The worlds you see inside commercials.

I saw a thread on advertising and thought about something I've been looking for Tropey-stuff on for a while. In fact, I actually do think I saw it listed in the Nightmare Fuel...

... I really dislike the series of commercials running currently with that puppet-family. I forget whether it's Comcast or Xfinity or whatever... (I think Xfinity's program right now is the man who is annoyed at his dog for not being impressed by human technology). It's... one of those cable/tv service provider folks. You see? I can't even remember the company! Slick advertising!

I'm too creeped-out by the puppets. They're awkward and uncanny... and that one commercial where the wife-puppet tries to do a sexy-dance... *shudder.*

But what's more, I see this whole... world within those commercials. Cracked mentioned them a little bit, but I actually have a bit of a different take on it. They saw the normal human male protagonist as a kind man who "loves his awkward puppet wife and his awkward puppet son" and tries to defend them from a bigoted world. I, on the other hand, kind of see him as subtly bigoted. He wasn't looking at his wife when she was doing her sexy dance and she asked "Do you like what you see?" - he was looking AT THE WIRELESS TV-SETUP. I noticed where his eyes were going. His son? "Look! You can fly!" when he's caught in a dangerous ceiling fan... There's just something DARK about the world of these commercials.

Also, puppets are creepy. Stop trying to sell me stuff with uncanny-valley abominations who don't know how awkward they are. Advertiser - it's uncomfortable for us both.

What kind of weird, underlying worlds / world building do you see behind purposefully absurd advertising campaigns? (I remember Cracked doing more of these, such as the "World of sentient M&Ms being a world of casually-accepted cannibalism." Or, the oft-cited "Women need yogurt to poop." (I hardly ever eat the stuff, myself).

If aliens found a media-feed of only our advertising, what do you think they'd think of us?

In which I attempt to be a writer.

The M&M one bugs me too. There was this one I think for frosted shredded wheat or some such where little cereal pieces would eat other little cereal pieces, they had no problem with this rampant cannibalism, they would just swallow them whole. On a related note the cereal pieces where the larger cereal piece is talking to his smaller cereal piece son, and he is so excited about getting eaten, and there talking about it like it's a perfectly normal right of passage, and the father cereal is encouraging it.

Basically any talking food bugs me because of the idea of eating something sentient, my mom says I overthink commercials (I often nit-pick there set-up) also she now pictures it as cannibalism too, I got this concept before reading the Cracked article, so when it was made I was like finally someone acknowledges it

Krave Cereal. I remember them because my fiancee' HATES those commercials. They creep him out. Sometimes, in grocery store, he'll talk about "cannibalistic cereal." Even if it looked appetizing to us (it doesn't), we wouldn't buy it. Poor little chocolate pieces. They should be going into MY raging maw!

I have a problem with talking meat, specifically. You know, like those little hamburger characters that Mc Donald's has that hang around Ronald Mc Donald. I've always thought stuff like that was squicky, even when I was a little kid. You see, my father was a butcher. My family also lived in a rural area and, though they didn't keep up raising meat, for the very earliest parts of my childhood... I "helped daddy" out in the backyard by the chopping block and the butcher-pole. I knew were meat came from early-on. If a living animal is doing "Let's Meet the Meat," that's one thing, but dead, carved off the animal already / ground up processed flesh? Talking? *Shudder.*

In which I attempt to be a writer.

Yes that's the one. The cannibalistic cereal is the worst.

Ah I can understand that, yes obviously dead, ground up meat. Like zombies already processed zombies -shudders-. I think it bothers me less when there ground up strange as it is, I actually have the hardest problem with the heart burn commercial where he's playing with the roast chicken, because the way it's up and walking makes it obviously a cooked headless chicken corpse walking.

Heh. It's like something from The Thing.

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

I imagine that most cereal mascots have severe mental problems and probably are tormented by the fact that the world they live in is contrived to make those problems come up regularly.

Say, the Trix Rabbit is probably going to grab a chainsaw at some point and goes to find every kid who denied him the pleasure of Trix...

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

That poor Rabbit . . . . ;~~~~~~~~~;

what do you mean I didn't win, I ate more wet t-shirts than anyone else

Yes it wouldn't take much to just give him a bowl already.

Here's the creepy thing about the M&M's world. I don't know if it's still true there, but a few years ago, humans in that world would randomly transform into M&Ms themselves.

And still, nobody saw anything wrong with the whole eating thing except Patrick Warburton.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Wow even more direct cannibalism then previously thought, I swear they do it on purpose so we can talk about how messed up it is.

Have you guys seen those Verizon commercials where people go in this date with some guy I've never heard of, and it's basically a guy with a tablet strapped to his head. The people never act like anything is out if the ordinary . Oh yeah and they say they trust Verizon , the company who sued the FCC and is threatening net neutrality as well as has no concern for customer privacy , the most

@Xopher No which is strange because we occasionally do watch American channels but mom and dad haven't been here this week so the TV hasn't been on.

I really think Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket commercials are geared toward some fantasy world where people seem to believe in doing everything in the most asinine way possible. In one commercial you got a dude who is squeezing toothpaste like he's trying to make a python cough up the rabbits it ate last week and in another some guy's jamming a Q Tip into his ear like he's in army bayonet training. Who in real life is having these problems?

"If everybody is thinking alike, somebody isn't thinking"- George S. Patton

Nobody.

what do you mean I didn't win, I ate more wet t-shirts than anyone else

Not horrifying but in the Kayak travel compare rates, where they show his father and his father's father etc. compared on different websites, and having laptops in the 1960's and earlier I have decided the family (or just the male side) can summon any technology from anytime as an explanation.

Shudder Reminded of that damn commercial with the q-tip jab. THAT ONE MAKES MY EAR HURT!!! It's also stupid because was like "Suicidal dagger to the brain! Oh, wait! Ow!!!!"

Yes, in those commercials, no one knows how to pour pancake batter, or to crack an egg or... anything.

I've only ever seen about half of "Idiocracy" on TV one time... but, I suppose those commercials are made for that world?

edited 30th Jul '14 6:59:50 PM by Shadsie

In which I attempt to be a writer.

On the other hand, they make a sweet music video:

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great