I love the middle part of this spot, the first in a series of spots for Target's Christmas season sales event, where we see lots of different toys animated and celebrating Christmas with a tree lighting ceremony. But this ad goes off the rails a bit for me when the Christmas tree, apparently miles and miles away across treacherous terrain and turbulent, monster-infested seas, fails to light with a boom, a fizzle, and a cloud of smoke. This makes me think that maybe everything we buy from Target this Christmas will immediately break and fail, and maybe even start fires. Is this what they want me to think about? (I wouldn't have thought so, but, um…)
Hmm, maybe the toys should have used a smaller tree placed closer to the festivities. But they are toys, after all; maybe they're not very smart since they're mostly made out of plastic (or gingerbread).
It's funny that Barbie, seen here as a newscaster, claims that "a bulb has gone out" on the tree. Hmm, that's not what I remember happening. I remember the whole tree failing to light and a cloud of smoke rising from the electrical problem: you know, the kind of thing that could easily burn down a house.
Isn't there some other way these kids could have started their adventure besides a fire hazard Christmas tree failing to light country miles away on some distant frozen tundra? (Maybe the extension cord couldn't reliably carry electricity that far away?) Maybe the Minions, being naughty, could be working for the Grinch, and they steal all the presents from under a reasonable, functional Christmas tree in the center of the toys' town, and the kids have to go retrieve the loot and defeat the Grinch? (<Or some Grinch stand-in who is trying to ruin Christmas because he's a cartoon villain.)
You know, I think I know what may have happened to the tree: crusaders for political correctness may have sabotaged the Christmas tree for representing a holiday that is non-inclusive, motivated by the view that if everyone doesn't celebrate Christmas, then nobody should be allowed to. And despite the huge economic boon it delivers, as well as all the happiness it brings to countless people of all faiths to have a festive season in the dreary old wintertime, who can argue with the push to ban something that only makes most people happy? (It's like when a kid brings a cookie to class: if they didn't bring enough for everyone, then they can't have it. And if they did bring enough, then they still can't have it, because the teacher wasn't expecting any back talk, you naughty child.)
Here's the Target holiday spot #1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKO2nN28X4Q
