Posted by
Big Daddy on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 2:45:34 PM
Two quick thoughts today:
1. Jerry Jones needs to pull the trigger on two hires and get on with the off-season. He needs to hire Norv Turner as the Cowboys’ head coach and try to hire Mike Singletary as the defensive coordinator. Turner is (probably) the best candidate right now, assuming Jones isn’t interested in any of the assistant coaches on either Super Bowl team. Singletary has stated he’s only interested in the head coach’s position, but Jones can be persuasive. Couple that with the fact that Singletary is a Houston native the confluence could be too strong to resist. Besides, the defensive coordinator’s position would be step up for Singletary, albeit a small one.
At any rate, Jones hiring Jason Garrett is a coup already recognized by other coaches, and soon to be recognized by NFL fans as well.
2. Is it just me, or have some commercials sunken to new lows with boorish behavior? I know, I know; commercials and television in general, have been pretty tasteless for awhile now. But two ads I viewed last night during American Idol exemplify what I’m talking about.
*Full Disclosure: Yes, I watch American Idol as does the rest of my family, and yes we’re part of the reason Katherine McPhee was sent packing last year in favor of Taylor Hicks. I not-so-secretly want to be part of Randy’s Dog Pound.*
The first example is the most recent series of H&R Block ads featuring a couple in the beginning stages of yearly tax woes.
The man sits at a table, obviously distressed over not only this year’s return, but last year’s as well. His wife enters the scene and begins to verbally pummel him with fists full of sarcasm about his idiocy in using tax software instead of a human to prepare their returns. It’s not just the normal, “Men aren’t too bright sometimes,” sentiment you understand. This lady dishes out some of the most biting sarcasm I’ve heard in awhile. Sure it delivers the message that only H&R Block can do your taxes properly, but it could have been done without the woman treating her man like he was something to be wiped off her shoe.
The next entrant is a series of ads by Burger King featuring the daily lives of the Burger Family.
Dad and son are human-burger hybrids while mom is a normal person. The series centers on the efforts of adolescent burger-son to be popular and desired by everyone (mostly girls) and the lengths to which he’s willing to go to achieve that goal. Lengths such as selling himself for $.99 which burger-dad equates to cheap prostitution. The rub here is the harsh dialogue between burger-son and burger-dad as they hash out their differences. Aside from burger-dad’s obvious, tasteless allusions to hookers, burger-son’s comments are rude, demeaning and void of any respect for burger-dad. In the latest ad, burger-son tells burger-dad to, “…pull your head out of your bun.”
Okay, it could have been even cruder, but I find myself having to explain to my children why burger-son’s and burger-dad’s language and mode of interaction isn’t to be emulated.
Come on BK and H&RB!
You can deliver the same message without causing me to tell my kids not to imitate the character’s behavior. I do enough of that when the America Idol judges are on the screen.