A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

T-day TV

I'm not sure what the more gratifying football development was today: Brett Favre throwing 3 picks and fumbling once against the Lions (I'm playing against him this week in fantasy football); or the Cowboys getting their collective asses handed to them by the Dolphins. Whichever, it rapidly became obvious that CBS and Fox don't take their Thanksgiving Day advertising as seriously as they do on other big game days. All with good reason, since I imagine many people watch football on Thanksgiving out of inertia more than any real interest in how far out of the playoff hunt the Lions are that year. Bowl games, the division playoffs, and the Super Bowl all supposedly mean something, so the networks roll out the big commercials.

With Dallas choking like Michael Hutchence against Miami, and because my father-in-law doesn't have a TiVo, I started paying more attention to the commercials. Most were asinine (if I see another "That thing got a hemi?" Dodge ad I'm gonna commit an aggravated felony), some were mildly amusing (the Miller human dominoes got a chuckle), and one was rather strange. I speak of the Target commerical with the drummers.

Target has some decent ads. I thought the one that culminates with the Kool-Aid guy crashing through the wall was nicely droll. Or maybe it was nostalgia, but whatever. Their new one features an older guy and a young woman banging away on their respective drum kits while the screen, as Rainier Wolfcastle might say, "shouts slogans at you." I quickly pegged the girl as Donna C of...big surprise, The Donnas. However, it took a repeat viewing to realize the dude was, in fact, Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick.

I like the Donnas. I saw them a couple years ago when they played Fitzgerald's and it wasn't a bad show. I used to like Cheap Trick. I saw them twice in College Station in the early 1980's when they were literally the only band who would come there to play. Much as I appreciated the merging of two acts I enjoy(ed), it still seemed odd.

Which reminded me of the strangest commerical pairing I've ever seen in a TV commercial. Bun and Donna may appear to be a weird choice for a celebrity endorsing duet, and they are, but at least both of them are drummers. Even the Cyndi Lauper-Anastacia combo in that Dr. Pepper commerical makes some sense, as they're both singers. No, the weirdest celeb-meld I've ever seen actually, to this day, makes me think I might have hallucinated it: an animated Mike Ditka and Cathy from the "Cathy" comic strip pimping for McDonalds.

I don't remember much (cognitive celebrity dissonance can do that): Ditka and Cathy are driving in a car and grumbling at each other. They end up at McDonalds, order food, and grumble some more. End commercial. I was immediately so confused I became frantic. Why was Cathy driving Ditka to McDonalds? Did his car break down? Didn't he have buddies he could call? How could he be friends with a whiny, self-absorbed character like Cathy?

Oh no...you don't think they...slept together? And she was driving him to breakfast the next morning? Iron Mike and Cathy the Annoyingly Repetitive Dingbat bumping uglies? The walls in the 53rd Precinct are bleeding!

Oh well, it could have been worse.