TV fare is the pits
(No! Not the
programming – the commercials)
Things
that don’t seem to affect normal folks one way or another seem to drive me
quietly bonkers. My pet peeves range from slow service in restaurants to a
button missing on a shirt freshly back from the cleaners to people who fold up
their checks in the church collection plate so no one can see how little they
are giving.
Television
commercials, on some level, are irritating to a majority of viewers – or at
least to those viewers with whom I discuss the matter. But they don’t seem to
drive them crazy and want to throw a can of tuna at the screen.
The
problems with commercials are growing. Commercials too loud. (Wasn’t the
Federal Communications Commission going to fix that?) Too many commercials. As
the number of channels proliferate like the number of hamsters in a cage
munching on rodent-grade Viagra, the price of commercials go down, and the
number of cheaply mad commercials go up exponentially.
Television
commercials have made almost a full circle in the past 60 years. Producers and
sponsors have gone from cartoon ads (LSMFT–Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco and
those cute, singing elves that needed a haircut in the ‘50s Ajax the Foaming
Cleansing ads) to multi-million-dollar I’m so sexy you need to buy this product
ads and back again. Notice how many cartoon commercials there are today?
Many
commercials today insult the intelligent of the average viewer. (What is it
with The General insurance company ads? I get “The General” but what’s up with
the penguin sidekick? And The General’s mustache style went out in the 1870s!))
And,
really, do we need to see consecutive commercials for pills and auxiliary
products aiming to fix every male and female problem that could possibly exist
from the waist to the knees? You might argue that public information on new
medical discoveries is important to the general television viewing public. You
might be right. But give me a button to blip those hummers before they get to
the punch line (so to speak) and you can send me one for every TV in the house.
The
proliferation of medical ads selling drugs for every possible dysfunction known
to medical science, makes me feel weak, sluggish, creates a twitch in m right
eye, creates atrial fibrillation, makes the space between my toes itch and
gives me a pronounced, pounding headache.
The
actors hired for any commercial that’s not for a major movie trailer or a major
car company come from Rejection Casting.
There’s
another insurance company where a guy puts a lampshade on his head and his
pretend-wife is wearing an orange sweater that is tight enough to show her
chest veins. I don’t remember the name of the insurance company because I am
wondering how she got that sweater over her Texas Big Hair and her doctor-bought
accessories.
I
like some of the white-on-white Flo commercials and the talking baby ads are a
hoot, but have trouble remembering what company they are promoting.
Good
writing – in movies or on TV – can sometimes save bad acting, but when you have
neither, you are wasting your money trying to reach potential customers with an
IQ that add up to more than their personal digits.
If
you watch the prescription medication commercials and listen to the words
closely, you will never, ever again take a prescription medication. Bottom
line: Take any medication that ends in “syn,” “ox,” “oid,” “ol,” “tra” or “xa”
and you have a good chance of developing smelling armpits, upchuck your
toenails, retain enough water to float a boat in the Uncertain Christmas Parade
or die.
A
frequent TV watcher has two choices: Tape everything and “button fly” through
the commercials or get up every time a commercial airs and go to the bathroom.
The
first option seems best. Even me, at my age, can’t go to the bathroom that many
times in a day.
I
take a pill for that. Heard about it on TV.
