Jerks of the Week - Aug. 20, 2012

Jerks of the Week for Aug. 20, 2012


JERKS OF THE WEEK: Crappy Commercials Part III

If you haven't heard, Chad Johnson, one of the more boisterous players in the NFL, was cut by the Miami Dolphins a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't because Johnson couldn't grasp the playbook or because he dropped the easiest catch of all time during a preseason game against the Buccaneers; it was because he was arrested for allegedly headbutting his new wife.

Two things popped into my head when I learned of Johnson's arrest. First, what could Johnson's wife have done to make him think, "That's it, I'm going to headbutt this b***h?" Did she yell at him for not putting down the toilet seat? Was he tired of her telling him to take out the garbage? Or did she tell him the truth about his football career - that he now is a completely useless bum?

The second thing that came to mind was that the Dolphins would undoubtedly cut ties with Johnson as soon as possible. I've watched every single NFL preseason game thus far, and a public service announcement ad entitled "1 is 2 Many" has aired every five minutes. If you haven't seen it, Barack Obama, David Beckham, Jeremy Lin, Eli Manning and others talk about how men should never hit a woman.

I think you know what that means. It's time for Crappy Commercials Part III. If you missed my previous Crappy Commercial entries, check out Part I, where I expose Pitbull as the worst musician of all time, and Part II, where I discuss that awful Blu de Chanel press-conference ad - the one where the guy sounds like he has a dildoe up his a**.

1. 1 is 2 Many PSA

Many public service announcements are complete failures, and this is no exception. There are so many things wrong with this PSA that I almost don't know where to begin.

OK, first of all, do Obama, Beckham, Lin and the other celebrities in this PSA, as well as the creators of this disaster, actually believe that this will deter some a**hole dude from hitting a woman? What was going through their heads when they created this PSA? It's almost as though they envisioned this scenario:

Wife: Honey, you forgot to put the toilet seat down again.

Wife-Beater: SHUT UP! I'M TRYING TO WATCH THE GAME YOU STUPID B***H!

Wife: Honey, you forgot to take out the trash.

Wife-Beater: I TOLD YOU TO SHUT THE F*** UP!

Wife: Honey, when do you think you'll clean out the gutters?

Wife-Beater: ONE MORE STRIKE AND I'M GOING TO LOSE IT, YOU DUMB C***T!

Wife: Honey, can you pick up some milk from the store?

Wife-Beater: AHHHHHH THAT'S IT I'M GOING TO PUNCH YOU RAAAWWWRRRR!

Wife: Nooooooo!!!

Wife-Beater: RAAAAWWWRRRR SEE THIS FIST!? IT'S GOING TO HIT YOUR... wait a second... didn't Jeremy Lin and Barack Obama and that gay soccer guy recently tell me that I should never hit a woman? Wow, I almost forgot about that. I'm sorry, wife. I'll put down the toilet seat, take out the trash, clean the gutters and grab some milk right now. I love you.

This is obviously all very plausible. But still, it doesn't change the fact that this PSA is extremely sexist.

That brings me to my second point. A man should never hit a woman, eh? But does that mean a woman can hit a man? The majority of abuse cases involve a man hitting a woman, but there are plenty of instances where the opposite is true. Why aren't Obama, Beckham and Lin telling women that it's never OK for them to hit a man?

Also, I'm surprised that we haven't heard from Rosie O'Donnell and other feminist werewolves about this PSA yet. They believe that men and women are completely equal, so why are they not pissed off that the President of the United States is harping about how it's horrible for a man to hit a woman? Has no one alerted Miss O'Donnell of this yet? I can only imagine...

Somewhere in an upstate New York cavern...

Rosie O'Donnell: NOM NOM NOM NOM, ME LIKE PANCAKE FOR FOURTH DINNER OF EVENING NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!

Feminist Werewolf: Excuse me, Overlord O'Donnell? I have two questions I hope you can answer, if it please you.

Rosie O'Donnell: NOM NOM NOM NOM, MAKE QUICK, FOLLOWER, ME HAVE MANY MORE PANCAKE TO EAT BEFORE FIFTH DINNER OF EVENING!!!

Feminist Werewolf: OK, I was wondering if I could borrow your armpit hair comb? I lost mine, and I really need to comb my armpit hair because it's getting really long. Not as long as yours, of course, but I am proud of its length.

Rosie O'Donnell: NOM NOM NOM NOM, ME VERY PROUD OF YOU ARMPIT HAIR LENGTH! MAYBE ONE DAY YOU HAVE ARMPIT HAIR ALMOST AS LONG AS ME HAVE! NEXT QUESTION!

Feminist Werewolf: OK, thank you, Overlord O'Donnell. My second question is have you seen the new PSA with Obama where he's talking about how men should never hit women?

Rosie O'Donnell: NOM NOM NOM NOM, WHAT!? HOW DARE PRESIDENT OBAMA SAY MAN CAN NO HIT WOMAN!? WHY HE NO SAY WOMAN CAN NO HIT MAN!? DO HE THINK WOMAN CAN NO HIT MAN WITH POWER!?

Feminist Werewolf: Yeah, I thought this PSA would really piss you off, Overlord O'Donnell.

Rosie O'Donnell: NOM NOM NOM NOM, STILL NO GOOD DECISION TO MAKE ANGRY DURING PANCAKE DINNER! ME SO ANGRY ME HAVE TO EAT YOU NOW, NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!

Feminist Werewolf: Nooooooooooo!!!

All I have to say is, thank God for pancake dinners, or we'd have to deal with fat, feminist werewolves so much more frequently.

There's one other issue I have with this PSA, and it's the overall premise. A man can NEVER hit a woman? Never? What if a crazy woman is running at a man with a machete? Can he not hit her because Obama, Lin and Beckham told him not to? I can almost see this happening.

Man: Hey, how are you?

Crazy Woman: What do you mean how am I!? What the f*** does that mean, a**hole!?

Man: Uhh... calm down. I was just asking how you were doing.

Crazy Woman: That's it! I'm tired of men asking me how I'm doing! I'm going to destroy you with this chainsaw! Muhahaha!!!

Man: Oh no... I want to hit you so you don't kill me, but Obama, Lin and that gay soccer guy told me that I can't.

Crazy Woman: Yes! You can't hit a woman because you're a man! Now I will kill you with this chainsaw, muhahaha!!!

Man: Nooooooo!!! Curse you, Obama, Lin and that gay soccer guy!

So, I guess I'd be OK with this PSA if Beckham actually said, "no one should eva hit a woman... unless she's a crazy b***h with a weapon."

2A. W.B. Mason: Avery Waterproof Labels

I now want to focus on a series of W.B. Mason commercials. If you haven't seen these, they feature the "Buyright Kids," a group of children who allegedly buy supplies from W.B. Mason. These ads may seem innocent and cute from the surface, but they are really sinister and dark.

Take the W.B. Mason: Avery Waterproof Label ad, for instance. Doesn't anyone find it odd that as the little girl is saying, "We need to make sure these birthday presents make it to our friends," that there's some strange, mustachioed weirdo peering into their tree house? What is he doing there? Why is he leering at these kids? Considering that the whole Jerry Sandusky story is still fresh in our minds, didn't the advertising geniuses at W.B. Mason think for a second, "Hmm... this commercial might be a little strange?"

Why does this mustachioed creeper just happen to have Avery weatherproof labels at the ready like that? Would luring these kids with candy be too obvious? Does this man kidnap children by promising them effective office supplies?

Oh, and I love how a hose magically appears in his right hand. Yeah, we get it, W.B. Mason. A creepy man is spying on kids while holding a hose in his right hand. You're not trying to insinuate anything.

I also don't understand why they're running a hose inside their tree house. Don't they know that the wood is going to rot from the water? Why not try this experiment outside? Is it because the creepy weirdo is scared that someone will see him "pouring water out of his hose" while interacting with these kids?


2B. W.B. Mason: HP Toner Cartridges

The mustachioed creeper is back, and this time he has HP Toner Cartridges! I guess the kids didn't fall for his Avery Weatherproof Label ruse, so he decided to lure them in with toner cartridges.

The same thing applies here - it's just odd that a mustachioed weirdo is peering into a kids' tree house out of nowhere. How does he know what they need before they even do? It's like he has some strange sixth Sandusky sense.

A couple of other things. First, what the hell is up with the interaction between the first black kid and the girl? "I play the nurse." "Looks like you need a nurse." What an a**hole. Who says something like that? It'd be awesome if the girl just decked the black kid. She should totally do that, because according to Obama, Lin and Beckham, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that because only men aren't allowed to hit women. Women can hit men all they want. That's perfectly fine.

Also, I love the brief exchange with the second black kid and the creeper. "What about these?" "Cheat bargain toner." The mustachioed creeper didn't even look at what brands the black kid was holding. He just assumed that the black kid brought cheap office supplies from his broken-down home. What a racist pedophile.

Oh, and "off with their heads?" What is that kid talking about? Whose head? The cheap bargain toner, or the black kid who brought the cheap bargain toner? There so much racism in this commercial - it's almost a shame that Rosie O'Donnell is too busy eating pancake dinners to complain about this.


2C. W.B. Mason: Fireworx

The Buyright kids are outside this time and... they're selling poems? What?

"Hey kids, how's business?" "Terrible!" "No one wants our poems!"

Of course no one wants your poems. Because A) poems are really stupid and B) you're a kid, so no one gives a damn what you have to say - except for apparently creepy mustachioed men driving red trucks with Fireworx paper conveniently stashed away in their glove compartment.

What made these kids believe that they could sell poems anyway? Like, why didn't they try selling lemonade or something? A lemonade stand actually works. A poem stand? Who the hell would buy a poem from a poem stand - especially when their poems are God-awful. Seriously, pause the video at the 22-second mark and check out the poem the nerd kid has on his yellow Fireworx paper:

Roman Candle is red,
Bottle Rocket is blue.

Get Boise Fireworx paper,
From W.B., that's who.

What the hell kind of a poem is that? No wonder business is terrible. The nerd kid says, "Get your great poems here!" at the beginning of the commercial. So that right there is a "great poem," eh? Well, I have news for you, nerd. No person in their right mind is going to buy a four-line poem about Fireworx paper that you can buy from W.B.

This makes me really curious about their business model. What the hell are they charging for that poem? Looking on W.B.'s Web site, an order of Bottle Rocket Blue Fireworx paper costs $17.95. There are 500 papers in the packet. This means they'll have to sell each poem for four cents to have any sort of profit margin.

Four cents doesn't sound like a lot, but it's way more than I'd pay. I wouldn't buy that for four cents; let alone four pieces of s**t. Seriously, if I were carrying around four pieces of poop for whatever reason, I'd rather have the feces than that poem.

Perhaps business would pick up for these kids if they wrote more relevant poems - you know, stuff they encountered each day. For example, one poem could go like:

The man with the mustache, he has a big hose,
It's long and wet and hard. Where did it come from, only he knows.

He sprayed me with the hose and now I'm all gooey and wet,
The man with the mustache looks happy, from spraying me, I bet.

I'd rather have that than four pieces of poop, wouldn't you?


2D. W.B. Mason: Scotch Tape

I don't get the point of this commercial. We should shop at W.B. because they have Scotch Tape? What store doesn't have Scotch Tape? Seriously, you can go anywhere to buy Scotch Tape, so shouldn't the mustachioed creeper say that W.B. sells Scotch Tape for a cheaper price than other office-supply companies? Having Scotch Tape in your inventory is nothing to brag about.

I'm confused enough by the premise of this ad, but a more prominent question is: What the hell is that thing with the orange shirt? Is that a guy or a girl? I'm not trying to be mean here; I honestly don't know. It could be either. My best guess? A eunuch with a wig.

As for the dialogue, "What happened?" "Somebody ripped my head off." More like some racist decided to commit a hate crime by tearing up the picture of the only black kid on the scene. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if the building right next to the club house happened to be the headquarters of the KKK. If so, there's little doubt that the wigged eunuch is the grand dragon. Seriously, look at how happy he looks when the black kid says that someone ripped his head off. The grand dragon is obviously proud of its work.

I have to say that I'm glad the girl likes this black kid instead of the other one who insulted her in the HP Toner Cartridges commercial. If she had a crush on the kid who said that she looks like she needs a nurse, it would send a bad message to all of the young girls in America - the message being that they should want to date dudes who insult them.

As a result, we'd have an entire generation of girls pursuing guys who insult them, and soon enough, former President Barack Obama would have to star in another awful PSA about how men shouldn't verbally abuse women. And I'll have to sit through those dumb commercials while watching more preseason football.