If you're a regular reader of The Man Rules (and, honestly, you should be), you know that from time to time we point out annoying or stupid ads. The last time we did this, we noted that the wankers at the Alabama Men's Clinic are still going strong. If anybody out there has a spare thermonuclear device they're not using, I would consider it a personal favor if you would detonate it in my car radio the next time one of their ads comes on.
Today we're looking at a couple more examples, one of which is a television ad running in some markets right now. The other is a conglomeration of ... well, you'll see in a bit.
First the TV ad. It's for Subaru, which has always seemed to me to be a fairly low-key, sensible car company. Which is why it's all the more confusing that they have one of the head-scratchingest lines in a car commercial ever.
The premise of the commercial is that a family bought a Subaru when their daughter was born, and they've kept it all these years and several milestones have been experienced in the car. The mom is narrating throughout in a pleasant, friendly voiceover. Near the end of the commercial, you see the mom as she's buckling herself into the driver's seat, and she looks over at her now-teenage daughter. And the voiceover Mom says, as God is my witness: "The back seat of my Subaru ... is where she grew up." Don't believe me? Take a look.
Hey, Mom? Don't talk about your daughter growing up in the back seat of your car. The phrase "grew up in the back seat of my car" carries a whole lot of skeevy connotations. I mean, when John Cougar Mellencamp sang about Jack and Diane, and "Diane debutante back seat of Jackie's car," he didn't mean she had a dance back there.
So there's Subaru's stupidity. And now let's talk about a particular set of radio ads that infest the airwaves each football season. Here in the South, you can always tell when fall arrives, because the humidity drops from 129 percent all the way down to 98 percent, and the leaves change colors on the trees for about 23 minutes before they all let go and leave explicitly naked branches behind them, and you can't turn on the radio without hearing at least six radio ads for bookies yelling at you.
Now, the interesting thing is, betting is illegal in Alabama. So technically, these guys are advertising to recommend you break the law. It's only a matter of time before crack dealers start running ads.
Anyway, all these ads are the same. They feature lots of sounds effects of explosions, and the announcer guy yells at you to call an 800 number in an amplified, echoey voice, and they spout off lots of official-sounding statistics that don't really mean anything. It's a lot like a political convention.
Here's a sample: "POINT-SPREAD PLAYERS! You are just setting fire to your money and flushing down the toilet in an abandoned sewage treatment plant if you don't CALL ROB GOLDBLATT TODAY! Rob has important information on tonight's game that will GUARANTEE YOU WIN! Rob is an amazing 298 AND 0 AGAINST THE SPREAD IN GAMES PLAYED ON TUESDAY NIGHTS IN THE RAIN DURING A FULL MOON ON A SPECIFIC TYPE OF ARTIFICIAL TURF! Call now for his FREE pick on tonight's game ABSOLUTELY FREE on a FREE RECORDED MESSAGE!"
Recorded messages are really big with these guys. I guess people are afraid that if they do call, they might have to actually talk with the announcer guy, which would cause them to go insane.
Usually at this point, you hear from Rob Goldblatt himself. He always sounds like a junior accountant who is deathly afraid that his embezzlement will be discovered at any moment, so he's trying to be exceptionally hyper and cheerful to make you think nothing is wrong.
"Call me now!" he chirps. "This game is my STONE-COLD DIAMOND-PLATED CAN'T MISS LOCK OF THE CENTURY!" (Rob will have about six "locks" like this every season.) "I have inside information that will guarantee a winner in tonight's game! If you don't win, the rest of your plays for the year are free!" (Incidentally, I've always wondered about that. In the same breath, he guarantees you'll win, and then tells you what will happen if you don't. I don't think Rob understands the meaning of the word "guarantee.")
I've always been tempted to call these numbers throughout a season and keep track of how many games they actually get right. I bet it's not as many as they want you to believe. Frankly, Rob doesn't sound particularly trustworthy. I bet he's the guy who helped the Subaru girl grow up in Mom's back seat.
(c) 2013 John Puckett
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