More Bad TV Commercials

Commercials are a necessary part of television programming. Some are very humorous, some are to the point, and some are completely irritating. Happily, a lot of the commercials for men enhancements have been toned downed somewhat making them more believable and less aggravating. But as old commercials are removed, new ones take their places and new nerves are struck.

Geico's commercials with the gecko and the cave men are fairly funny, or at least cute. But the southern "pothole" that "got no phone" is annoying. Giving a pothole the attributes of a southern woman, who actually wants to help, but can't cause she' a "pothoooole" and then says in a cheery voice, "Well, bahyye" is ludicrous. Everyone knows that if a gender would have to be assigned to a pothole, it would be man, not a woman. And when someone would hit the pothole and do damage to the vehicle, or gets a flat tire, or knocks his car out of alignment, the pothole would say, all the while laughing hysterically, "Hey, sorry about your luck! How do you like me now? Don't you watch where you're going?" A pothole is really a bully. "I dare you to step over this line" and down you go! When I think of a pothole, I don't see a blond, big-haired southern belle, I see a man with greased hair parted down the middle, with a Snidely Whiplash moustache.

Another commercial that I could do without seeing, is the one for a denture adhesive sung to the tune of "The Everly Brothers" "Bye-Bye Love". The denture wearers in the commercial are basically all middle aged, and some of the faces displayed to show their disdain for the "gooey" type adhesives scare little children. Now, in itself, it could be an incentive to children to take care of their teeth, or else they will end up looking like those people. But when a child, whose baby teeth are falling out rapidly, sees these commercials, their little minds don't comprehend that their teeth are going to grow back, the teeth of the people on the commercials are not. Try explaining that to a 4 year old whose front tooth just dropped out of her mouth.

The identity protection commercials are funny to me. If someone stole my identity, she would be sadly disappointed. She wouldn't get a credit card, or a mortgage, or a new RV. In fact, she can have it. Let all those bill collectors start calling her! There is one commercial in particular that confuses me. the woman says, "When you are a victim of identity theft, from that point, your whole entire life is spent trying to protect your identity. And I say 'trying' because it's a full time job just trying to protect your identity." Can someone explain that statement? If you're already a victim of identy theft, you might as well not try to protect your identity, because you have already done a pretty poor job.

But the one commercial that gets under my skin the most are the men talking about investing in gold. They make it a point to say that they invested in gold 10 years ago, and it was the best move of their life. Well, yeah! Why weren't they on TV 10 years ago advising us to buy gold, instead of being on today and gloating. G. Gordon Liddy especially gets my ire up, since he and E. Howard Hunt planned the first break in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Remember the Watergate scandal. Nixon resigned and Liddy served four and a half years for his participation. And now this convicted thief wants to sell me gold? He probably has a bridge in New York to sell me as well.

Commercials are manditory to keep the programming that we enjoy, but I certainly would like someone to watch them first before subjecting us to them.