Rock and roll has been the soundtrack to my life but there were many commercial interruptions, On the radio that brought me the music and on the television which once it arrived in the mid-1950s was always on when we were home. I'm cursed with recollection of sixty year old TV jingles with still pop into my head uninvited. (“Sing it over, and over again, Fros-ty Morn.”
The Millsaps of Mansfield always muted commercials except during the Super Bowl when we would often mute the game instead of the commercials. I still mute commercials but I'm too inattentive to get them all and there are some commercials I enjoy.
Some commercials I not only mute but have to look away from: animals being mistreated, the Navage ad in which a woman holds a clear tank of saline solution over her nose and circulates snot through it.
There are entertaining commercials-- mostly from insurance companies-- but some TV ads are absurd. For example,the ones where car companies tell you everyone gets the employee discount. That is patently false. They don't have an employee discount. Such a discount would be one where employees get a better price than the general public but if everybody gets it there is no “employee discount.”
Then there are the ads that urge you to use their product when you don't need it, like the Tide commercial which warns about “invisible dirt.” I really worry about invisible dirt (This shirt looks clean but I better wash it because it might have invisible dirt.) And the Cascade ad which encourages us to run the dishwasher even if we have only a few dirty dishes because it saves water compared to washing them by hand. The last time I checked Cascade costs considerably more than water.
The commercials I enjoy? Progressive has many storylines running at the same time. We love the antics of Flo and Jamie but their best series is the one this guy,, a good actor, exercises intervention to keep new homeowners from turning into their parents. It's SNL level humor. I look forward to new episodes the way I used to with “Twin Peaks.”
- - Ellis Millsaps
