Quick hitter here...I just rediscovered a stupid commercial. Not a new commercial, just stupid. While I instantly remembered this commercial, it became clear that I never watched it all the way through before. This commercial was for Sylvania Silverlight car headlights.
In it, a smug-looking man in a stupid tweed jacket keeps saying "now you see me, now you don't" in varying shades of light. If you're not following the gist here, Silverlight headlights are better, shine farther, and will probably cook you breakfast.
That's nothing new. A typical commercial angle. I even like the little hitch of the guy walking back and forth into the different headlights. I'm looking at you, visual learners. But here's where the commercial just takes a spinning nosedive into stupid.
The guy, smug as ever, says something like "better use Silverlights, because next time you see me... I might not be alone." At this point, the camera pans out and there's a 12 year old boy standing in front of the guy. I might add that the guy has his hands on the boy's shoulder in a very creepy, very "mommy I think I want to go home" fashion.
How fucking cheap. You were doing so well, Sylvania. Then you had to go and pick one of the 3 or 4 most cliched sensitivities to prey on? Oh, save our children! Give me a break. This is a worse cheap shot than all those goddamn truck companies wrestling for the title of "America's truck," the granddaddy of them all being John "No I won't just die already" Mellencamp and his "This is Our Country" abomination. It's worse than Catherine Zeta-Jones pitching T-Mobile.
Okay, so preying on sensitivities is deplorable, but did they make the commercial just hoping that people would never take more than 3 seconds to think about it? (Ed. Note: clearly it worked for a while on me, because as I mentioned, this is not a new commercial) Is the message that it's okay to run over adults, but not kids?
While I'll agree that it would be fun for all of us to see Sergeant Smug get run down by an old war vet with shitty headlights, is that something we're to extrapolate and apply to all adults? Don't worry about that lady you just decapitated in the crosswalk, she was over 18.
This commercial pisses me off, and I will now drive my car, headlights off, right into a group of small children playing hopscotch. I hope you're happy, Sylvania.
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