Commercial rant time...

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I see the concencus about recent Cheetos commercials is that Chester Cheetah has pretty much become a douchebag, and I have to agree.

True, but are you allowed to say "d-bag" here?

 

[Drtooth]

I see the concencus about recent Cheetos commercials is that Chester Cheetah has pretty much become a douchebag, and I have to agree.

I have very mixed feelings about this since Chester is one of my if not absolute favorite junk food mascot. While I don't exactly hate the new version of the character, I'm not a huge fan of the direction they took. Chester is supposed to be a poser hipster, who isn't as cool as he thinks he is, who loses all composure when his trademark food is around. And yes, David Feiss did it excellently in the Cheetos Whirlz ad, but he's been pulling that schtick since the 80's where he obviously came out of. He's freaking made of 80's and 90's. Watch a play through of his hilariously terrible SNES games. Everything wears shades, even the background.

Now, we have to remember the stark differences between what they could advertise to children and what they now can't. Some how Baby Bottle Pops and Nitrate filled Lunchables is okey dokey, but snack foods like Cheetos are somehow exactly like Joe Camel, somehow. And while that's a debate that I can see both sides of, it's clear. The new Chester is supposed to appeal to the same 20 somethings that those awful Doritos commercials are demographicaly made for.

Side note: I don't want to go on a Ghostbusters rant here, but if ever one of the detractors for that movie say "have you seen a worse embarrassing portrayal of men?" just say "Every Doritios Ad made in the past 10 years."

Anyway, we got this weird version of the character willing to shoot pieces of his beloved Cheetos snack mixes at people's butts. Yeah. Though I do like some of the recent ones where he gladly watches 2 families of shoppers fight over the last bag. And the one for the BK Chicken Cheetos fries was alright.

On the other hand, here's what existed prior to Chester...

A cute, but dreadfully boring mouse. Cuz mice like cheese. Ugh. Wonder how they'd screw that up if Chester never existed.

 

[Drtooth]

While I wouldn't normally use this to rant about political attack ads, I found out something related to my state's new anti-pot legalization scare ads.

They're bankrolled by the freaking alcohol industry.



I'm not going to go into a rant about pro or con voting to legalize the stuff. But it's incredibly hypocritical that the booze industry is using scare tactics to make suburban mothers think that there's going to be a pot shop on every corner, selling candy colored drugs to kids and that there will be an increase in under the influence driving disasters. Mainly because they've been accused of the same thing for years! They just don't want anyone getting high off anything else. I wouldn't be surprised if the pharmaceutical industry also planted scare tactic commercials because they don't have control of the stuff, and to make sure we all forget that the opiod epidemic (which is really bad in New England) is kinda their fault.

 

[mr3urious]

I'm not going to go into a rant about pro or con voting to legalize the stuff. But it's incredibly hypocritical that the booze industry is using scare tactics to make suburban mothers think that there's going to be a pot shop on every corner, selling candy colored drugs to kids and that there will be an increase in under the influence driving disasters. Mainly because they've been accused of the same thing for years! They just don't want anyone getting high off anything else. I wouldn't be surprised if the pharmaceutical industry also planted scare tactic commercials because they don't have control of the stuff, and to make sure we all forget that the opiod epidemic (which is really bad in New England) is kinda their fault.

Our state is getting bombarded with a lot of these "No on Prop 205" ads that basically say "Don't make the same mistake Colorado did" and scaring us with pot candy that's aimd at teh kidz and haff of teh babbys have weed in tem! Oh noez!!11!!1!

 

[Drtooth]

I wanna make the obvious joke about "hey! It's probably healthier than what they put in real children's candy."

It's just...surreal considering we have this epidemic of a drug you can actually overdose from and how it's become a political prop in New Hampshire (which we get the political ads for here too since we share like 2 stations). Not to mention the over abundance of prescription drug commercials that do that unpleasant side effects mumbled during footage of bike riding and canoeing that always end in "death." I'd tend to think that there would be some scare tactic commercials against all the opium based pain relief drugs that actually kill people, had it not been for the gobs of money these guys lob at politicians. Politicians who's ads blame the other party for the outbreaks of deadly O.D.'s, mind you.

If I sound a bit heavy handed, a family friend's adult son who I knew as a child died from this sort of thing. And before he did, he fell into crime and hung out with bad influences who were part of his extended family. And we saw him a week before he died and he looked alright and like he was turning a corner... it's a really bad story that comes off as a Lifetime movie, but it really happened. I'm just saying, why doesn't the booze industry throw their money to fight that?

 

[mr3urious]

Apple has been riding on the trend of commercials using "moody" covers of normally upbeat songs, as Drtooth can point out. They used "I Will Follow Him", made famous in Sister Act, and the singer's off-key moaning is made even worse by the fact that he sounds really out of breath.

 

[Drtooth]

The sad thing is, I really wondered if that was that song considering how it's covered.

I've noticed a pattern. When it's a guy singing the downbeat cover, it's supposed to be soothing, but when a woman sings one, it's supposed to be unnerving. I've hated both of these. I've hated how the female singers variant is to make movie and TV show trailers more brooding, moddy, and unnerving than they're supposed to be. I hate whatever the male equivalent is supposed to do as well. I'm still annoyed by the Yogurt commercial that horrendously butchered the campy 1980's "I Come from a Land Down Under" in both lyric and tone to the point where I don't even see why they bothered using that song at all.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

This has become a trend. Almost every commercial now is using covers of old songs. Like, just yesterday, I saw some ad that used a more up-tempo version of "Stand By Me". Or those Apple commercials, and that Superbowl commercial with the puppy with the slow version of "500 Miles" by the Proclaimers.

And quite possibly the most annoying commercial of all time:

 

[D'Snowth]

I think part of it has something to do with royalties and such - it's apparently less of a hassle (and less cost) to use cover versions than the original . . . or, at least, that's apparently why one of our local radio stations always play cover versions of certain songs and never the original.

 

[D'Snowth]

What are those commercials for with the really melancholoy female rendition of that Monkees' song "Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good"?

EDIT: Never mind, it was on just now - Minute Maid orange juice.