To Sell a Product

When you watch as much TV as I do, you see a lot of commercials.  Some make me angry; some make me smile.

My perennial anger goes to Stanton Optical, which has the most stupid commercials ever.  To make matters worse, they always run in pairs.  Commercial for Stanton, commercial for something else, same commercial for Stanton again.  The worst was probably the one where a pair of glasses seemed to be going into labor and eventually popping out another pair.  Lots of grunting and groaning in that one until they finally told us that you got two pair of glasses for the price of one.  They eventually dropped that commercial and my latest anger is directed at the one where a guy dressed all in pink interrupts a women's book club to say that he can't concentrate on one woman's comments because of her pink glasses and all he can think of is "pink." (I saw someone wearing blue glasses the other day and had to laugh that this was my first thought!)

The latest one is as incomprehensible as all the others.  There is a long staircase, flanked on both sides with people, each wearing a pair of glasses.  A guy, also wearing glasses, marches down the middle of the stairs, stops to rip a pair of glasses off one person and asks what they are.  The guy answers "Stanton" and explains that he got two pair for one price, whereupon the original guy crushes the glasses in his hand and screams STANTON and everyone scatters.

What does it all mean?

But there are commercials that I like.  The Eucrisa commercials are cute.  Eucrisa is an ointment for mild eczema and is a series of people asking if it's safe for them.  One of my favorites is the little girl who asks "the face of a fairy?" (Note the red eczema on her cheek.)

But my favorite is the kid who assures the viewer that Eucrisa is "steroid free."  He has such an engaging attitude.

And then there is the teenager who has to break the news to his parents that he has had an auto accident at a local drive-in.

He's praising them for the kind of Allstate insurance coverage they have before they take away is driving rights for 4 weeks.  I love him as an actor

I wonder who writes these mini-dramas designed to sell us something.  Some are brilliant; some should be fired!  I'd also love to see some of the casting auditions.

And now a word from our sponsor

I was watching The Today Show this morning when it suddenly felt like the commercials had been going on forever.  So I did the logical thing -- I hit the "record" button and later went back to count them.

Twenty-two commercials.  I am remembering the lovely days in  Ireland where the commercials were all grouped at either the beginning or the end of the program, and the program went on uninterrupted.  How civilized.

Walt has been noticing evening commercials and wondering if I is assumed that the programs we watch are all geared toward old people, since there seems to be a preponderance of commercials for medications.  (Some day I really want someone who created it to explain the side-by-side bathtub commercial to me.  How does that POSSIBLY make you think of physical intimacy.  For one thing, the tubs are at the edge of a cliff, presumably out in the middle of nowhere and there are no clothes to be seen.  Did they have help, or tiptoe through the tulips nude.  So the guy takes the little blue pill, or whatever color it is, and it works.  They have to get through TWO bathtubs and either make love on the ground or in a small bathtub.  But that commercial has been running forEVer.

I don't know what demographic the morning commercials are aiming at.  Maybe you can figure it out.

1. the movie All the Money in the World
2. Papa Murphy pizza
3. Baskin Robbins ice cream pizza
4. Tobaccofree.com, about the evils of second hand smoke
5. Panera
6. Tylenol
7. Cheerios
8. Peanut butter chocolate Cheerios (which sounds ghastly)
9. the movie The Shape of Water
10. Lindor chocolates (does anybody eat one of those truffles as slowly as that woman does?
11. Some internet connection
12. Blue Basic dog food
13. Robitussin cough syrup
14. Paradontax tooth paste
15. St. Jude's hospital
16. The importance of milk in the diet of an Olympian
17. Symbicort medication for COPD
18. Kohl's
19. Ross for clothes
20. Palmer's Coconut oil with a half-naked woman meandering through a forest pouring coconut milk over her body -- kind of the ice cube challenge with coconut
21. Boot Barn (it starts out with a bunch of vignettes asking "what is love?" and it turns out that love is boots.
22. Ross again, this time for house decorations

At least there was no Stanton Optical commercial.  Those are my least favorite commercials and they run one, then another commercials runs and then Stanton is back again with the same commercials.  They are a tad less offensive than they used to be, but I still hate them.

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So this is apparently the White House all tarted up for Christmas. Isn't it warm and inviting? Looks like something out of a Bergman movie.

Was there ever a better representation of the past year and the cold heartedness of the current administration? I can see a tree for the millions who are about to lose their health care, a tree for children who will no longer get nutritious meals, a tree for schools whose funds will be given to Charter schools, a tree for the land in Patagonia that has just been taken back by the government.  There is a tree for big game animals, whose future is uncertain.  There's another tree for immigrants hoping to escape horrendous environments now denied admission to this country.  There is a tree for the undocumented children who might be deported to countries they have never visited.  There is a tree for the forgotten of Puerto Rico, and a tree for the impending chaos that is about to happen in Jerusalem.  So many trees.  

Yes, it's all very jolly.  

At the end of the hall is #45's stocking.

It's full of coal.

Crazy Critters

You may have seen the commercial on TV for Crazy Critters.

The ad for it says:

Crazy Critters™ are strong, durable and realistic looking. They are machine-washable so you can use them indoors or out, over and over again!

Crazy Critters™ are stuffing-free so they lie flat, making them easy for ANY SIZE DOG to play with. You'll never have to worry about cleaning up the mess from a torn or ripped stuffed animal! Even better, your dog will never be exposed to loose stuffing that could be harmful or dangerous if eaten.

I fancy myself a savvy shopper and thought this sounded like a good deal (especially when they said you could get two for only $10), I checked around web sites where people review stuff like this. I checked several sites and found only rave reviews for this supposedly indestructible doggie toy that was going to cost me only $10 plus shipping and handling for the two squeak toys.

I have spent so much money on doggie toys since Sheila arrived. She used to LOVE squeak toys and would play with them for days until that fateful day when she discovered that she could dig deep enough to get the squeaker out. Now a squeak toy is lucky if it lasts 20 minutes around here.

I did actually have a squeak toy that was made from fire hose material and that actually outlasted the dogs' interest, believe it or not. But this sounded like a good deal, so I ordered the two toys.

The on line ordering page is big and flashy and again, I'm a savvy shopper, right? so I was very careful when filling out all the information. I pushed that unforgiving "place order" button, fully expecting to get a page where I could review all the information before making the final commitment. Instead I was routed through a series of pages offering me more stuff. Did I want 2 additional toys? Did I want maybe only one additional toy? And they print a big "YES" button which turns your cursor into a hand so you can click on it, with a "no" written in tiny letters which does NOT turn your cursor into a hand, but which will, when you click on it, take you to the next screen anyway.

I was feeling proud of being such a savvy shopper. I was smarter than all their tricks. They weren't going to sucker me into buying more than I wanted. No sirree.

When I finally got past the last special offer page, I got a page that thanked me for my order, which turned out to be almost $30. What???? No "review" page? No chance to change my mind? And where in the hell did all that money come from?

Welll, you see, it turns out I'm not such a savvy shopper after all. Yes, you get two of these featherweight toys that cost nearly $7 for shipping and handling. EACH. The note that said that you would have to pay a separate shipping and handling charge for the second toy was printed in a font so tiny you needed a magnifying glass...and it was in a color that was just barely lighter than the background it was on, waaaay down at the bottom of the screen.

Congratulations, you crazy critters. I thought I was so smart, and you snookered me. Naturally there was no "contact information" where you could cancel the order. It also said to expect a 4-6 week wait time. I fully expected never to see the damn things, but actually they arrived today.

OK...so they are MUCH more expensive than I thought I was spending, but the dogs love them. They have been flying around the house all afternoon. Polly and Cappy have been playing endless games of tug of war and best of all, so far nobody has been able to figure out how to tear it up. I figure that might just be worth the price I paid in the first place.

However, this is just a warning to people who occasionally succumb to TV hype and check out the item on the net. Read everything before committing to anything, or you might end up, like me, paying more for shipping and handling than for the item you are buying in the first place!

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Be forewarned. The Piñata ladies are having their own Cousins Day pajama party tomorrow, so the next entry for this journal will be posted late.