Every Kiss Begins With A Gag

Here in New York, the commercial teevee ad wars are hot and heavy. Welcome to the holiday season. From now until December 26th, prepare to be inundated with a virtual plethora of annoying, repetitive and only rarely amusing (where it then becomes annoying after seeing it for the 300th time) commercials aimed at getting you to part with your hard-earned dollars.

Let’s face it…in this part of the country, there are two major contenders for your cellphone service. “Ya got your Verizon Camp and your AT&T Camp. Pick a side, people…and no take-backies.” (You should have heard this last statement with a stern-sounding male coach pre-game voice)

Verizon happens to be better. What? You don’t think so? “Verizon sucks,” you say? Well, you’re wrong…and no-one can hear you, anyway….’cause it’s my blog and only I get to talk. But, I’ll argue this till the cows come home…(I put in the word "cow" for Spot...she knows why) as I’ve had both of these contenders...and Verizon’s clearly better. (Pun intended and pun intended) And it all comes down to who’s made you happy and ya can’t have it both ways. Well, you could…but that’s a whole ‘nother post…and we’re not going there now.

Verizon is the home team here in the Northeast. I don’t know whether it’s because they got the higher spot on the cell towers or what…but AT&T drops a lot more often than Verizon. Verizon knows this. Their entire holiday ad campaign seems to be centered around it:

Verizon: “We’ve got more coverage…in more homes…in more cities…in more public restrooms…under more desks…than anyone. Especially AT&T. They suck.”

AT&T: “Nuh-uh. YOU suck. We’ve got this super-duper spectacular two-part ad with Luke Wilson standing on a huge map of the U.S., throwing postcards from supposed-happy AT&T customers from all over America while he makes remarks about having lost his wallet once in Des Moines…and it’s in two parts..did we mention that?...so viewers have to sit through the first ad and then see an ad for something else, followed by the second half where Luke’s practically drowning in these postcards…so, take that.”

Well. I think that totally clears up any confusion as to who has the better coverage.

This competition is probably not a competition at all…when it comes to quality, or price, or variety. I’ve actually no idea if one diamond place is better than the other.

However. I have a definite opinion on their commercial ads.

Dear Kay Jewelers,
Please fire your ad agency immediately. We are all laughing behind your back. Actually, scratch that. We’re laughing right in your face. HAHAHA. You must think we are a bunch of sappy, emotionally-challenged schmucks. We are not. You are insulting our intelligence, offending our ability to feel anything resembling natural sentiments and making my entire family extremely nauseous each and every time we’re forced to endure one of your sappy, transparent attempts at a sweet, loving commercial.

Hallmark. You’re. Not.

Give it up. It sucks. Get some new “people” and stop trying to make us cry. You’re making us lose our lunch instead. You don’t wanna be known as “Kay Jewelers…The Vomit People”, do you??

For anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure (gags) I’ll give you two mental snapshots:

1) Man and woman stand at the picture window watching the raging storm outside. They wear deeply concerned, troubled faces. Perhaps their concern is authentic because they’ve pre-read the script. Suddenly, lightening flashes and thunder crashes and woman lets out a frightened cry, turns and buries her traumatized face into man’s chest. He responds with, “Don’t worry, darling. I’m here. I’ll always be here. For the rest of your freakin’ life…everywhere you go, everything you do…everywhere you look….I’m gonna be right there. For. Ever.” (Okay, so I may have added that last part...but the rest is true.)

2) Man and woman sitting on the floor by Christmas tree. Man is attempting some rudimentary sign language and speaks out loud (for our benefit). He (supposedly) apologizes for his lack of proficiency in signing and (supposedly) says he has a present for her. “Really?” she signs…a clueless look on her face. He pulls the “Kay” box from under the tree and (supposedly) signs “Merry Christmas”. She opens it to display the watch/bracelet/necklace tucked inside. Then he (supposedly) signs, “Do you like it?” and she (supposedly) signs back, “Read my lips” and leans in for the infamous Kay kiss. As the shot fades to black, if you look really closely, I do believe you can just make out the woman flipping the camera the bird.

Happy freakin’ holidays.