Well, it's just mean-spirited to trick the cookie into being devoured. Yes, yes, claymation, not real, and real cookies don't have feelings, blah, blah, Swedish lamp in the rain. BUT the point is the child is being rewarded for being a selfish little bitch princess.

I HATE KFC!!! not only because the amount of grease in the chicken could kill a small horse, but because they kepp showing the commercial where the girl is eating a burrito looking thing and Nosy-McAsshole comes in and says that she is supposed to be cutting fat. she tells him it is lowfat and he goes:

RRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGHT!

trust me, it sounds as annoying as it looks typed. please tell me i'm not the only one who has seen this!

Yeah, 'boo' to that mean little cookie-eatin' girl! I prefer the happier commercial with the cookies on the bus. Everybody's happy. Singing. ... Stuuuck in the middle.... The cookies are there of their own free will. No duplicitous birthday invites.

I have to go with this side of the argument. It makes more sense to me to think of the thief stealing the victim's identity by assuming their voice than the thief using the victim's appearance as a sort of disguise.

Oh, thanks for the great commerical memory! That and the ugly creamer are possibly my favorite commercials of all time! That and "Help Panda Claus into the chair."

I don't particularly care for any of them, but I hate those the most, because I can't stand the singing.

Anyway, I think one of the singing ads actually shows someone taking a bite out of the cookie. At least birthday girl does it off-camera.

Panda...That immediately makes me think of pretty pretty panda!

I have to agree with the poster upthread who pointed out the ickiness of the new Snickers ad with the child buried in peanuts. But Snickers has given so much, dancing pretty panda, Batman, great googly moogly, that I have to forgive them the rare misstep.

Ah, see- but I'd argue that when you're a giant anthopomorphic cookie- and you're on a bus- you should expect that sort of thing. Whereas the cookie who was invited to the birthday party thought...

OK. It's official. I'm really, really bored with my day job. Nevermind.

Mmmm, cookies.

Actually, the cookie was kind of naive not to wonder why it was being invited to a children's birthday party, I think.

Not that that's any kind of excuse, of course.

I agree with roosterboy, chris2. Though I do understand what you're saying. I look at it like this: the thief is pretending to be you. The thief is presenting your face to the world as he buys his GIRL-robot parts, or his mud flaps with the naked girls, or what have you. So in the commercial, it makes sense to see the face of the "innocent" person. If you turn it around, you get Dorky Loser with Sassy Black Woman's voice, and I don't think that would make much sense upon viewing. Assuming you'd never seen any of these commercials, it'd be like, why is Dorky Loser talking with a woman's voice? I think it'd be hard to see the fact that he is victimizing some innocent. While poor Sassy Black Woman is soaking her toes at the salon, Dorky Loser is ordering girl robot parts from the girl robot part store, in her name.

If nothing else, they make sense as is because to flip the script would make the commercial incomprehensible. Not that that has stopped commercial makers in the past.

Oscar commercials were tons better than the Superbowl commercials. Tons. Loved Tiger Woods as Carl Spackler. I must have missed something in the first Badger commercial, but I was thinking, why isn't his family looking for him? And then I thought, how do all these people know where Badger is going? Is Badger talking to them? But it just occurred to me this very second that he was probably wearing dog tags. Ah, mystery solved.

I agree that the current version of the citibank commericals where we see sassy black woman is the correct way. However, I would love to see the loser boy ordering his girl robot parts. He, and the white trash naked lady mudflap guy, sound so unlike any person I've ever met. I'd love to see pictures of the guys with those weird laughs.

This is my biggest problem with any Trix commercials. I understand Trix are for kids, but why can't we share?!?

Yes, I'm 12, and I still think about pure sugar for breakfast.

At the next party, after they're out of cookies, one of their little friends suffers the cookie's fate.

That? Made me laugh, a lot. The fact that we're discussing what cookies think is just funny to me. It would probably be funny to most people, actually.

I didn't see the Tiger Woods ad during the Oscars, because I don't pay attention during the commercials. I did, however, see it today at the movies (before seeing "The Passion", strangely enough). During the whole ad, I was thinking "What the hell is this advertisement for?"

Has anyone else seen the Citibank ad that features all three of the Scammed Cardholders? The lady cleaning the pool, the lady at the hairdressers, and Recliner Guy are all cut together into one spot. The ending goes: creepy laugh/creepy laugh/valley girl sigh. It's would be funnier this way, except I think they omitted the 'girl robot' part. That's no good!

How I miss that commercial. *sigh* What do Panda's eat? They eat bamboo.

I too feel bad for the cookie at the birthday party. All he wants is to be loved and maybe pin the tail on the donkey. It kind of depresses me to think of the children eating him.

I just caught the KFC Chicken Strips/Kitchen Strips. What a dumb ass commercial.

And I am so pissed I missed the ending to the Mastercard/Dog commercial.

BTW, you people have some sharp eyes.

I just saw the most HoYay-tastic commercial ever invented. A middle-aged fireman is talking about how "1 in 3 men" have prostate problems. Two younger, rugged firemen come and clap him on the back, as if to say "thanks for being so concerned about our prostates, honey!" I have no idea what the commercial was for because I was laughing way too hard at the unbelievable gayness of it all.

Yeah, that cookie was clearly asking for it...

For reference, the 'Tigershack' commercial, and the other AmEx TV commercials.

Anyone see that commercial where there are ton of bridemaids (bridesmaids?) in a line and the bride is pacing and sticking herself in their faces and doing the army "Yes, sir!" thing on them. Most. Degrading. Commercial. Ever.

"You will - (with the ever annoying pause for "emphasis") - get new, pretty shoes! You will - do your hair! You will - whiten your teeth! You will - go shopping! You will - "

Shut up.

Edited because, "thing, thing" just sounds weird.

Oh Christ, don't give my dad any more ideas.

*snort* Hee hee hee hee...

Yeah, going to a party with its chips all sticking out.

It is now my mission in life to see the Citibank ad with all 3 ID theft victims. Sad? Yes, but at least my life has purpose.

The stupidest part of the whole commercial is that she's doing this RIGHT BEFORE she gets married. Okay, Bridezilla, but perhaps you should have gone on your stereotypical crazy bride tirade, you know, more than ten minutes before the actual ceremony. Just a thought.
But then, I guess it wouldn't have been as "funny" when her train caught on a rock and ripped right off without her noticing.

I haven't seen the Mastercard Dog. Can someone give a synopsis?

Detroit Free Press has an article about the [scary] spongemonkeys today.

Well, I'll tell ya what I use Febreeze for -- they now have an allergen-neutralizer formula of Febreeze, and I got that pronto. I have a cat, and I have many allergic friends. So either I do something about that or I never have friends visit me.

For a while I was using some cat de-allergizing lotion you rub directly on your pet, and then I started spiking a bucket of mopwater WITH some of that lotion (I tried that once and all of them reported it worked really well). But it was a pain in the butt to mix up each time, and it only worked on the floors; so when Febreeze came out with something premixed I could spritz on the furniture, the missing piece fell into place.

(Yes, I know they could also all use Claratin, but that always wears off after a while. They still do, and I take this step too to stave things off longer.)

Also, Febreeze, the way I've seen it, was more for making things SMELL clean. Now, I work in the theater, for a really small theater company; and, we don't have the budget to dry clean all the costumes every night, but every night the actors sweat in them and get them all stanky. So at last count, there are at least SIX bottles of Febreeze in the dressing room.

However, something tells me that sneezing houseguests and sweaty actors would not make for attractive ad copy.

All this and more can be learned at......lunch!

That and the ad where the guy is stuck in the voting booth while the cartoon elephant and donkey spew ridiculous political rhetoric are probably my two favorite Snickers ads. Yes, they even beat "great googly-moogly".

Saw an ad for a foot powder (Kenaval?), basic premise being wife used the product, so husband can finally indulge in his foot fetish. It was all very sweet and tasteful, but a trend of use our hygiene product, because that part of your body may come into play during sex, will eventually produce ads too disturbing to contemplate.

Oh, great Snickers moment--"My dad and I wear pants!" "I invented pants!" Good times, good times.

Bridezilla was funny the first time I saw it. The subsequent 3,000,000 times, not so much. Yes, seconds before exchanging vows with Whipped Groom is far too late to demand your bridesmaids dye their shoes. And who would fail to notice a sudden breeze when the skirt tears off? Just because it's a commercial doesn't mean you can have all sorts of plot holes and continuity problems and not be called to account by the Court of TWOP.

I never realized until today the "fiancee" from My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee is the guy who ate a watercress sandwich and gets blown away by a hairdryer in the Hungry Man commercial. I guess he really is an actor.

I love that Snickers commercial! I was thinking of it the other day and was depressed b/c we couldn't have something funny like that this year!

My new fav commercial is for like Road Runner High Speed Internet, where the little girl is showing her diarama to the class and it's really awesome, with 3D and moving parts. The rest of the class with their inferior projects are shocked and the teacher jumps up and applauds. The high speed internet supposedly helped her make it good, but the scene, esp with the music going along with it. Is it just in some areas, or what, cuz this needs to be everywhere!

Actually, if you watched the tail end (forgive the expression) of the commercial, one of the Mastercard double circles is CGI'd into Badger's dog tag. So I saw the campers, the rock band, the biker, and home. Was that all of them?

This occurred to me at first, but clearly we are not seeing the perpetrator posing as the victim. The couch potato guy victim (leather bustier?) is shown in his own home, not out shopping. The lady in the salon is getting her hair done; she is obviously not the perp posing as the victim, since robot-boy wouldn't be at the salon getting his hair done. In both cases the victim inexplicably has the identity thief's voice coming out of their mouths when in all likelihood they wouldn't even know that person.

This makes the commercial humorous but not especially effective in my opinion. I'm relatively certain the intent of these ads is to frighten me into getting a Citi Bank card so my identity won't be stolen. A much better way to accomplish that is to conjure the image of some nefarious thief going around pretending to be me, using my credit card, my voice, etc. while maxing out my credit card. Seeing me with some strange voice coming out of my mouth is just bizarre. It doesn't make me think of someone pretending to be me, it makes me think of me doing voice impressions, or of me pretending to be some stranger. It just seems backwards.

Or am I just over-thinking this? Can't help it, it bugs.

chris2: Oh, there's no such thing as overthinking at Television Without Pity! :-) To me, the way you're thinking of it seems backwards, but, it could just be the way we're looking at it. I do see your point. I just think that visually, it would have been hard to do it the way you suggest. You would have to know that the voice coming out of Leather Bustier Girl was some innocent Couch Potato Guy, which is hard thing to come across just by using a voice. What you'd actually see is just a LBG talking with a man's voice, which doesn't have any inherent meaning, other than it being bizarre. At least when you hear a girl's voice coming out of the man's mouth, talking about all the things she's doing with his identity, the visual cues match up with the "story" Citibank is telling. At least for me. Then again, maybe *I'm* overthinking it.

The CitiBank commercial has been discussed at length in my house. My son thinks that they are showing her at the salon because she does not yet know that her identity is stolen. Doesn't solve the problem, but one thing is sure - we all know it's a CitiBank ad.

I think it might make more sense if these people were out looking like themselves, talking like the identity thief, and doing the things the identity thief is doing. Like Couch Potato Guy looking at the leather bustier and drooling. On the other hand, I think they're trying to show that these people are unaware of having their identity stolen. That's why they're all doing utterly mundane things like watching TV or cleaning the pool.

I don't know. There's a vacation from logic required, for sure.


I disagree. I didn't know Febreeze made something that could eliminate pet allergens, and allow allergic friends to breathe. That would be the most awesome product in the history of ever, so why wouldn't they advertise it more?

I've stayed out of this fierce and fascinating debate since I really couldn't decide whose side I was on, but I think this does it for me. Cleo's scenario would probably work the best and make the most sense. Couch Potato breaking the fourth wall and snorting in Valley Girl's voice, "It's not like I'm paying for it!" as he fawns over the bustier? Hee.

Entertainment Weekly said he was a "Shakespearean-trained actor", but I wasn't sure if they were being sarcastic or not. Stranger things have happened...

I think the Citibank ad people had a tough time portraying their concept visually. Either version (thief speaking with victim's voice/victim speaking with thief's voice) is confusing in its own way.

I think the clincher is what they actually say.

If they showed the thief speaking with the victim's voice, what would they say? How much it sucks to be the victim of identity theft? Not as hefty a punch message-wise, I'd say. It's more dramatic (and funnier) to show the victim speaking with the thief's voice and saying what they will use their ill-gotten gains for.

Which would make more of an impact: Young woman in hair salon saying she's going to build a girl robot? Or young man building a girl robot and saying how someone's running up his credit card?

I'm thinking because some idiot would try to put it on their pet instead of household surfaces. I've been using distilled water, because someone told me years ago it helps with pet dander. It's also way less expensive to spritz around and I can use it on my pets.

What about pet allergens in the air? Is Febreze an air sanitizer? Does Oust have that market cornered? I would buy a product that removed pet allergens from the air.
I'm sure it helped him prepare for the 'pooching out his gut and sucking it back in again' scene. Out out damned gut!

cleo, my mind changed just that fast by reading your scenario. Awesome idea.

That's funny, because I talked myself into the believing that the version they made was the best way to do it. I think roosterboy has it right:

Logic aside, the way the commercial is now sends the most effective message: identity thieves are running up huge charges on these people's credit card bills. They're completely unaware, and will remain so until their statements arrive.

And in a commercial, message has to trump logic.

I dunno. Would it be any worse than farting animals, plugging leaky boats with a tampon, and Spongemonkeys?
Besides, done properly, sweaty actors could be very, very appealing.

Edited to say:

Snerk! Yeah, better hire some attractive folks to be half-nekkid and sweaty.

Not these guys.

It would make more sense to me to show the Sassy Black Woman buying the robot parts, etc., with the nerd's voice. Or show the Couch Potato Guy buying the leather bustier with the valley girl's voice. To me, that conveys identity theft, as in "Oh, I get it, he stole her identity, he's pretending to be her." By showing the victim in their own environment, speaking with the thief's voice, that says to me that the victim has stolen the thief's identity, not the other way around. It also doesn't make me fear identity theft so much as the idea of seeing someone out there purchasing expensive goods pretending to be me.

Shack hates the Dr. Scholls ads too. From his latest AI recap:


Hee! Didn't one of them say he was gellin' like a felon?

None of you have touched on the most burning issue in the Citibank Couch Potato Guy ad. Namely, why is Couch Potato Guy sitting next to his tv, with his chair positioned in a way that would make tv watching impossible? Isn't that illegal? (Also, sweatpants and faux birkenstocks? Are we sure the leather bustier isn't really for him, because he doesn't seem to be very fashion-cohesive.)

cause if there's one thing I can count on while I'm serving time in a maximum security lockdown for breaking a federal law, it's that my feet will be comfortable and I will have an endless supply of Dr. Scholls.