Is This Real Life?

Lately there has been an influx of weird commercials. I don't know why it happened but at some point in the last couple of years advertising went from quirky to out-and-out strange. I mean, humor has always been a staple of marketing, but somewhere along the line commercials took a turn from being funny by making a joke to being just being absurd. Personally, I blame the Old Spice commercials a few years back. You may remember them - it was just a bunch of random things which didn't go together and certainly didn't have anything to do with body wash, but their absurdity got people talking. I don't always think strange is the way to go, but there is no denying it makes the ads memorable. Since advertising is more about stealing ideas than coming up with your own, now everyone advertises this way. It is because of the current crop of odd commercials that I probably shouldn't be surprised at anything anymore but then earlier tonight I was flipping around and I landed on the movie "Glory." For those of you who haven't see it, "Glory" is the story of the first all-black regiment during the Civil War. It features some amazing performances by Matthew Broderick and Morgan Freeman and even won Denzel Washington an Oscar. While it may drag at some points it is an extremely powerful movie at points. I had just finished one of those scenes and the screen when blank. Then, this commercial came on.

[Editor's note: upon further review it may not have have been this exact commercial. It all happened so fast my brain wasn't totally paying attention. But, the company is the same, which is more to the point.] For a moment, given the campy nature of the commercial and the Supreme Court's ruling the other day I honestly thought it may have been someone's attempt at a joke. I was only a couple stations away from Comedy Central and for all I know they are owned by the same company. I mean, if you were try to use a fake commercial to make a political point (which happens more than you think) a gay version of a travel sight would be a pretty easy thing to mimic. But, as I waited for a punchline which never came it slowly dawned on me that this was real. That was when my second thought manifested and it was to wonder if they are getting better deal on flights. If that is the case I don't care what the name of the site is - cheap airfare is cheap airfare. Of course, next I wanted to know if they would only fly to certain cities which have a better reputation for tolerance, but I didn't really have time to think too much about it because it was quickly followed up by this.

Seriously, if you saw that would you think it was a real commercial? Those two ads coming on back-to-back were enough to make me think I may have have wandered onto some "World's Most Insane Commercial" show, but then I remember I was watching a movie. Now I was trying to figure out what channel I was on. (Later I would discover I had somehow not noticed that I had flipped from BBC America to something called the Ovation network which is mostly gay programming.) But until that happened I think you can understand my confusion. Look, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that "Glory" is some sacred film experience and that the only things which should be allowed to advertise during it are respectful products, but I'm also familiar enough with how TV works to know it would not be the first time a request like that was made. Certain companies refuse to show commercials when "Saving Private Ryan" is on and when you have spent as much money as advertising firms usually do to investigate who is watching which shows and at what time, perhaps being a little more selective about what commercials you air during movies wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Either way, I don't think that cat toy commercial can be taken seriously at any point before 1 AM.