Drunken Omelette

You are not hip. You are dead.

We like watching college basketball in overloaded, screen-crossing championship tournament form. We do not, however, like the flood of adcrap that seems to fill each of the 40-something breaks per game.

If we commit murder in the next two and a half weeks, one of these commercials will likely be the source of it.

1. KFC’s attempts to rebrand itself as kewl people food.
After appealing to the heartland, then realizing the heartland has no money because of a murderous economic downturn, KFC is now appealing to the well-money 18-34 market and the uber-self-conscious middle-aged yuppie they will one day become.

In recent days, we’ve chatted about the first(circa 1991?) Hot Wings ads, which offered the unlikely premise of two baseball players gradually working their way through a bucket of Hot Wings while busting out home runs at an empty sandlot. We don’t know why we think two young black men using a mouth of dry fire as a relaxing motivator for sharpening their batting skills is so school, but we do.

But an ad with some ditsy chick deciding to date someone because Hot Wings can be sauceless is made only for killing. Obviously this girl has never eaten at variety of down home Southern restaurants or at Hooter’s — even when she worked there, maybe.

Sorry, KFC. You’re still the hillbilly goofballs who decided it was a good idea to put corn, mash potatoes, and gravy in a bowl and call it a meal.

Go back to Louisville and pray to the Colonel for forgiveness.

Here is thy disturbing punishment:

2. Liberty Mutual endorsing a 10-year-old’s decisoin not to felony murder.
OK, we get the damn point! We know we would’ve encouraged the kids to throw the snowball at the oncoming minivan! You’re better people than us!

Go to Hell!

3. The NCAA pretending that these sports kids are in school for school.
We’re very happy the NCAA has moved on from the straight schmaltz to the more humorous schmaltz with these some-kids-who-play-sports-go-to-school-fo’-real spots.

But considering the graduation rates ford Division I sports and its flimsy barrier top-flight college ball and the pros, well, it always rings hollow.

The commercial with the kids trading baseball cards talking about dude’s minors makes us want to vomit acid blood. Still, there’s something to be said about the off putting creepiness of the older “med school scouts” watching two undergrad ladies run themselves into a lather on the track.

Yeah, they’ve got their eyes on you all right.

3a. Jack in the Box advertising a delicious looking steak sandwich with the prospect of middle-aged hot tub sex.
Jack in the Box commercials usually bother us because their food looks pretty damned good, but we’ve never lived in area where there actually is one — despite copious advertising on out-of-market broadcasters.

Still, for some reason, this ad’s premise of a man in a giant, plastic clown head about to have a MMFF fourway in a hot tub doesn’t make us want to have a patty melt, though** …

4. State Farm’s multicultural schmuck fest.
We’re very happy you’ve decided to change your slogan a little after 279 years, State Farm. We really are.

We’re also happy you’ve rid of us of the national atrocity that is Coach Jay. Sometimes we don’t see the sheen on this swollen thighs when close our eyes.

But we’re really tired of seeing this same assortment of people bitch about having to live freakin’ life every time that Purdue’s coach calls a damn time out.

And we’re really not sure what a ruthlessly evil insurance company can do about that woman gambling away her money in Vegas, other than a joke that we’re above making.*

Get your ad people back to doing what you do best: Perpetuating the lie that the Cardinals could cobble together a decent pass rush against Matt Hasseback.

4a. Tiger Woods is interplanetary golf Jesus.
We don’t know why Tiger Woods needs more electrolytes in his Gatorade, or why he’s golfing on the moon where Mars is suddenly and clearly visible, but after seeing this trite, confusing ad 45 times in three days we’re kinda hoping he gets that director’s cut unhappy ending to Apollo 13.

Ernie Els, make it so.

5. Applebee’s. As a concept.
No one believes spinning babies or hippies are eating at your crappy chain restaurants. You get rid of the talking apple and immediately go for the goofy schmuck. We don’t care if IHOP owns you now, you still owe much of your continued existence to leeching onto box stores and crowded parking lots.

Your service is crap, your food is abysmal, and your image isn’t even funny enough for Mike Judge to properly parody in a cult film classic. The only thing good you’ve ever given us is some great humor in Talladega Nights, and even then, the break-in joke your guys thought of was a parody of how annoying it is to see your commercials every five minutes when we’d rather eat 14-week-old, rotting Thai food than your silly, mildly ethnic, lukewarm crap.

Stop posing like you’ve changed, and stop spending millions on saturation ad buys when we’re trying to drink beer and watch Duke burn out a round earlier than we’d expected.

When we want to pay someone $30 to microwave something for us, we’ll go to TGI Fridays. Until they no longer exist, go to damned Hell.

*No we’re not.

**UPDATE 5:42 p.m.: We respectfully add this to our list. We only drink Bud Light for one reason: Because we didn’t buy, and it’s there. But, in the same vein as the Jack’s ad, goofy dude listening to his friend have sex with his new Vegas shotgun wife doesn’t make us want to drink one: