The Cheesesmith Will Touch You And You Will Not Like It

There is a sort of mini-trend in advertising, now, to be as bizarre as possible, drawing people into some twisted little universe of non-sequiters and oddball characters in order to sell, say, Skittles or Burger King flame broiled burgers. And sometimes, those ads are amusing... "Hit me again, Tube Sock," still makes me laugh when I see it or think of it... in fact, I'm laughing right now. "Ha ha!" I'm saying, aloud, as I think about an old guy demanding tongue shocks from anthropomorphic hosiery.

Weirdness, however, is an art, not a science... Why one weird thing can be delightful while another weird thing can just be a total drag is kind of a mystery, but I think a lot of it has to do with the very subjective sense that the weirdness hinted at in the ad is part of a larger picture, and not the tossed off whim of an ad exec trying to be hip. I know I'm thinking about this far deeper than is necessary, but the best weird ads tend to build little pocket dimensions of oddness, where there's a sort of parallel reality to the situation... Skittles ads, especially, tend to do this well, and for a brief moment, I'm drawn into the world of the boy with the Skittles tree growing from his abdomen. I think, too, that the seeming simplicity of weirdness tends to attract a host of imitators, folks who think creating a memorable surreal moment is easy as just stringing together nonsense... Velveeta's "Wield The Skillet" ads prove that good weirdness isn't easy to come by...



Again, there's a relatively high production value to the Wield The Skillet ads, meaning that thought and effort went into these unpleasant little films. The skillet wielding... blacksmith? Goldsmith? Cheesesmith? is a totally off putting presence... He appears from nowhere, dirty and disheveled and incongruously pompous by way of overwrought dialog. He has the unnerving power of slipping into women's imaginations, dragging them to a dark, medieval workshop and recreating the sexy pottery wheel scene from "Ghost" in an incredibly skeevy manner. These women, by the way, never seem seduced by the Cheesesmith, but always leave the encounter shaken and scared. While that's certainly logical, given the predicament, it seems like a bad way to sell macaroni and cheese, unless the goal is to get consumers to just make the damn stuff before having to be "persuaded" to do so by a time traveling, working class frotteur.

Also, a good rule of thumb for any food ad is to make the food being advertised seem palatable. Does equating Velveeta to a liquified metal and then showing a flood of neon-yellow, wholly manufactured cheese-like-product attacking some poor noodles really accomplish that? It does not.

The commercial definitely attempts to mine our ceaseless appetite for the bizarre, but fails spectacularly. It doesn't help that this creepy dude keeps reappearing in ad after ad after ad. Weird characters, when they work, work best as one offs... nothing dulls the sense of oddness not like repetition. So it would be wise, for so many reasons, to retire the Cheesesmith as soon as possible.

It's Really NOT Time To Get Real About What Happens In The Bathroom

Let me start by saying I HATE the Charmin Bears. I hate them with a passion. I hate them so, so much. The "Enjoy The Go" campaign is one of the worst things ever unleashed upon mankind... just beneath The Black Plague and just above Carlos Mencia.

I think this Quilted Northern ad is a response to the cringe-inducing bear-shit antics of Charmin's colored pencil ursine toilet paper consumers.



Quilted Northern, after speaking to women nationwide (portrayed in the ad by disclaimer-noted actresses standing on a map of the United States (to indicate, I suppose, which nation Quilted Northern's nationwide interviews took place in)) decided to FINALLY get real about what happens in the bathroom. That's right... the women of America (portrayed by actresses) are SICK AND TIRED of toilet paper commercials not even mentioning that we don't actually want fecal matter on our hands after wiping up. When will toilet paper companies realize that American women have no desire to watch adorable cartoon bears talk about paper schnibbles left behind on furry haunches? No, dammit, they want to hear about clean. Clean! Clean! Toilet paper is about feeling clean. Nobody wants to talk about it, but, by God, our toilet paper makers have been silent on the topic of shitfinger for too long.

Luckily, these actresses are finally steering the country in the right toilet paper advertising direction... Why, just a few years ago, Quilted Northern had fallen into the terrible trap of cartoony advertising.



The adorable quilters in the old Quilted Northern ads never once mention how well their quilted product will hold up to a big soppy mess in your backside. And this, of course, would have made the women of America apoplectic with rage.