Can You Hear Me Now? Good.

(May 27, 2003)

Alright, what the fuck. It could be that I haven't been watching much TV this year and I'm simply out of practice. Or, it could be that some of the commercials are really, really, really dumb. Really.

Here's the thing. I love commercials--the GOOD ones. I must have said a million times, "OH, I wish I thought of that" when I catch the brilliant ones destined to be classics ("Where's the Beef?"), the deviously well-aimed ones ("Maybe She's Born With It? Maybe it's Maybelline"), and the "good" bad ones, like those little mindfucks the Mentos people created.

Can we DISCUSS the oven mitt? Arby's oven mitt? It took about three half-watched distracted-with-other-stuff viewings of this thing and one actually-watched, eyebrow-raising, head-scratching one, but I have to say...duh. There are a few different spots starring the oven mitt, but the one that got me was...okay, this oven mitt is laying on a counter doing sit-ups. An Arby's employee comes in and says "What's up, Oven Mitt?" Yes, the oven mitt has a name,and that name is Oven Mitt. Sounds kinda German, if you think about it. I don't remember why Oven Mitt is doing sit-ups, but the Dork Voice in my head actually scoffed, "Oh yeah right. Like an oven mitt has abs." See, TV makes you stupid, cynical, yet totally seduces you into suspending disbelief. See, Oven Mitt already talks and walks. Why NOT abs. Yet, it pisses me off.

So I tell this to Chuck and he says "Isn't that Tom Arnold?" Well this information is just too much. The description of the commercial alone sounds like one of my warped tuna fish dreams, doesn't it? Adding Tom freakin' Arnold to the mess is just plain wrong. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Open the window, let some of the WRONG out! But he's right. I looked it up:

Oven Mitt, voiced by Tom Arnold, is emotional about food that is "Oven Fresh ... Oven Good," the company said. In commercial spots, Oven Mitt sings to Arby's Italian Beef n' Provolone sandwich and gives motivational speeches to his fellow crew members. The spots take place in an Arby's kitchen. The tagline is "What Are You Eating Today?"

Does that say that the mitt sings to the sandwich?

What about the latest 1-800-COLLECT thing? The angel? Who IS this chick, anyway, and who gave her an acting job? Flatter delivery than Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala droning her tragically doomed passion to Anakin. But what's really weird is the copy in the spot I saw. This guy in a bandanna is dialing a pay phone. She pops into the screen in her shiny white unitard. The guy reacts. She says, "Never seen an angel with wings before?"

What?

Never seen an angel with wings before. I've been turning this over and over for days. What pictorialized angel DOESN'T have wings? John Travolta had wings in Michael. Cupid has wings. Seraphim and Cherubin have wings. At first I thought that maybe they wanted the bandanna guy to be a motorcycle rider, and she was making a Hell's Angels reference, but then I saw ANOTHER commerical that had no bandanna guy or anything else to even remotely link it to the Hell's Angels, the Blue Angels, the Anaheim Angels or angel freakin' food cake.

So here's the only thing I can come up with: they originally wanted Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore, or Cameron Diaz for this spot, but none of them would do it, so they got this bony chick at the last minute, only the writer went to lunch and asphyxiated on an Arby's Italian Beef n' Provolone sandwich and didn't get a chance to change the dialogue.