and show you how it works.

Global Warming Denier Campaign for Kids?

Hey, we all know global warming advocates want to make us all stop driving cars and stuff, and they’re indoctrinating our children! How can the innocent global warming denier survive these propaganda attacks? Why with a propaganda attack of their own! How’s it possible? Well, it’s easy, really…

Kids love those wonderful characters from the Pixar Cars movies, right? There’s even a new theme park devoted to these lovable characters! Oh, but evil liberals like Al Gore want to starve our friends like Lightning McQueen and Mater to death! They blame these innocent patsies for climate change, and they’ll stop at nothing to destroy them! Oh, no! Surely we must band all children together to save these friendly gas-burning vehicles from those mean old global warming activists! (I’m sure some corporation, maybe an oil company, might help fund such an initiative?)

(See? You can spin stuff the other way with kids! You just have to think of how to trick them into agreeing with you. Um, I mean, uh, convince them with facts!)

Here is a new article talking about tree ring studies revealing climate history I have known about for years as though the findings are new (but the general consensus is the same, apparently. So we still have to murder Lightning McQueen! He’s guilty of global warming: him and all his nefarious vehicular kind! Slash their evil tires and starve them of their evil oil and gas before it’s too late! Oh, actually, it is already too late, but whatever: punish them anyway!):

http://www.livescience.com/21624-tree-rings-global-warming.html

(I’m joking: Calm down, hippies!)

CNN: Keeping Them Honest?

Tonight on CNN, Anderson Cooper said some stuff about how negative political ads from the presidential election currently are. Then he referenced a claim from one of the campaigns about how they were not going negative, and then he said: “But keeping them honest…” (And then he showed statistics proving they were lying.)

Um, has it ever occurred to anyone how dishonest of a phrase this is: “Keeping them honest”?

Look, just because you expose someone else’s lie, that does not “keep them honest”; it instead proves they are dishonest. See what I mean here? And you can hardly keep someone honest when they are actively lying, right? Unless they themselves admit they were lying, and then tell the truth, you’re not “keeping them honest”, but rather, you’re proving they’re liars. And that’s a very different thing, right there. (You caught them in a lie: how does this make them honest? And by claiming to make them honest, you are being dishonest yourself. Get it?)

So CNN (and especially Anderson Cooper), how about ending the use of your dishonest line: “And keeping them honest”, and replacing it with: “And proving they’re lying scumbags…” Maybe then it might embarrass them enough to finally start telling the truth. (But probably not.)

(So CNN: Maybe you’re afraid you wouldn’t get the politicians on your network if you called them liars out front like that? But politicians are egomaniacs who love to be on TV, so they will always come back, like a fly to poop: they can’t help themselves! So the least you could do is try to force them to be honest, rather than crediting yourself with doing so when you’re not.)

Clinton Motorcade Pelted with Tomatoes (and Shoes) in Egypt

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: This is why you should always spray your motorcade with non-stick Pam. Tomatoes slide right off with no muss and no fuss! Plus, Pam is low in cholesterol and saturated fats, so protesters can just pick those tomatoes right up off the ground and presto: they’re ready to eat! (Perfect for this worldwide recession!)

And you know, protesters, perhaps throwing tomatoes and other ingredients at visiting dignitaries’ cars will become a fun and exciting communal way to make a zesty chunky marinara sauce! (Just scrape it up off the street and into jars afterwards!)

(Oh, and on another note: Apparently these protesters also threw shoes at Secretary of State Clinton’s motorcade. But the story neglected to tell us what kind of shoes. Were they Jimmy Choo shoes? Maybe it was intended as a tribute and a gift, but they didn’t know how to get them to her except to throw them at her car due to security constraints. Or else maybe the shoes are being thrown by a new generation of Egyptian shoe designers, and they’re hoping Ms. Clinton will wear their new shoes on the world stage and blast them to international design stardom! Hey: you never know!)

Here’s the kickin’ tomato saucy story:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/15/us-egypt-usa-clinton-idUSBRE86D07520120715

And here’s my original post from before:

http://unconditionedresponse.blogspot.com/2011/11/hillary-clintons-motorcade-egged.html

DVR Remote Recording

I have been house sitting for my sister’s family for the past couple of weeks now. Everything seems fine, except that ever since they left, their DVR keeps on scheduling shows to record that were never programmed before. Well, naturally I have been erasing them all. You can’t let these machines start to feel like they can just do whatever they want, you know. Otherwise, they’ll get all over-confident and try to conquer the world. (I have seen The Terminator, and I know what they’re up to! Well, not on my watch, buddy!)

The Dark Knight Rises in the Presidential Election

Hey, man: We all know this new Batman movie is simply Hollywood’s way of attacking Mitt Romney, right? Yeah, lefty Tinseltown is always bashing Republicans, but this time they thought they could do it with suggestion and without anyone noticing what they were up to. Well, I’m onto them; and I know you all know what I’m talking about, but I’ll spell it out anyway:

Who is the villain in the new Batman movie? Why, it’s Bane; and what does Bane sound like? Why, it’s Bain Capital! So we all see their propaganda out in the open at last! Bane is the villain, so naturally they are suggesting Bain Capital is a villain too: those sly devils!

Oh, but guess what: How do we know Mitt Romney isn’t really secretly Batman himself? He’s the only guy running who has that kind of Bruce Wayne money, right? So then it’s obvious that Mitt Romney is, in fact, Batman: the Dark Knight, fighting for righteousness! (His ads claim that kind of grandeur, don’t they? And obviously he always acts all lame to protect his secret identity!) And who would try to trick us into thinking he was evil but the Joker? And what character have we seen President Obama made up as in posters recently? Why, it’s the Joker, isn’t it? And that proves that those pictures are what he secretly really looks like! (They wouldn’t make those posters if they weren’t true, now would they?)

So now we all know the truth: Mitt Romney is really Batman, and President Obama is really the Joker! (A-ha! I knew it!) So now who will you vote for? (Robin for Vice President!)

(Oh, I wish someone would make silly political ads like this. I’m tired of the issues already!)

Here’s that picture of President Obama as the Joker, for the one person out there who hasn’t seen it before:

http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2009/08/05/1225758/360881-obama-the-joker.jpg

And, of course, this is just a silly joke! Because everyone knows it’s really John Kerry who is Batman, and his wife who is the Joker, and getting their frustration out fighting in public behind costumes is what makes their marriage so strong! (This whole superheroes-fighting-super-villains thing is just marriage-counseling therapy for the super-rich, you see. How else do you think they can afford all those high-tech weapons and custom-made vehicles and stuff? {Not to mention the couture costumes! That’s got to cost a pretty penny right there!})

Vera Wang Wedding Dress Curse (New Horror Movie Inspiration?)

A news item today claims Vera Wang wedding dresses are cursed. (Apparently, a bunch of celebrities who have wed in them have gotten divorced. I’ve never heard of a celebrity being divorced before, so it must be true!) So I guess now we know what the next big horror movie trend is going to be, right? Cursed wedding dress movies! Yes, I can see it now:

It’s the first night of the honeymoon, and the newly married couple flirts with each other on their wedding bed. Oh, but there’s a movement in the background, it’s… That’s right: It’s a cursed wedding dress, and it kills them both! Then, in the next scene, the same wedding dress is in a thrift store on a mannequin in the window. A soon-to-be-wed woman grabs her mother’s wrist on the sidewalk outside and says: “That’s it! That’s the dress I’ve always dreamed of!” Her mother can’t argue with the price, and guess what: it fits (!)…

Cut to the wedding, and everyone is having a great time. They dance the dances, they take the photos, they make the toasts, they throw the bouquet and garter, etc. Then, after changing out of their wedding clothes, the couple sneaks off to their honeymoon cruise together. But just as they drive off, something stirs in the back seat of their car (!!)… (Needless to say, they are found dead the next morning in their car, and the wedding dress is presumed missing.)

Next the wedding dress finds itself in a donation bin, and considered too nice for the local thrift shop, it is sold to a vintage clothing store, where it is displayed with pride on the wall. Several employees meet grisly deaths there, but nobody suspects the dress to be the culprit. Then, eventually, after many further deaths, the dress is sold to a woman who has an online wedding planning business. The woman who buys the dress has been married and divorced five times. Needless to say, something unfortunate happens to each and every one of her former husbands…

Then the day finally arrives: the dress is purchased by a young woman for her first ever wedding to a hunky young man she’s always loved. They have their blessed nuptials, and sneak off from the revelries to their honeymoon hotel room. But just then, as they begin smooching, there is a rustling of a dress’s fabric in the closet, and…

Oh, but this time it’s a trap! For the police have suspected this wedding dress all along, but they were never able to catch it in the act before, so they set up a fake wedding with two undercover officers, just to catch this dress with its pants down! So they draw down on the dress and shoot it in its tracks, and it bleeds out on the hotel room floor, explaining its sorry tale of rejection, redress, revenge and retribution. And then, just when they think it’s over, the garter strikes and strangles them both: for it was the garter all along, and the dress was simply trying to save everyone but was always too late! (But the dress loved the garter, so it was always trying to cover for it, like it covers it on a bride’s leg. And the garter was mad for always being discarded into some drunk guy’s hands while the wedding dress was lovingly treasured by brides for generations; and the dress felt pity for the garter’s feelings of rejection, because the dress and garter were made for each other, but they were always so cruelly parted against their wills by the married couple at the wedding.)

(There always has to be some stupid twist at the end these days.)

Here’s the story, just so you won’t think I was making it up:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2172649/Curse-Vera-Wang-wedding-gown-How-celebrities-married-designs-ended-divorced.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

A Fistful of Dolls

This movie plays out kind of like Kill Bill, but with little girls all fighting over dolls. One little girl, secretly a vicious ninja assassin, moves into a nice neighborhood that has a bunch of rich kids as cover for her new assignment. And little do her bosses know, but she has always pined away for a collection of beautiful dolls: the kind of dolls all her new neighbor little girls have, but which she has never seen before, due to all her ninja assassin training since birth. So, our cute little assassin anti-heroine decides she’s going to appropriate all the dolls in her neighborhood by whatever means necessary. Oh, but these little girls that are her neighbors, and who own these dolls, are not going to give them up so easily! (Are you kidding? Do you know how expensive dolls are these days?)

So what happens is that our little assassin anti-heroine sneaks into her neighbors’ houses to steal the dolls, but they are always protected by some homemade alert or security system set up by the little girl who lives there, and so she has to avoid all the traps and pitfalls, fight the vicious guard dogs, big brothers and sisters of her intended mark, and finally, the little doll-owners themselves. And they fight all kinds of ways with all kinds of weapons, like water balloons full of bleach, spitballs, kitchen knives, meat tenderizers, paper cuts, staplers, paperclips from wrist rockets, hairspray & lighter flamethrowers, etc. And each time she strikes and gets away with the dolls of one girl, news secretly spreads to the other neighborhood girls, and so the next target for doll theft is better and better prepared, until she faces veritable fortresses of sofa cushions, nugie and wedgie squads, gerbil armies, etc., until she gets to the dolls and gets away with them. (And since none of the little girls ever gets killed, she has to face more and more of them each time!)

Then, extra hijinks would ensue when she has to go kill some visiting government dignitary or corporate bigwig for her job, and she was supposed to be preparing for it, but she’s been too busy fighting for all the dolls, etc.; and then her dolls get stolen back by their previous owners while she’s away on assignment, and she has to go get them all back, etc. Plus, there are lots of exciting chases and getaways involving big wheels, tricycles, battery-powered riding toy cars, skateboards, razor scooters, etc. And naturally, she ends up with all the dolls at the end, but her underworld bosses won’t let her keep them, and they are mad at her because she has blown her cover by fighting with all the neighborhood kids, and they mark her for death, so she has to kill all of them in a fight to the finish (!); and she’s aided by the little girls in her neighborhood with the promise that they will all share the dolls and play together in the future. (After all, they’ve been through so much together!)

It’s a coming-of-age tale meets action/adventure/kung fu/revenge/assassin/heist/family film! It’s a heartwarming tale of redemption! It’s a story where materialism (and commercialism) conquers all! You’ve never seen excitement like this before! It brings new meaning to the term “child exploitation”! It’s A Fistfiul of Dolls: coming soon to a theater near you!

Deadly Messing

Recently, I noticed that NetFlix has that old Wes Craven movie I never saw called Deadly Blessing, and I mused about how that rhymes with Debra Messing. So then that became “Deadly Messing”, and I decided to try to come up with a show or movie called Deadly Messing. And since Deadly Blessing is about some incubus or something, I thought maybe she could be a succubus. And because she was in Will & Grace, I thought maybe she could have a gay roommate or something. So here it is, the next big hot show for Debra Messing: Deadly Messing (coming soon to a TV set near you!*):

So in this show, Debra Messing is a succubus, sent to New York City to damn men’s souls for all eternity by seducing them into lust. (Yeah, right: like a succubus would be necessary for New York! But I digress…) So upon first arriving in the city, she gets whistled at by a man who says she looks hot and fierce, so she follows the guy home to seduce and condemn him, but it turns out he’s a gay man, and he just liked her dress and thought she looked hot for a chick. Oh, but as it turns out, he’s got an extra room to rent, and he says that men are either too messy or too picky, so he insists she move in with him, and he won’t take no for an answer.

So she moves in with him, and every guy she meets and tries to seduce ends up being gay, and they aren’t attracted to her sexually, so they just end up talking about shoes and stuff. And the longer she stays living there, the more well-known she becomes throughout the New York gay community. So she gets frustrated with not meeting any men she can target, and so she starts sneaking out to other bars and nightclubs to find men to seduce and damn to hell for all eternity, but wherever she goes, she gets recognized and cock-blocked by some gay guy she knows from her neighborhood, because they keep saying the guys she’s after “aren’t good enough for her”. So after a while, she complains that she’s not getting laid enough, so her gay friends try to set her up with guys they know, but it turns out they’re all in the closet, and she never gets to seduce or condemn anyone (but all her gay friends get hooked up and paired into relationships, etc.).

And so the show is all about how this succubus never gets to seduce anyone, and all the hijinks resulting from her foiled attempts to find men to seduce and damn, as well as her friendship and experiences within the New York City gay community. So it would be like Sex and the City, but without any sex. And she tries to advise her gay friends on how to behave in bed to get damned for lust, but they end up just having a lot of fun instead, and she is constantly frustrated in her mission, failing to get anyone damned no matter what she tries.

So she just ends up killing toy dogs at night to get out her frustrations, which is why she’s called: “Deadly Messing”. And then she keeps showing up with dead toy dogs in her mouth, and her roommate has to dispose of the bodies and try to replace the dogs with new dogs of the same breed without anyone finding out (a worn out old sit-com trope, although usually used for when parents have to replace their kids’ dead pets; but I bet it would be the number one show on all of TV just so we could all see Debra Messing with a dead Paris Hilton-type yippy dog in her mouth each week!).

* Actually, probably not. But it would be a fun show, I’ll bet.

Club Soda Ads

In another post, I made a joke about how other soda ads have hot celebrities in them, but that I only drink club soda, so where are all the hot celebrity-filled ads for club soda? Then I suggested that they could make some hype-filled ad where there’s an exclusive nightclub called “Club Soda”, where everyone, including all the hottest young famous celebrities, is waiting behind the velvet rope to get into the club; and once inside, they all get a big refreshing glass of club soda, and then they all dance around in ecstasy. (The truth is that most dance club people dancing around in ecstasy have a bottle of regular water, because they are on ecstasy.) I thought this idea was ridiculous, but then I realized something: the obesity epidemic.

More and more, we keep hearing from researchers and the government about how bad sodas are for everyone, and that they’re making everyone fat. (Sodas are identical to what they were when I was a kid, and I was thin all my life until recently, and I don’t drink any soda anymore. Except, like I said: club soda, and that has 0 calories.) But club soda has zero calories, so maybe we could see these super-hot celebrity endorsement ads like I joked about above. How? Well…

The government keeps bitching more and more about sodas being fattening, so what they could do is this: They could make a new law that says that for every commercial a soda company makes for their sugary soda, they must also make a similarly budgeted ad for a zero calorie drink, like club soda. (They ought to specify club soda, actually, so my ad can become a reality! Otherwise, it’s just government oppression, man!) Plus, they could strengthen the law to make it more specifically club soda-oriented, by saying it must be a zero calorie soda, but that it can’t have any artificial sweeteners in it. (And it must be clear and carbonated, and with no artificial flavors or colors. And no natural ones, either! And it must have the word “club” and “soda” in the name too; but only two words allowed in the name!)

But seriously, while I am joking here, I’m also being serious, as in: club soda is zero calories, and if advertised to the hilt with hot starlets and sports heroes, it could take off like any other soda, and help reduce people’s waistlines. (Oh, but then belt makers might be adversely affected! {But seriously: stars might resist this idea, because without sodas making everyone else fat, then they might not be celebrities, and someone else might have gotten noticed, and not them! So then I guess we’ll just have to increase their taxes!})

Close Encounters with Yngwie Malmsteen

I’m not sure why, but ever since seeing Close Encounters of the Third Kind again lately I have been thinking about how the movie could have ended differently. Remember how these science nerds and government dignitaries were all hanging around waiting for the aliens to land, and they communicated with them with the wimpy five notes of music from some crappy synthesizer? Well, with that kind of underwhelming achievement, it’s no wonder aliens are always invading Earth and abducting everyone all the time! No, if we really wanted to impress them that we were a respectable culture, shouldn’t we have met them with a more impressive musical communiqué?

No, if that really happened in real life, surely we’d greet the alien menace with something more magisterial, like a full orchestra accompanying Yngwie Malmsteen blasting out some classically-themed power metal stuff, right? So the orchestra would be blaring some bombastic Wagnerian stuff, and on top of it all,Yngwie would be shredding some bitchin’ solo at light speed. And surely that would impress the saucer crowd, right? Oh, but I guess with Earth’s luck with aliens, they’d probably perceive it as a threat (or else they’d be jealous that they couldn’t outplay Yngwie), and then they’d destroy the Earth! But hey, at least it would be a good pyrotechnic show to go with the power metal show, huh? (And it would be free!)

Ronaldinho Loses Coke Sponsorship Deal

Yes, apparently it’s true: Ronaldinho has lost his massive income from a Coca-Cola advertising deal for being seen with a Pepsi. This is a disaster: for Coke. He could easily have said someone just handed him a Pepsi, and he accepted it to be nice. But now that he’s been dropped, he could say this: “I never liked that Coke crap! I only pretended to drink it because they paid me! I took the Pepsi Challenge years ago, and Pepsi won!” And that might make Coke look a lot worse than if they had done nothing. Plus, now Pepsi will probably sign Ronaldinho to join all the other soccer greats in their current ad campaign (Messi, David Villa, Kun Aguero, etc.), and he’d end up landing on his feet anyway.

(Full disclosure: I like Coke better, but I don’t drink any soda anymore, except maybe club soda. And come to think of it, where are all the hot star-filled ads for club soda? They could have some exclusive night club called “Club Soda”, and everyone, even famous celebrities, are waiting behind the velvet rope to get in, and once inside, they all get a nice big refreshing glass of club soda! Or isn’t that realistic enough? {Actually, when you think about it, it’s not really any more disingenuous or hyperbolic than the other soda ads, now is it?})

Here’s the silly soda jerk story:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/07/ronaldinho-has-pepsi-loses-coca-cola-deal/1#.T_zLX47A6Sg

And here’s that Pepsi soccer ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG2ILIQbi8Y

Waking the Dead: A Misunderstanding of Zombies?

I was listening to old AC/DC songs recently, and I heard them sing the line: “We’ll wake the dead”, and that reminded me of the old expression that when people are being loud and partying, they say they will wake the dead. And then it struck me that perhaps this whole flesh-eating zombie thing could just be a big misunderstanding. You see, maybe when the dead get woken up, they’re just really cranky, and so when they get woken up, they bite the people who woke them up, and it’s not really that they’re flesh-eaters so much as it’s just that like everyone else, they’re cranky when they get woken up. But then they probably get embarrassed, and they don’t want everyone to think they’re just foul-tempered jerks, so they act like they like eating human flesh. I’ll bet that’s what’s really going on here, and I’ll bet the dead all laugh at us behind our backs about it all the time.