Count Nerdlinger Will Pay Dearly For His Cheese Related Trangressions, You Can Count On That

Several things bother me about Domino's newest "cheesy bread" spot.



1. It seems to me that in earlier versions of the commercial, the head Domino's guy (Dominick McDominard?), the tough guy in the chef's/lab coat on the right, said that "under cheesing was rancid." I may be wrong, but I think they may have dubbed in the correct word: "rampant." I'm not positive. This is just one of my many wackadoo conspiracy theories.

2. Really? "Under cheesing"? The United Lard-Assed States of America has been criminally under cheesed? Because it seems to me I can't get a single entree at any chain restaurant that contains less than five indistinguishable types of cheese, cheese applied in quantities so immense that 90% of lactose intolerant Americans have literally exploded from the sheer distress in their bowels.

3. What's with Count Nerdlinger von Geekenstein (the chef's/lab coated guy on McDominard's left) looking so sick about his boss' accusations of under cheesing? There's a really long pause after the head honcho's (big cheese's?) admission of Domino's under cheesing guilt, and during that pause, Nerdlinger gets all pale and squeamish, like he was the one and only force behind the distinct lack of cheese on Domino's cheesy bread, and now that this fact is coming to light, his distinguished career in the world of shitty pizza is hanging by a thread. Later, he pathetically tries to copy his boss' hand gestures when expressing just how awesome the new cheese levels are. It's like he's being tortured just to prove a point about Domino's new cheeseful direction.

Also... do you think any of the dudes delivering competing cheesy breads felt a little weird about having to pull up at the Domino's International World Headquarters and Hall of Justice? I hope they at least got a good tip.

But What Does S. Epatha Merkerson Think?

Celebrity endorsements are dumb, but they must work... ad execs certainly wouldn't throw money at actors, athletes and assorted a-holes if they didn't somehow raise the sales of whatever good or product is being endorsed. I don't understand how or why, but such are the mysteries of life.



I would assume, perhaps incorrectly, that endorsements work best when the celebrity has some association with what's being endorsed... like star quarterback and insurance maven Aaron Rodgers and State Farm (which is actually a pretty funny commercial) or noted photographer and ridiculously obnoxious gadabout Ashton Kutcher and Nikon cameras. Oh... wait...

But Coricidin HPB, a heart-friendly cold medicine, apparently decided to actually find a celebrity with a tenuous connection to their product. They found that celebrity in real life high blood pressure sufferer S. Epatha Merkerson. I imagine Coricidin sales have skyrocketed since harnessing the megawatt power of the lady who's been on "Law & Order" pretty much forever.

I think S. Epatha Merkerson is a fine actress. She's perfectly respectable, and would make a fine spokesperson for any product... What I find amusing about the Coricidin campaign is that make a special note that S. Epatha Merkerson is their spokesperson. Her name pops up on the TV ad, like her name carries a lot of cachet in the heart-friendly-cold-medicine world. It reminds me of the Art Linklater endorsing The Game of Life days, like Coricidin hit the jackpot when they finally got the S. Epatha seal of approval...

I like to imagine that there's a huge demographic out there that make their pharmacological buying decisions based on the recommendations of S. Epatha Merkerson... "Man, I've got a sore freaking tooth... I should really get some Anbesol. Wait! Hold on! Before I get this... I'd better figure out what S. Epatha Merkerson thinks."

Everybody's Laughing... But It's Derisive, Hollow Laughter

In my mind, a crappy commercial that has horrible production values is wholly superior to the well-produced, high budget commercial that still sucks. When a bad commercial looks bad and seems rushed and doesn't make sense, it's at least partly because of circumstance. Local commercials often fall into this trap... a lack of money leads to a lack of resources making the ad, and BAM! It's a suckfest.

But when a national commercial comes on, and it's well done, well directed, looks great and somehow manages to be full of poor decisions, it's a complete failure. The Honey Bunches of Oats' (herein abbreviated "HoBO") "Sunshine Day" ad is one of these ads.



Look at the resources that went into making this steaming pile of maggot buffet. There's a whole cast of dancing actors! Candy colored sets! A licensed (awful) song! This little film is the dedicated result of a whole lot of work by a whole lot of people, and it's terrible. And that makes me so mad.

The concept behind the ad is suspect from the start... something about the community of folks who enjoy HoBO having a sunnier, more positive outlook than the rest of us downtrodden Frosted Flakes lovers, and how they realize that the most important meal of the day can also be the most fun. Sure. I love the idea of some ad dude pitching this asinine idea to the HoBO execs. "What makes HoBO different from all other flake based cereals? Optimism!" SOLD.

Two of the decisions in filming totally stymy me... first, the second actor featured is obviously a horrifying, suburban serial killer sociopath. Look at his dead eyes and his ridiculously frightening grin. Some casting director PICKED that freak to be the face of HoBO. Second: the choir of triplets. That scene had to be story boarded and designed explicitly. "I feel like something's missing from this grating, sugar coated nightmare... I know! Identical triplets!"

But even if you remove ugly Ted Bundy and the Sisters Three, the commercial still presents a grotesque funhouse version of what ad execs consider "happiness." It's over the top, but not in a knowing way or a funny way... more like in a desperate way. Licensing a campy song, like this molding owl pellet from the Brady Bunch and playing it mostly straight seems like a willful act of obliviousness regarding our extremely cynical, extremely ironic culture. It's not sincere enough to be sweet or winking enough to be good... it's trapped somewhere in between. And when you tally up the hours that went into making this suburban freakshow, it's both depressing and enraging.

Fun With Childhood Mortality

I don't actually hate the Ancestry.com commercials on the whole. They're pretty well put together, if usually nondescript, and the recent holiday one with Santa Claus was pretty clever. But there's a couple of them that really bug me.

One commercial features a guy who's super duper excited that his ancestors lived next door to the Wright Brothers. Wow! People you never met were neighbors with great Americans?! What a huge achievement for you. The guy in the ad is a bit incensed that nobody in his family ever bothered to bring it up. You know why they didn't? Because who cares about your great-grandpa's neighbors, that's why. If you, maybe, found out your great great uncle Phil was the secret third Wright Brother that they kept chained up in the basement and fed fish heads while Orville and Wilbur got to pioneer flight, well, that's one thing... but just being near 'em? Lame.

The commercial that REALLY gets under my skin, though is this one:



There's something so odd and off-putting about this lady's demeanor as she talks about how many of her great great grandma's kids died... It skeeves me out. She's so excited to share her family's tragedy, like it's a cool new bit of trivia she just discovered. I think the ad takes an odd tact anyway... "Log in to Ancestry.com and learn all about the dead children that litter your family's past!" But if you ARE going to go that route, at least find an actress who can convey a bit of solemnity about it instead of looking kind of stoked that at least HER great grammy didn't bite it before procreating.

To be fair, it's not like she's leading a pom routine shouting "Ooh ra ra!" for childhood mortality, but still... she's all smiles by the end of the spot. The whole commercial has a casual creepiness that I would almost find admirable if it weren't unintentional. "You don't need to know what you're looking for, you just need to look... and maybe you'll find just how miserable the past really was."

Oh, Hi, Eskimo. Here's Some Mall Water

For some reason Brita seems to have allowed nary of trace of their Brita Bottle Eskimo commercial anywhere on the interwebs... perhaps they should extend that tactic to television.

This confusing spot opens with a shot of an Eskimo drinking some water from his cupped hands dipped into a crystalline blue ocean. Suddenly, for some reason, some schlubby lady comes bounding toward him through the ice and snow of the arctic. She, of course, has a Brita Bottle full of filtered water from a drinking fountain at the mall. The Eskimo drinks it. He is delighted.

I guess the gist is that this Inuit gentleman, used to the pristine waters of the arctic, is still impressed by the taste of gross old mall water, as long as it's been Brita-filtered. But, ocean water, even when fed by the global-warming decimated ice caps, is still filled with ick. I'll bet Joe Eskimo, here, accustomed to the whale-sweat and polar bear urine infused water of the Arctic Ocean would be thrilled by taste of mall water, even if it was straight out of the tap. A nice filtration might help, sure, but even the worst drinking fountain is probably innately superior to the watery mating grounds of the king crab.

And why, exactly, is this woman so excited to hand out filtered water to whatever indigenous person she discovers in the tundra? Where did she come from? Why isn't she dressed appropriately for the weather? Doesn't she think the Inuit hunter/gatherer might be even more impressed by a shopping mall, itself, instead of purified water from its drinking fountains?

Dear Lexus Christmas Commercials: #$@& You.

I think that pretty much everybody hates the motherflipping Lexus Christmas commercials. As most of us continue to squirm under at least the specter of economic recession, a handful of elitist j-schmacks in Lexus Commercial World continue to receive stupid brand new surprise luxury cars every stupid Christmas with a big stupid bow on top. It's basically like Lexus is taunting us common folk for whatever measly presents we've been able to give this year, saying, "Yeah, that juicer sure is great compared to a BRAND NEW CAR. You worthless peasants."

I suppose, though, if Lexus is seeking the purchasing power of the coveted Better-Than-You-Pretentious-A-Hole demographic, there's really no fallout from mocking us little people for our meager automobile free gift giving Christmases. Certainly to Cecil and Buffy Q. Richington (of the South Hamptons Richingtons), there's a certain quaint charm in surprising a loved one with fifty thousand dollars' worth of combustion driven engineering.



So year after year after year we're exposed to infuriating vignettes of privileged jerks getting ridiculously extravagant presents from other privileged jerks. "Merry Christmas, poor people! Enjoy redeeming your gift card at Applebees while I light cigars with hundred dollar bills, snort caviar like cocaine, and drive my new Yule Lexus to Vegas to drop a cool eighty grand on a single hand of 'War.'"

Mucus: Scruffy Home Invader

Sadly, I cannot find this commercial on YouTube or any other video sharing site, but it is posted at the Advil official website, here. (Click on the video titled "Bedtime Story.")


This seems to be Advil's odd attack on the Mucinex anthropomorphic Ralph Kramden mucus blob, portraying mucus, instead, as a depressed scruffy dude in a self-explanatory t-shirt. This, I suppose, is to make mucus seem less threatening, since Advil Congestion Relief apparently doesn't do jack to mucus.

It begins, like most pro-mucus stories, with a woman in bed reading a bedtime story to her child, and then getting sidetracked by what she assumes is mucus-related sinus pressure. Strangely enough, the personification of mucus is in her child's bedroom, and he displays an almost Eeyore level of resignation that he is being blamed, yet again, for sinus problems that aren't his fault. "Blame the mucus," he says, in a tone that conveys both exasperation and desperation.

The little girl, inexplicably, declares that this cross-legged home invader is funny. He isn't. He's sad and a bit creepy, although he does helpfully use a rolled-up magazine or pamphlet to illuminate the problems of nasal swelling.

Armed with new knowledge on her malady from the mucus avatar, the mother decides to read her child another bedtime story, despite having crapped out on the first one. The little girl, somehow enchanted by the the miserable mucus-man, decides that she wants a story from him. "Stranger danger" apparently means nothing to this kid.

I get that the idea is to replace the mean-spirited mucus-creature of Mucinex commercials with a mild, harmless mucus-dude in the public consciousness. But if that's the case, maybe having him appear unannounced and uninvited, not just in your home, but in your little daughter's bedroom(!) isn't the best way to make mucus less villainous. Sure, the Mucinex monster throws parties in your lungs and sometimes he hosts game shows in your respiratory system, but at least he has the decency to not sit on your kid's dresser while she's about to doze off to sleep.

Still, Mucinex isn't taking the Advil Congestion Relief attack likely... Recently, the blue collar mucus monster has been joined in adverts by a colossal, semi-retarded giant named Nasal Swelling. How that guy will interact with your precious little ones has yet to be seen.

Mr. Long Johns Is Devastated

Here's another commercial where it feels like we're missing a hunk of the story:



This Triaminic commercial is mercifully short, but its quick run time creates a bizarre reality in which a little boy's fever is of grave concern, in order, to the child's mother, the family dog, and a possibly completely unrelated man in red long johns who's chopping wood. Somehow, in the middle of his chore, he discovers that this kid has a pretty bad fever and then completely loses it. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he cries, cursing the heavens that such a tragedy has befallen a child of nebulous relation.

The mother's anxiety is obviously warranted. The dog's (captioned) involvement is trite, sure, but at least it's kind of sensible, since the dog seems to belong to the kid's family and is in proximity to the sick kid, and it's an excuse for the admen to shove a cute animal into the spot. But how did they arrive at the fourth character in this little drama? What sort of communal freakout led to the creation of the random, old-timey wood splitter? Is he the child's dad? Uncle? The madness tinged neighbor who had been planning the ritualistic murder of the boy and is enraged by the prospect of a virus claiming his prize first? The commercial doesn't make it clear. What is clear is that the writers of this ad could have literally made ANYBODY IN THE WORLD be concerned for the well being of the sick kid and they picked Some Guy In Long Underwear.

Luckily for everybody involved, Triaminic Fever Reducer seems to have some sort of fever reducing effect and boy, mom and dog make a return to normalcy. Like most good dramas, it ends with the family pet wrapping things up... but we in the audience are left with a nagging in our guts... sure, the dog knows the boy feels better, but what about the mysterious lumberjack? Sadly, the most likely option is that the registered telegram carrying news of the child's recovery comes too late, and Mr. Long Johns has already taken his own life from sheer grief. Alas, we don't get to see the dog summarize it with a succinctly barked out, "Now he's dead."

Why Are These People Talking Like Children??

I dislike when commercials have their own mythology, a back story you need to know to understand the ad. I'm not saying that can't be a clever conceit, but in general, it supposes a knowledge of the commercial's universe that I don't usually possess.

I don't know if that's the case with the Subway "Adults Talk Like Kids Where Subway Sub Sandwiches Are Involved" series of ads or not... I've seen several of these commercials and I always feel like I'm missing a key component. Namely: why the hell do these adults have kids' voices? Are Subway subs so delicious that they make you feel young at heart? Do they hearken back to our youths, when girls would feign affection for us just to get our lunches? Are Todd and Sally beneficiaries of Zoltar's magic? I don't understand. And I don't understand why this is supposed to make me want to eat at Subway.



But maybe there's some central joke here that I'm totally missing... some overarching pun or cleverness that I missed out on because, perhaps, I never saw the first installment of the series in which children are magically transformed into gorgeous blond chicks and doofy looking dudes and forced to get menial office jobs where they treat mediocre sandwiches like engagement rings? I'm pretty sure, though, it was probably an attempt to come up with an original twist on those creepy-ass talking baby commercials. "Instead of a baby with a grown up voice, wouldn't it be funny if adults had little kid voices?" "OH MY GOD! HILARIOUS! LET'S SHOEHORN IT INTO A COMMERCIAL!" And then, from there, it delighted people nationwide and they decided to turn it into an ongoing series. And all of us suffer.