This is a bit of a rant, and as such will cover a couple of different topics. Sue me later.
First, what is it with CBS and their stupid three-hour long commercials? You know, like the one they had during the Broncos-Patriots game. Every ten seconds was another commercial. Maybe it was just to get Phil Simms to shut up, because he obviously doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on on the field but he’ll still talk about it anyway. It’s like: “Tatum Bell runs forward for six yards on that play before he was tackled. And you know being tackled kinda stops your momentum. Perhaps it even ends the play. The Broncos are going to have to be careful about that, because you don’t want your play to end.” Meanwhile the audience lapses into a coma so they think it’s safe to plug their reality TV shows: “Survivor Baghdad will be on next week, and someone will get killed! Following that is CSI: Urbana on Friday. And don’t forget the all-new-hit-series that we’ve played commercials for every five minutes for the past year, Sponge Monkey!” Meanwhile, when they finish, you see that the Broncos have scored two touchdowns and the Patriots have added a field goal. So they go to their commercial break while the refs review the previous play to find out that gravity does, in fact, make the ball come down from the sky when you throw it up in the air. Then when the commercials end, you hear Simms saying, “The clock is the most important part of keeping time. If it doesn’t run out, you still have a chance to score. If you have the ball. And an offense. And time on the clock. Anyway, you know that Cleveland’s got to be feeling pretty good right now even though they’re not in the playoffs this year. They’re only down by fifty-six points.”
Maybe it’s just me, but every time I see a commercial for these stupid shows more than once per hour it makes me think, “That’s one show I’m not going to watch.” I mean, these people really get desparate. It’s like, “Please watch our show! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE” and you just wanna hit them in the head with a 2×4 and say, “You’re obnoxious and annoying. Shut up and let me watch football in peace!”
Something tells me that networks haven’t considered the whole “negative commercial” response that’s out there. I know that I’m not alone in this. Perhaps it’s just a natural reaction that the more someone wants to sell you something, the less you want to buy it. But whatever the case, I think just watching advertisements alone is enough of a reason to want to drop-kick your TV off the fourth floor balcony into the middle of the gang war going on in the alley.
I’m sorry, but when someone says, “This is what we think you’ll find funny” and they hype up a show with jokes I learned in third grade, and then they say, “This is what we think you’ll find sexy” and they show hideously ugly scantily clad people who you wouldn’t give a dollar to on the sidewalk because you know they’d just buy booze with it, and then they say, “This is what you’ll find entertaining” and they show something that is so insulting to your intelligence that you’d rather talk to wet paint…well, then it just kinda makes you sick knowing that this is what is passed off as the cutting edge. Gag me with a spatula.
