Ad Nauseous

“You can call me Nannerpuss, Nannerpuss…and guess what, I love pancakes!”

You sure do, Nannerpuss.

(P.S. This is a Denny’s ad that I originally wrote about here.)

The terrifying beast of a “food” item known as the Double Down sandwich has to be the most daring creation unleashed by KFC since the Famous Bowl. It might even top that famed bowl, due to the pure audacity of their attempting to rethink the entire sandwich by putting the meat on the outside. I’ve thought of things like this while in a drunken stupor, but kudos to them for making it a reality.

I apologize for the shitty quality of the video below.

The recent commercial for Wonderful brand pistachios, embedded below, portrays a dominatrix whipping a pistachio. The subject matter doesn’t concern me, but the bad grammar does. The ad says “Dominatrix do it on command,” using the word “dominatrix” as a plural for itself. That is just plain wrong. According to logic, countless overheard references and even Wikipedia, the correct plural is “dominatrices.” Just like matrices in math class. This isn’t the most egregious grammar offense I’ve seen in advertisements lately, but it’s still worth pointing out.

Quiznos portrays a DIY hillbilly hot tub in their latest commercial, but if you ask me, these hillbillies don’t know jack about constructing homemade jacuzzis.

This MANswers clip attempts to answer the age old question of how to construct the best instant hot tub.

Stephen Colbert presented a brilliant imitation ad the other day on his fine comedy news show, The Colbert Report. He was complaining about the cool, youthful approach Miracle Whip is using in their commercials of late, and he made his own awesome version, entitled “The Mayolution Will Not Be Televised.”

This is the original Miracle Whip ad in question. It’s pretty dumb. The ad slogan, “Don’t be so mayo,” also sounds suspiciously like a ripoff of Baskin-Robbins’ “Don’t be so vanilla” campaign, which I discussed a while back.

I like Stephen’s version better.

It’s hard to criticize McDonalds for what seems like a perfectly well-intentioned marketing campaign, not to mention their associated community outreach efforts. But this 365Black campaign seems like a step in the wrong direction in some ways, and the name needs some work. I went onto the campaign’s website hoping to find a mature representation of the 21st Century African-American community. And for the most part, the site is normal fast food website content, but they come off as a little bit delusional on the About page, where they attempt to portray themselves as the mighty baobab that provides life to the entire community.

These two ads for Pretz, a Japanese pretzel company, are pretty bizarre. They don’t make me particularly hungry, but then again neither do most snack food ads, except maybe the ones for delicious frozen pizza. Mmm, frozen pizza.

And, just for kicks, here’s one more Japanese spot. This one is for LA Pizza (or Pizza LA, as their shirts say). Pretty damn awesome.

Ritz Crackers are OK, but they’re hardly my favorite cracker. They’re definitely not on the same level as awesome crackers like Triscuits, Wheat Thins, and even Better Cheddars. But that is not my beef with them at the moment. Rather, I am concerned about the fact that they seem to be endorsing playing with your food rather than eating it.

In the below ad, a group of cool, hip youths sits around and plays a variation on the fine party game Jenga using the aforementioned crackers. I highly doubt that they will eat all the filthy crackers off their floor and table after they’re done. It reminds me of the news report in The Simpsons showing people throwing whole chickens and pouring out cartons of milk into the garbage (”Coming up next, a new fad that’s sweeping the nation — wasting food!”).

Also of note is that they use what sounds like a reworked version of Cake’s “Short Skirt/Long Jacket,” although knowing Cake, it could be any of their other songs as well, by which I mean they all kind of sound alike.

Sweet fancy Moses, is there no end to the weirdness KFC will unleash upon the world? First there was the Famous Bowl, and now this. The Huffington Post did a great piece on the bizarre sandwich, which replaces bread with fried chicken cutlets and contains bacon, special sauce, and two kinds of cheese. This monstrosity will surely spell our doom. Here’s a newsclip from Fox News.

I wonder why Japan gets all the cool fast food, like the Mega Mac at McDonald’s, and we’re stuck eating the same old quarter pounders and chicken sandwiches. Case in point: this Pizza Hut pizza with a hot dog-like sausage woven through the crust! When will we be getting more weird crap like this and less boring crap like the pasta bread bowl?

I’ve never heard of the Happy’s Pizza chain, which I think is in mostly based in the Midwest, but their commercials sure are fun. The theme song is kind of catchy and kind of creepy. Somehow they got the famous group The Four Tops to be in (at least) two of their ads, which you can view below. Personally, I prefer the Tops’ work in this Velveeta Shells and Cheese ad.

I always wonder why companies make these super-extended versions of their ads. Who watches them, besides bored advertising bloggers like me?

Sponge Bob Square Butt ad (full song)

I’ve been looking for a copy of this Lean Cuisine ad for a while, due to the fact that it paints a very odd picture of the polarized way some people think about food. Like you’re either eating horrifically unhealthy food in binge proportions, or you’re on a diet and stuck with boring low-fat frozen dinners. It’s not like you could prepare a healthy meal using fresh ingredients or anything.

Also, I love the idea of eating a block of cheese for dinner. I’ve probably only ever put away half a block of cheese at a time, but I’ve certainly been tempted to polish one off in one sitting.

Mmm, block of cheese

I really like the new White Castle pulled pork sandwiches, and I hope they stay on the menu for a while. I also kind of like the TV commercial for these sandwiches. It’s a takeoff on the classic Flashdance stripping scene, but instead of Bette from The L Word it’s a sexy pig getting drenched in BBQ sauce. Kind of creepy, but also pretty well done. You can compare the ad (below) with the original Flashdance scene (at the 4:15 mark in the second video below), if you like.

White Castle pulled pork ad

Flashdance Part 1 (water dance scene at 4:15)

Now this is a nice commercial! Way better than Baskin-Robbins‘ previous ad featuring the unintentionally hilarious slogan “Don’t be so vanilla.”

Cake toppers dancing