TV Ads (Part One of Many)

It's probably too late to talk about American Idol now. All the funny stuff I wrote in my head just isn't as funny anymore, except to say that if the human race needed to be re-populated after all out nuclear war, I hope that it starts with Ace and Catherine ..

So, onto that ultimate icon of North American culture .. TV!

"The answers to life's problems .. are on TV!" - Homer Simpson

And I spend a lot of time looking for answers on Canadian TV (which is like American TV, except for Corner Gas) and trust me, most of those answers are found in the ads. Answers such as,

• "Yes, it is okay for Chinese kids to play hockey, as long as their dad drinks Tim Horton's coffee."
• "Yes, despite the fact that you are the greatest female hockey player in the world, you still have to look after the kid and cook dinner."
• "Yes, the Designer Guys can sink lower than Design Rivals." I almost threw the Coffee Mate out of my fridge after that monstrosity.

Ok, so, those examples were specific to Canadian TV, but one of the most unbelieveable (notice the bold and italics) ads on TV is the Home Depot (and I'm sure they have a couple of those in the US) ad where a newlywed couple find out that they can't get to the "island" for their honeymoon, but seem:

1. not at all upset at being unable to go on their honeymoon,
2. quite content at just working in the garden to create an "island of their own".

While I expect ads to exaggerate, this ad goes beyond exaggeration, beyond hyperbole .. just beyond. The first time I saw my wife really, really angry and swearing at strangers was when we were told by the travel agency that one of their agents had taken our money, used it to book flights for other people, and a week before our honeymoon, there was no trip for us. The second time was when she found out that the cruise they gave us to pacify us was in a room with bunkbeds! The third time was when the cruise people were nice enough to give us a room with two double beds instead, and then acted like they were doing us a favour. You get the idea.

One lesson I didn't learn from TV is this - Women go from being the perfect wife to the Yoplait Creamy mom when you fuck with anything involving their wedding.

They don't offer to do anything in the garden or anywhere else near you, and they don't tell you how great it was that you didn't go on the event that would have been the icing on the perfect wedding. The only thing that would get the woman in the ad to say that is if she feared being sent back to Mother Russia, and trust me, she doesn't mean it at any level.

But let's take a step back and look at this ad again. One comment I heard was, "A woman must've written that commercial". WRONG! When you spin it right, it's actually pure genius, written by a man. This ad is the male version of those diamond ads where the men go way, way, way out of their way to be romantic, and sets the bar so high that divorce rates have soared since those ads started to air. Y'know, those ads where you have to distract your wife/girlfriend so that she doesn't see what a dick you are because you didn't rent our a whole movie theatre to show her your wedding videos.

This ad should get the NOW "Stand by Your Man" award, because if anything sets back the progress of women's lib, it's a giant, politically correct, scared of lossing more market share to Lowes/Rona/Canadian Tire, corporation, telling men everywhere that, "Remember when your skipped your 10th wedding anniversary dinner to go to a strip joint with Cleveland and Quagmire. Well, that's okay, because she probably wasn't working in the garden and fantasizing about how great it would be for you to buy a $2000 stainless steel BBQ. It evens out."

The Bud Lite Institute should immediately give the people involved with this ad a life time achievement award!