A friend asked me which Superbowl ads I liked best.\u00a0 The very idea of advertising rubs me the wrong way, even though I grant the necessity — have I not plugged my own blogs here and there around the internets?\u00a0 Still, watching and critiquing Superbowl ads has become a tradition, and who am I to buck tradition?<\/p>\n
Here’s what I told my friend:<\/p>\n
I made Buffalo wings and we watched the game, but I wasn\u2019t paying close attention.\u00a0 Never having been good at ball sports as a kid, I don\u2019t have any interest in them as an adult.\u00a0 Superbowl’s the exception, simply because it is what one does on Superbowl Sunday.<\/p>\n
I blogged about the pre-game performance of two national anthems<\/a>.\u00a0 Other bloggers were hung up on Christine Aguilera\u2019s botched performance of the Star Spangled Banner (doesn\u2019t anyone remember Roseanne Barr screwing it up<\/a> even worse?), and some questioned the $450,000 flyover by Navy F-18s (seeing as how the stadium roof was closed at the time).\u00a0 But the blogosphere at large has yet to cotton to the fact that we have passively allowed the right to impose two national anthems upon us.\u00a0 I\u2019m out ahead of the pack on this one.<\/p>\n
The ads I remember are the ones with the kid in the Darth Vader costume, the super-creepy one where the guy sucks another guy\u2019s fingers, and the burly man who starts using a credit card for womanly purchases and winds up a drag queen.\u00a0 Kinda surprised the last two got through televised sport’s manliness filters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Speaking of filters . . . ever notice how TV advertising talks around bodily functions?\u00a0 Curiously, you can say diarrhea, but you can’t say “bowel movement.” That, right there, is probably what defines American TV advertising . . . not calling a spade a spade, or in this case, a turd.<\/p>\n
Witness the horrible advertising campaign for a product called Philips Colon Health.\u00a0 The ad I’m thinking of is so awful no one has even posted it to YouTube, but a fellow blogger,\u00a0Ian J. Spector<\/a>, took the trouble to transcribe it:<\/p>\n
INT: BOOKSTORE
\nCamera pans past a row of books. LEAD FEMALE is reading to a group of women from the box of PHILLIPS\u2019 COLON HEALTH the way an author performs a book reading.<\/em><\/p>\nLEAD FEMALE: She felt lost until the combination of three good probiotics in\u00a0PHILLIPS\u2019 COLON HEALTH defended against the bad gas, diarrhea, and constipation.<\/p>\n
YUPPIE BLONDE FEMALE (desperately): And?<\/p>\n
LEAD FEMALE\u00a0(excitedly, while leaning in and touching the other woman\u2019s forearm): It helped balance her colon!<\/p>\n
BLACK FEMALE (with head movement and finger pointing): Ooh, now that\u2019s the best part.<\/p>\n
YUPPIE BLONDE FEMALE: I love your work.<\/p>\n
VOICEOVER: Phillips\u2019 Colon Health.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
“Balanced colon,” indeed!\u00a0 I never thought I’d see a bodily function ad more cringeworthy than this:
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