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2002-03-05 - 7:47 a.m.

You folks know I don't watch much television. I'm a reader more than a TV aficionado. But when I do settle in for a little television watching I'm always dumbfounded at some of the asinine commercials airing, and I wonder what the Wall Street ad execs could possibly be thinking-or not thinking.

(And, yes, I go about yelling at the television as if the damn thing could hear and understand me and change the ad's content.)

I've got my own Super Bowl pick of commercials. Mine, however, are the Toilet Bowl picks. In fact, two that really set me off are toilet paper commercials.

Quilted Northern has less lint than the other leading brands. If you don't believe it, the ad will prove it. A silly-assed group of cartoon women conduct an experiment using two large, black placards shaped like hands. One hand is sprayed with-water, I hope-and then wiped with "a leading brand." Sure enough, the black hand is smeared with white lint. Then the other hand is sprayed and dried with Quilted Northern. Doesn't take a genius to figure out this hand will have less lint attached. And sure enough, there's not much lint at all on that placard. One of the silly-assed women jumps up, points to the white-flecked hand and squeals: "Oooooo, I don't want that on me!" Wonder if she's considered the alternative?

Cottenille fills up a full minute--and my TV screen--showing butts packed into spandex. Swimmers in spandex Speedos bent and ready to dive into the lap pool. Runners in spandex bent and ready for the starter's gun. Butts. And butts. And more butts. Many, many butts sticking in the air. As all these butts are flappin in the wind a voiceover tells me Cottenille "gets you clean in all the right places." I'd never considered it before, but are there wrong places to be clean?

I'm an animal lover, so generally when a commercial comes on with dogs or cats or giiii-raffs or some other of God's little beasties I stop what I'm doing and watch it. Usually I think those ads are pretty entertaining. Not so with the new Petco spot. Zoom in on a bathtub brimming with bubbles, a man and woman, naked, sit facing and have this little wiry-faced dog between them. The little dog is lathered in flea soap-hell, maybe all those damned bubbles are flea soap-and the woman is talking baby talk to it. Even the dog is disgusted, he keeps frowning at the gibbering woman.

You tried to seduce anyone lately? I gotta admit, my powers of seduction haven't been the best the last few years. I keep going home and sleeping alone. But, Dannon has shown me the error of my ways. If I'm going to successfully seduce Bubba I must first get dolled up in a French Maid's (no, diva, not a French whore's) outfit, sit on the guy's lap and spoon feed him gooey, pink, fermented milk. Of course, this all plays out better if his kids come home and find us foolin around at the dining room table.

And this one from KelliJelly:

I'm currently despising the new UPS commercials. You know the ones... "Brown gives me time to do this" "Brown helps me do that"... BROWN? Pah-leese. I even heard "Brown offered me another piece of pie. Ok, actually, Brown didn't suggest that." -- What? Huh? Dumb, dumb, dumb. Brown is not a thing. Brown is a color. It's not BROWN, it's U.P.S.! Are they changing their name to BROWN? Why don't they just change it to "The Buster Brown guys," which is what my hubby calls them, or "The Ups Man," which is what The Little Clown calls them. At least I don't have to deal with that darned Taco Bell dog anymore, though... He was cute for about 30 seconds. Oh, and if we could get PrimeCo to get rid of the little alien, I'd be happy about that, too.

Any and all infomercials should be banned. Even a hint that one of those is going to hit the airwaves and I become a screaming banshee and start pawing around for the remote. Who gave those con artists license to use television to scam the public, anyway?

Print promotions are no better. A print ad on the back of my OnSat television guide promotes a new sleep technology breakthrough. Scientists have used NASA research to create a "smart bed" sleep surface. This "affordable and comfortable" space age sleep wizardry sounds like something I'd want to run right out to Beds n More and buy. Imagine the anticipation of a good night's sleep, then you lay down and that damn thing blasts you off to the moon. Awesome! A quantum leap in bedding technology. Say good-bye to tossing and turning and hello to outer space.

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