The Super Bowl's almost here. You know what that means, right? Oh yeah, there'll be a football game too, but I'm talking about the year's most anticipated unveiling of the latest examples of our greatest art form: Television commercials! The ad people at Madison Avenue work like beavers to come up with the most entertaining and groundbreaking commercials of the year, often kicking off a new series of signature ads for their different clients. There's also some informative ads as well, telling us of some exciting new scientific breakthroughs in shaving our faces and other body parts, brushing our teeth and rinsing our mouths with a dizzying array of pretty colored and tasty mouthwashes.
Well, I've got a couple of things I hope our intrepid advertisers didn't overlook again this year. I think we've got the message that Bud is the King of Beers and Coors Light the Crown Prince of Beers. We know Viagra makes old guys happy and old women happier. I think we're well aware that people like crappy fast food and car companies make gas-guzzling cowboy trucks that ride as smooth as bucking broncos. And who needs to be reminded to buy more electronic gadgets? We already do that pretty much automatically like babies grabbing at shiny objects.
What we need is some fresh blood, some new advertisers who are willing to tackle some overlooked and undersold products. Take drugs, for example. Enough about all that blood pressure crap, those cholesterol reduction yawns and the time release cold capsules. I say the Pharmaceutical Giants go with their real bread and butter, fun drugs and huge money makers like Oxycontin, Percodan, Percocet, Demerol, Vicodin, Darvon, Darvocet and the like. They are marketed as pain killers (Wink, wink!) but the big drug companies produce around fifty to a hundred times more of these drugs than the medical community requires. Where do the rest of these very expensive pills go?
Well, that's what the commercials will explain. They can be like beer commercials but instead of popping open a cold one at a party you could have the attractive young hipsters unscrewing drug bottles and popping pills, maybe even a couple of them crushing up the pills' contents, adding water and shooting them up with a needle. You could have snappy slogans like "As good as heroin without having to deal with hoodlums in bad neighborhoods!" or "It's powerful, it's long lasting and … it's legal!" or "Pain, shmain, this stuff is fun!" How about: "Getting high, but not high enough? Try Oxycontin! Everyone's calling it Hillbilly Heroin and it's a ton of fun! And Mom and Dad, don't forget that Oxy's not just for the kids, it's the drug of choice of Rush Limbaugh!" At the end you can have some bozo smugly announce: "Remember, always drug responsibly."
Those ads could be sprinkled in with the beer, wine and whiskey ads. Maybe even get some celebrities to endorse them, preferably someone who has played a doctor on a popular TV show. Following those ads you could have a couple of Rehab Centers advertising their services, maybe even enlisting some of the celebrities who are regulars at such facilities. Let the camera show to the landscaped grounds, the luxury suites and the happy faces of recovering addicts as they thank "Sunny Promises" for saving their lives. I smell some promising second careers for a lot of former film and TV stars as commercial spokespeople. Why should Wilford Brimley and his dull Diabetes spiel hog all the big advertising dough?
Or maybe one of the last functioning manufacturing industries in America can advertise on Super Sunday, our firearms manufacturers. Here's the spiel: "Venison: it's what's for dinner. Well, sportsmen, deer meat isn't in your local butcher shop and they don't come when you call 'em. But they do listen to Smith and Wesson!" Or a handgun ad: "Gangbangers, still using that old Glock Nine? Get some real American firepower, a Colt automatic with hollow tipped armor piercing bullets. Protect your corners and impress your friends! Why trust an important drive-by to a foreign-made weapon? When you want someone stopped, Colt stops 'em in their tracks! And don't forget, bitches and ho's always respect a man who's packing a Colt automatic. Always shoot responsibly."
There's lots of possibilities for ground-breaking TV commercials. The private army corporations could cash in on the huge military audience watching the Super Bowl from war zones overseas. The setting, a battlefield littered with dead bodies, and in the distance two American soldiers with smoking guns survey their handiwork. One of them is wounded and being helped to a medivac helicopter by his comrade. Plaintive bugle music plays softly while a manly voice intones: "You've paid your dues, soldier. You've fought the good fight and you've kept your country safe. America's military, we salute you. You've been to hell and back and still you stand tall.Time to cash in! Tired of using your skills to benefit a bunch of foreign slobs who don't appreciate your protection? Tired of a paycheck that looks like you work in Wal-Mart? Sick of that complex chain of command and being handcuffed by the Code of Military Conduct? Join Blackwater International and fight for big money!
We'll pay handsomely for the skills Uncle Sam taught you and let you be in charge! We provide state-of-the-art firepower and a license to kill and you'll answer to nobody but your banker! Why re-up in the Army or the Marines for peanuts? Join Blackwater today, where the elite meet and cause some serious mayhem!"
Yes, the Super Bowl gravy train of advertising dollars is ready to pull out of the station. Why shouldn't more of our mega-corpoations cash in on his annual bonanza? Why not the companies who make all those prosthetic limbs for our brave young soldiers who had an arm or a leg blown off by a roadside bomb? "Going Mother Nature one better!" Or the medical insurance corporations who are running the show in our health care system: "Darwin Medical Plan: thinning the herd of the weak and the crybabies for 75 years. Find out who measures up. Join now, it just might be you!"
The oil companies could use some of that hundred-bucks-a-barel windfall to create some memorable ads: "Everybody knows that Solar Power's for sissies! Try leaving your Hummer in the sun and see how far it gets you. Big Oil: We've got it, you need it." or maybe a more patriotic theme: "Real Americans drive Big Cars and it takes a Big Corporation to get it to you. Let the Europeans drive their tiny death traps and we'll ride in style! Who owns the road, loyal Americans or some tofu-eating wussy in a Mini Cooper?" Madison Avenue, get busy!
Hahaha, I love Wilford Brimley…