As you can see above, a new ad campaign is encouraging young people to be cool and fight conformity… by eating Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise. TO THE EXTREME! Stephen Colbert ably demolished this commercial last month (see video below), and Miracle Whip responded by buying up ad space in every one of Colbert’s commercial breaks last night. They also published this open letter to Colbert (emphasis added):
“With every commercial break, your viewers will be exposed to hardcore Miracle Whip attitude and revelry. You will see our legion of (as you call them) ‘mayo nay-sayers’ snarfing sandwiches topped with our one-of-a-kind flavor in a very cool and totally hip way. They will be in your face and massively dope. It goes without saying, they WILL NOT TONE IT DOWN. And you will begin to see the soft, bland white walls of the mayo empire begin to collapse under the weight of its own whipped-egg pretentiousness.”
Wait a second. That’s a little too intentionally Itchy & Scratchy & Poochy, even for advertising demons. I think Miracle Whip just went and made their whole ad campaign ironic. That’s almost kind of cool, if it weren’t for a freaking condiment. Please, just go back to pandering to fat people.
I don’t watch cable news because I don’t appreciate the absurdly high yelling-to-actual-violence ratio (if you talking heads are gonna shout each other down, at least finish the argument with a knife). But I’ve seen enough clips to get a feel for Glenn Beck, Fox News’s version of a “kind of but not really serious but actually kind of serious” Stephen Colbert. Whether his audience takes him at face value or not, Beck’s anti-intellectual fear-mongering hysteria adds nothing substantive to the nation’s political discourse.
All of that is a way of introducing Jon Stewart’s sudden, unannounced Glenn Beck impression during last night’s “Daily Show” that went on for eight and half minutes. As good as it is, I don’t think I laughed once. I found it more sad than funny. Then I read a list of cats with fraudulent diplomas and pretended the cats were wearing wigs when they received them, and then I felt a lot better.
Comedy Central has signed Nick Swardson to his own weekly, half-hour sketch show of digital shorts, animations, and man-on-the-street segments. Lauren Corrao, programming president of Comedy Central, had this to say:
“We love Nick at Comedy Central and even more importantly, our audience loves Nick. We’ve seen it in his movies, his stand-up, with his ‘Reno 911!’ character ‘Terry,’ and in the work he’s done developing Gay Robot [Ed.- video below]. We can’t wait to expand his creative voice into a sketch series.” [THR]
She added, “We also love the little pet pig he made out of a pink gum eraser and four push pins, and we love his laugh and his neckbeard, and gee his hair smells terrific.”
This is outstanding: a jack-o-lantern cut to resemble a scene from “Mystery Science Theatre 3000.” Not that I’m some grand connoisseur of jack-o-lanterns, but I think it’s pretty inventive to cut into the front and back of the pumpkin to add depth. Well done, pagan holiday pumpkin sculptor.
For anyone who was either too young, too lame, or too busy doing heroin to Mother Love Bone in the ’90s to be familiar with “MST3K”: you missed out. My love for this show will continue to my death bed. A guy and two robots making fun of old sci-fi movies was strangely addictive to me as a teenager, and it ended up being a huge influence in shaping my sense of humor. So I guess you have them to blame for all of this. *waves hands around website*
[flickr via @ToplessRobot]
As the Internet’s leading provider of “Whale Wars”-themed Photoshops, it is my duty to inform you that tomorrow’s episode of “South Park” will spoof the popular Animal Planet series.
In the episode titled “Whale Whores,” premiering at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, Stan and his family are spending his birthday at the Denver Aquarium, where they will get to swim with the dolphins, but the fun turns bloody when the Japanese attack, kill all the dolphins and ruin Stan’s big day. In return, Stan takes on the cause to save the dolphins from the Japanese. [source]
Oh man. I’m not a die-hard “South Park” fan but I’ve got a feeling this’ll be a good one. Dolphin massacre, cheap racial stereotypes, and young boys. It’s everything that turns your dad on.
Jeff Dunham is probably not a bad person. In the world of comedy, he’s not nearly as bad as dishonest wastes of carbon compounds like Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook. But he’s a ventriloquist, and ventriloquism is stupid, and he’s not even good at his stupid ventriloquism (proof here). Nevertheless…
After breaking Comedy Central’s ratings records with his special last year, ventriloquist Jeff Dunham repeated the feat on the series side. The Thursday debut of “The Jeff Dunham Show” drew 5.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched series premiere in Comedy Central’s history.
The show, mostly panned by critics, also posted all-time records for a Comedy Central series premiere in adults 18-49 (2.6 rating). Including the same-night replays, the premiere of “Jeff Dunham” attracted 7.9 million viewers. It was the top cable series on Thursday night and powered Comedy Central to its highest-rated night of the year. [THR]
This is why we can’t have nice things. Tell me how you feel, girls: