Hyundai Santa Fe - Team

At first, this commercial for the Santa Fe didn't make much sense to me:

This kid has a group of friends who seem to be freakishly strong.  What's even more confusing is how they come running to help him as soon as he shows up.  How did they know what he wanted?

It finally made sense when I realized who the child was: Charles Xavier!

The boy in this commercial is obviously a young Professor X.  He used his mutant telepathy to locate other mutants who could help him out.  And the reason they already seem to know what's going on is because he contacted them psychically and asked them for help.

And just who are these junior X-Men that he has assembled?

The Brawn Brothers - Two brothers with amazing strength!

Welder - With the power to construct any device!  (Want more proof that this is really Charles Xavier?  Look at what Welder is building.  It looks a lot like Professor X's Cerebro machine.)

Phyla - He can channel the power of any animal on Earth!

Asbestos - The Fireproof Boy!

Together, they shall join together and vanquish the evil bullies who have stolen Xavier's ball!

Now you might be wondering why Xavier didn't just use his powers against the bullies and be done with it.

That's a good question, but it is consistent with Xavier's behavior in the comics.  Why use your powers to stop the bad guys when you can recruit a group of super-powered children to do the job for you?

Rating - 4 TVs - This commercial has gotten me quite excited to see the next X-Men movie.  Good job Hyundai!

Speed Stick - Laundry

The next Super Bowl commercial up for review comes from Speed Stick:

After waiting a long time for a dryer, a man becomes impatient, takes someone else's clothes out, and throws them on the floor.

I think he was quite justified in doing so.

In a communal laundry setting, it is common courtesy to remove your clothes in a timely manner.  By washing your clothes at a laundromat, you're basically agreeing to a social contract that says, "I will remove my clothes soon after they are done, or I run the risk of having them thrown on the floor."

Unfortunately, he is caught in the act by the owner of the laundry, and she happens to be an attractive woman.

I think this is the root of the problem.  Being an attractive woman, she is probably used to getting her way.  If she wants to let her clothes linger in the dryer, then everyone should just accept that her clothes shall linger.

She is probably shocked that someone would dare throw her majestic laundry onto the floor.  This is probably one of the worst insults she has ever suffered.

I mean, shouldn't she find it strange that a random stranger is offering to fold her laundry?  I guess when you live in "Attractive Woman Land" you expect people to do these kinds of things for you.

And when you're done folding, carry them to my apartment!

What a f***ing princess.
Rating - 2 TVs - What is Speed Stick trying to tell us here?  That we should just bow to the wishes of attractive women?  I don't think so, Speed Stick.

Super Bowl: Cars.com - Wolf

The Super Bowl has come, and the Super Bowl has gone.  Now there's nothing left to do but debate whether or not that should have been a holding call.

Or we could talk about the commercials.  That's always fun too.

I thought that this year's game featured a particularly weak crop of commercials.  You might think that would make my job easier.  You might think that bad ads are more easily mockable, and so that would give me much more material to write about.

But my goal is not to mock.  My goal is to analyze and review.  Sure, I'll mock the mockable, but that really isn't what I set out to do.  At least not usually.

Despite the disappointing fare, I'm still going to power through and deliver some reviews.  The first ad I'll look at comes from Cars.com:

Let me get this straight: The car dealership has a wolf on-site so that they can provide their customers with drama?

How could anyone have thought this was a good idea?  Didn't they watch The Grey?

Admittedly, I didn't watch it either.  But I know the basic storyline: Liam Neeson fights wolves, because wolves are horrible, predatory creatures who would like nothing better than to tear into the flesh of a human being.

Even if you didn't see The Grey, surely you remember children's fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs.  The basic moral was the same: Wolves are evil, and must be destroyed at all costs.

It seems like the dealership is going to cost themselves a sale.  First of all, I don't think I'd want to buy a car from a dealership that has a live wolf roaming the grounds.  Even if I did still want to buy the car, I probably wouldn't be able to, because I would likely be attacked and killed by the wolf.

Shouldn't the dealer be more concerned?  He's the one who's been keeping the wolf cub captive.  Isn't he the first person that the wolf would attack?

It's actually kind of amazing that the couple even made it this far into the process considering that there is A WOLF ROAMING FREE THROUGH THE OFFICE!  The chances of the wolf not attacking any of the customers is insanely small, especially since the wolf has already been provoked by the abduction of its young.

I hope whoever came up with this idea was fired.  Or better yet, they should feed the person to the wolf so that it doesn't maim or kill any of the customers.

I can't emphasize enough how bad of an idea this was

 Rating - 1 TV - This is really not a good advertisement for Cars.com.  Sure the app might help people find a car they want and negotiate the price.  But it is clear that the app doesn't provide customers with the most important information that they would need: THE DEALERSHIP THREATENS CUSTOMERS WITH A LIVE WOLF!  AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

KFC - Lackluster Party

Before the big game, I wanted to give you one last retro Super Bowl ad.  This one is from 2002 and features Jason Alexander.

Alexander stops by a Super Bowl party, and comments on how lackluster it is.

Well isn't he just Johnny Party Snob?  You'd think that a famous actor would have something better to do than show up at random Super Bowl parties and make fun of them.

Then again, he does have a point.  That party doesn't look especially exciting.

Alexander implies that the reason the party is subpar is because of the food they're eating.  I'd say the reason that the party sucks is because it's just four dudes sitting on the couch.

Now, I understand that watching football is a guy thing.  We don't necessarily want the women around to get in the way and ask stupid questions like, "You mean the coaches are brothers?  Oh that's so cute!"

(By the way, you KNOW there are going to be people who say something like that on Sunday.  When they do, try to limit the eye rolling.)

But come on, this is the Super Bowl!  We have seventeen weeks of the regular season to be into the games.  Unless you really care about one of the teams, the Super Bowl should be about socializing, food, and commercials. 

And for a group of guys who wanted to watch the game together, they don't seem to be too into it.  Maybe it's a lousy game, but these guys aren't talking to each other, and they barely even seem to be paying attention.

I suspect that these guys aren't actually friends.  I'm guessing that their wives or kids are friends, and so their wives forced them all to get together to watch the game, even though they'd probably be somehwere - anywhere - else.

The mood changes in a hurry thanks to the arrival of former NFL stars Jim McMahon and William "The Refrigerator" Perry.  The two former Philadelphia Eagles are ready to party, and they brought along some KFC Honey BBQ Wings!

KFC wants us to believe that the wings are the reason for the party's turnaround.  But I'm willing to bet that just about any party would be improved by having two NFL players randomly show up.

It wouldn't really matter what kind of food they brought.  They could bring nothing but a platter of corn and Doritos, and I'd still think it was pretty awesome.

If KFC really wanted to show how good their product was, they wouldn't have had two former NFL stars bring the wings. They would have had the KFC wings delivered by two people who most guys wouldn't want to watch the game with.

For instance, why not have the wings delivered by Rosie O'Donnell and Fran Drescher?  If the party still became good, then I'd believe that the wings can truly make a party awesome.

Who's ready for some football?

Rating - 2 TVs - Sure, the party definitely improved.  But did KFC have anything to do with it?  Doubtful.

IBM - Spelling

Sometimes when looking back at these ads from the past, I find it difficult to interpret them correctly.  While some of them might seem quite dated now, I'm sure they felt modern at the time.

So when reviewing this IBM ad from 1986, I tried to put myself in the mindset of a person living in 1986.

Obviously, 1986 was quite a few years ago, and I was relatively young at the time.  So my memories of the time might be a little fuzzy.

If I recall, here was the basic setup: Ronald Reagan was fighting the Communists, Bill Cosby was entertaining the nation every Thursday night, and Falco was educating the world about Mozart.

OK, I think I'm ready to look at this commercial from the 1986 Super Bowl.



We see a few instances where people have misspelled words.  Obviously this is quite embarrassing for them.  Although in a couple of those cases, I think that a simple proofreading would have saved them from a lot of the embarrassment.

For those of us who can't spell well and can't take the time to review our work, IBM has a solution.  They have created a typewriter that will analyze typing and beep if it detects a misspelled word.

What?

How is this possible?  A typewriter is just a machine.  How could it possibly know what we were typing?    Unless...

Oh no.  Oh no!  Have the machines have gained intelligence?  Holy crap!  Was The Terminator (which was of course released two years ago) correct?  Are the machines self-aware now?  Are they preparing to rise up and enslave mankind?

IBM has doomed us all!

We're screwed now

Rating - 1 TV - If you're reading this, that means that I've managed to survive the robot apocalypse.  I am assuredly searching for other survivors so that I can form some sort of human resistance movement. 

Please wish me luck, and may God have mercy on us all.