Friday, January 23, 2009

I remember seeing this commercial a few weeks ago that was not just dumb, it was aggressively so. When it was over, it felt like I'd just been involved in a corporate version of "Punk'd."
The commercial opens, and in the frame we see:

Three people standing in the kitchen of a suburban home in the U.S. One middle-age woman is in the back-ground and two teenage boys are in the foreground; one on the phone, the other hovering nearby. Phone boy says, "Mom, can I stay at Billy’s house for dinner?” His mother's voice--the perfect balance of sensible concern and loving affection that invisible adults invariably affect--answers his question with a question of her own: "Are his parents there?” “Yeah,” her son tells her, earnestly, his eyes wide saucers of innocence... But, she doesn’t believe him. Dumbfounded, she asks, “What parents make dinner for their kids on a school nite anymore?” Her incredulity is so great that she makes him put his friend’s mom on the phone, to find out if the situation wasn't some contrived fantasy existing only in her son's feverish imagination . But, Billy’s mom, I mean, "Supermom," gets on the phone and reassures "Invisi-mom" that yes!, she's right there, getting dinner ready. Astonished, the mom agrees to let her son stay and eat a wholesome, home-cooked meal with Jimmy and his family.

But wait…uh, actually, that’s not exactly true. I mean, the "wholesome, home-cooked" part. The meal is actually a bucket of KFC chicken and assorted sides which isn’t homecooked or wholesome... Unless you live in the kitchen of a KFC franchise and you consider steroid laced, hormone-treated, deep-friend and battered animal parts and greasy side dishes “wholesome.”

Anyway, I watched that commercial and thought to myself—if that were my son and I came home from Billy’s house and told me what I'd eaten for dinner at Billy and his "Supermom"'s house that night, I’d be “super-pissed.” I hate that commercial.

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