Icy Hot/Ben-Gay Neymar Ad (Joke/Proposed)

We see Neymar walking down the street when he gets a muscle cramp in his leg and he falls down, flopping to the ground and writhing in agony, holding his leg. Then the announcer says that when muscle pain strikes, use Icy Hot/Ben-Gay.

Slo-Mo Arguments

Well, the World Cup is all done and in the books now, and it was a really good one. We had FIFA colluding with the Russians, lots of fake flopping and writhing around on the ground, and quite a lot of great goals that would be great on any promo reel for the tournament. But I think what I will miss most from this World Cup is all the post-foul slo-mo footage of players arguing with the referee. Denials of guilt, professions of innocence, explosions of indignant rage, pleas for mercy: they were all there, lovingly presented in 4K slow motion so we could enjoy all the pathos, all the cynicism, all the dishonesty, and all the histrionics this great sport has to offer. We were even treated to many slo-mo replays of players writhing in mock agony. (I wonder if there are drama classes specifically devoted to soccer foul acting. These could double their income by dividing the course into two parts: denials and writhing. Think of all the money that would roll into that industry! Industry ads would scream cash rolls into coffers like balls into a goal. But I suppose if players could do it convincingly, it would take all the fun out of it for viewers at home.)

Farmer's Insurance Peter Strzok Joke Ad

We've all read Peter Strzok's messages to his paramour FBI lawyer where he refers to an insurance policy. Well, how about a Farmer's Insurance ad, featuring the current campaign where that abusive band teacher (J.K. Simmons won an Oscar for playing that role, in the movie Whiplash.) shows people around their museum of wacky insurance oddities (the key term here is 'oddities', because these ads claim these claims were covered, and that's just not the insurance industry I'm familiar with...). Only this time, J. K. Simmons says to his guest, Peter Strzok, who is shopping for an insurance policy against Donald Trump becoming president: "An orange Julius Caesar." Then we see a flashback to election night, and Trump's supporters are cheering and jumping up and down, and Hillary Clinton's supporters are crying at the Javitz Center, ad then we see a picture of the Inauguration flash by, and other wacky assorted oddities from Trump's presidency. Then we cut back to Simmons and Strzok, and we see Simmons point to a bright orange sculpture of an extremely gauche-looking Donald Trump with a crown on and smiling, and Simmons says: "We know a lot 'cause we've covered a lot." Strzok replies: "You've covered that? That's the exact insurance policy I'm looking for! How did you know?"

Here are a couple of examples of the current Farmer's Insurance ad campaign:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/dOx6/farmers-insurance-hall-of-claims-cactus-calamity

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/wpXX/farmers-insurance-hall-of-claims-abstract-accident

The Golden Seeing Eye Dog Award

After the World Cup Final this morning both teams were awarded their medals and trophies, and among these were trophies for the best player (the Golden Ball), best young player (the Silver Ball), highest goal scorer (the Golden Boot), etc.

Well, seeing as how this World Cup, despite having the ability to use video replays and a roomful of assistant referees dutifully watching everything carefully to see what actually occurred on the field, the refereeing still managed to be largely incompetent. (As an example, I need only point to the first goal of the game, which was from a free kick, awarded for a dive: there was no foul, and the free kick should have been given the other way, and there's no excuse whatsoever for that with the video assistant referee.)

And so I propose another trophy to be awarded to the worst referee of the tournament: the Golden Seeing Eye Dog Award, to indicate how the "honored" referee was unable to see the events of the game accurately.

Gatorade World Cup Ad?

Everyone knows we didn't get into the World Cup finals this year. But have any ads tried to place the blame?

(Okay, I am going to suggest joke ads here that are not intended as anything other than jokes.)

Why not have ads saying the team stopped using Gatorade and only didn't qualify and might subsequently have lost because they drank Powerade?

I don't want to get in trouble, and this is just a joke, so I hope we're all in good spirits here.

Soccer Player Activity Map

After a game, the commentators will show a map of the field to indicate where the best players from each team were and for how long during the game.

I wonder if it's possible to get that information about them off the field. I'll bet their wives would love to see that map! Or at least their lawyers would.

Pornographic Cave Paintings

Archaeologists and historians are very proud of and fascinated by the wonderful cave paintings early man made of animals, hunting scenes, etc. They're not so proud, apparently, that early man painted pornographic scenes of orgies on some cave walls as well. I heard one scientist say they were "disappointed" in our early ancestors for painting such things.

But if they think they're disappointed, imagine how the likely cave-adolescent artist's parents felt when they first saw those paintings. The caveman father probably said: "Mother disappointed you paint sex scene on wall. Why you do? You no go on hunt. You stay in cave and think about what you do to disappoint mother!" And then he probably just painted more.

Le Deuxieme Souffle

Le Deuxieme Souffle, the great French crime film by the master of the French crime thriller Jean-Pierre Melville, is on TCM tonight as their Sunday night foreign film; which is funny, because it's a movie about a big-time criminal who escapes from prison and participates in an armored car heist where guards are killed; and just today, a notorious French criminal, who took part in an armored car heist where a police officer was killed, escaped from prison in a brazen helicopter getaway.

I have to wonder: did they plan the escape to coincide with the showing of the movie? Maybe it was the secret plan schedule: bring the helicopter the day of the night TCM is showing that Melville movie that's quite like his life. Also, I wonder: were they at all inspired to use a helicopter for the escape plan by the helicopter heist of a moving train from another great Jean-Pierre Melville crime movie: Un Flic? (I'd love to think so.)

Here's a link to the IMDB page for Le Deuxieme Souffle:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060305/?ref_=nv_sr_2

Here's a link to the Wikipedia page for Un Flic, which describes the plot:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_flic

And here's a link to the NBC news story about the escape:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/notorious-french-criminal-freed-heavily-armed-men-helicopter-n888141