Interesting

I came across an article about best and worst commericials that came out recently. No big surprises there -- people really like those HP "frames" ads (I confess I didn't realize they were for HP until I read the article, but I knew what they were talking about as soon as I saw the word "frames) and everyone hates the ad where the girl plugs up a leak in a rowboat with a tampon from the entire box she just happened to have brought along on her date. What I found really interesting was the results of last year's competition, where the identity-theft ads for Citibank ("A leather bustier for twelve hundred dollars? I didn't care -- it lifts and separates!") came in first and the Starbucks "Eye of the Tiger" parody ("Glen! Glen, Glen, Glen!") came in second. Huh? I really enjoyed the Citibanks ads, but the Starbucks one was the funniest thing I've seen in a long while. Even if the argument was that the Citibanks commercials had several in a series, you could add the other Starbuck's commercial, where Stacy enjoys her bottled Frappucino while a doo-wop group follows her through the office, fighting off co-workers seeking to harsh her mellow to the Survivor one and they deliver even more of an ass-kicking to the Citibanks ads.

Or am I just such a child of the 80s that I have no perspective on this matter?

As far as worst commercials of the year are concerned, I don't remember what I was thinking a year ago, but for this past year, nothing is worse than the Pediasure commercial where the mom is pushing her bratty little daughter through the grocery store in a shopping cart, and to each item the mom mentions they are going to buy, the little Spawn of Satan answers "I don't think I LIKE such-and-such." Mom, of course, just smiles knowingly, as though this is cute. In my mind there are no worse commercials than the ones where kids behave in appalling ways and grown-ups act like it's cute. BLEAH!