COMMERCIALS

Is the cranky old guy the only TV watcher in America who doesn’t get that Volkswagen ad with the mumbling little statute, indeed is considerably annoyed by said ad? Maybe the mumbling is understandable to quicker minds and sharper ears. Maybe the little grump is some pop cultural icon that has totally avoided the cranky old guy’s space.

Or maybe the little grump is a movie character from some recent movie. After all, the cranky old guy hasn’t been to a movie theater in decades. He stopped going when the audience started conversing with the screen. Besides, wait long enough and a movie comes to you.

But back to the ad. The cranky old guy finds it beyond irritating. What’s the message? VW drivers are wing nuts who have conversations with small inarticulate idols from some cult religion?

Another irritating ad is that Burger King thing from the Super Bowl, the one in which females dressed as lettuce, tomatoes, buns, and perhaps condiments combine to make a Whopper. Sorry, but the cranky old guy found it vaguely nauseating. If there were supposed to be sexual overtones, they completely escaped this refugee from carnal athletics.

The cranky old guy is not alone in panning the Burger King effort. Not much good has been said about it. But he seems to be in the distinct minority regarding the magic refrigerator, the one attached to the revolving wall so a dude can keep his beer to himself by quickly rotating the fridge into the adjacent room where a tribe of cretins worship it.

What the cranky old guy has problems with is the obvious question of what the dude does when his fridge rotates back empty. This would only have to happen once for the dude to realize that his beer-hiding operation has a problem. Such an obvious flaw prevents the cranky old guy from doing much more with this commercial than scratching his head.

A good portion of the problem is undoubtedly generational. Maybe the cranky old guy just misses the commercials of simpler times. Remember Joe Izuzu? Now that was funny, and the premise didn’t leave you with a headache.

DSH