GEICO

GEICO has two basic sets of ads these days: the ones with the gecko and the ones with the cavemen. I know a lot of people who hate these ads (the cavemen ones, anyway), and I can understand. For one, they really are overaired, and for another, they vary wildly in comedic value. (For those of you TV absolutists, the basic thrust of these meta-ads is that cavemen are still living amongst us, and they are offended that GEICO would suggest that getting insurance is so easy that "even a caveman" could do it. This isn't admittedly Wildean territory.)

I know I'm fucking sick and tired of the caveman in the airport (though I still like the little touch that he has a tennis racket) if only because I hate that fucking Royksopp song, which sounds a lot like what Air would sound like if they were transported back in time to 1974 and castrated.

But honestly? There is one caveman ad that kills me every time, and that is the caveman party. Two cavemen are outside the party on the balcony, and one is depressed. As he speaks to friend caveman, it is revealed that despite GEICO's offensive anti-caveman ad concept, he bought insurance with them anyway, resulting in his friends ostracizing him for his betrayal of his caveman brethren. "It's my life, all right?" he bridles hilariously. The whole ad is really fraught with the kind of Seriousness that you'd normally expect to see on something like "Law & Order," which is what makes what happens next so great.

A third caveman bursts out onto the balcony, interrupting this heavy dialogue. "Tina's here; we're getting back together!" he happily informs the first two. "Hey! Give us a minute!" cries friend caveman in frustration.

It is awesome, and I am willing to forgive GEICO the other, much lamer spots for the pure nailing of this particular moment.

It is a goodwill that will instantly be extinguished when ABC--if this dreary network insists on following reported plans to do this horrible thing--actually airs the TV show that is reportedly in development that involves the GEICO cavemen.

Our culture has a rich history of television cavemen: Captain Caveman. The Flintstones. Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. Two were hideous, unfunny cartoons and Phil Hartman was murdered. Are you listening, ABC?

Note: I'm not forgetting Encino Man, although that would be nice. I just would like to mention that Brendan Fraser, who played the title character in that alleged film, went to college with my wife, and that once, some years ago, they stole some guy's dog because he abused it. Hooray!

Freecreditreport.com

If you're not one of those aforementioned anti-TV drones, then you've certainly already got this hellish jingle running in your brain. And you're probably already remembering the astonishingly annoying over-gelled blonde kid who stretches his lips at the camera and says, "I'm thiiiiinking of a number!"

The number this little manque is referring to is, of course, one's credit score. The ad for this bunch of lousy suckpoles is for this fucking website that will, for only $12.95 a month--wait, that's not quite free, is it?--give you your credit report and also email you "changes" to your credit report. What a deal! It isn't free, but hey, I'm willing to trust a website that lies to you right in the URL! And never mind that by law, the credit bureaus are required to provide everyone with a copy of their credit report each year. Or never mind that one can always pay Experian to provide one whenever one wants for fifteen bucks. Or, for forty bucks, you can get the reports from all of them, should you really need to get that information twice or more in the space of twelve months.

Maybe Freecreditreport.com just didn't know any of this! It's probably all a vast mistake and they thought they were actually providing a valuable service! One that's free! Or pretty close to free, at thirteen bucks a month! From their website:

ConsumerInfo.com and Freecreditreport.com are not affiliated with the annual free credit report program. Under a new Federal law, you have the right to receive a free copy of your credit report once every 12 months from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies. To request your free annual report under that law, you must go to www.annualcreditreport.com.

No, they knew it all the time. They also knew enough to print that information in helpful blue-on-blue text. Because they just want to help.

Quizno's

I have nothing against Quizno's. In fact, I've never eaten at Quizno's. Actually, I'm not even sure where the nearest Quizno's is. I don't even have anything against their ads, generally: they tend to be a lot of man-on-the-street stuff with ord'nary folks really enjoying their sandwiches and aggressively pointing out how horrible Subway sandwiches are by comparison.

"Now this is prime beef," some ordinary Joe will say while erotically fingering a gorgeous sandwich, resplendently bursting with meat and cheese. Invariably, a Subway sandwich is lying next to it, looking like something fished out of a landfill. The Joe regards it with revulsion: "You can really smell the rat meat. Do they serve these on Death Row?" Nothing special going on here.

But there is a new ad. It's only a small part of the ad, but it is so horrifying, it stands out every time I see it. Again, regular folks are sampling a Quizno's sandwich, and are all uniformly transported to nearly religious experiences when eating these subs. One is a reasonably attractive woman who is holding her half-eaten sandwich insouciantly, perhaps as if it were some sort of metaphoric meat-stick that is somehow inherently enjoyable to hold in one's hand and occasionally put in one's mouth.

Then, unfortunately, she speaks.

"It's not lackin' any meat! And that's what real women need!" Then she laughs.

It isn't the vapid, idiotically charged line that she volunteers; that would be bad enough. Real women want lots of long cock. This is no sandwich for dykes! Hee hee! No, the real horror here is her laugh, believe it or not. I'm not sure I can describe it. It's a multi-toned sort of loathsome giggle, the kind of maniac laugh that every man fears to hear after some ill-considered one-night stand. It's the laugh you dread to hear waking up naked next to a stranger, and it is followed by the phrase, "By the way, my love for you burns me like hot irons. Oh, and speaking of which, I've got a hot iron. Don't move."

If we could hear the cries of bats hunting in the night, it would sound like her laugh. It is the sound of a lumbar puncture. The laugh is the granite grinding of millwheels in Hell as the femurs fall into the stones, and you're the one pushing the wheels, and the Quizno's gal is striping your tattered back with the lash.

And the music you hear as you push along is: "Freeeee creeedit repooort dot com!"