Stay Away From My Funges!

Yeah, I haven't updated in a while. I try to update at the very least once a month, but I haven't had much to complain or even ponder lately. But now I do. And I'll try my damnedest to have something next month, too.

Let me start this entry by giving a tidbit of personal information: I work as a master control operator for a local TV station. I mainly work the sign on shifts (ie, early morning to noon or so) on Saturday and Sunday. My station - an NBC affiliate - plays the "Discovery Kids" block on Saturday morning. Rather than show cartoons like the other networks, NBC stations show this educational programming, which consists of safari shows or scripted kiddie sitcoms that just happen to take place in Africa or on a farm. The Discovery Kids programming block is fairly tolerable compared to the crap that my station usually plays (Ambush Makeover...ugh), but the commercials aren't.

Not only are commercials for the same four or five snack foods played randomly throughout the three hours of programming, but they're usually annoying. And the worst is...the dreaded Pringles commercial.

If you haven't seen the commercial, first of all be glad. Second, allow me to paint the picture:

The ad starts with your typical "TV mom" opening a cabinet. The camera was in the cabinet in total darkness, then she opens the door and all you see is her goofy fucking face. I'm immediately reminded of the car trunk scenes so prevalent in Quentin Tarantino films, but without all the cool. She reaches for a single Pringles Snack Stack...those cursed little things they put in lunches that comes in either ketchup red (for plain) or failed scientific experiment green (for sour cream and onion). This one is red. She grabs it and closes the cabinet.

The camera cuts outside to a clinically clean kitchen in a typical suburban house, that is, if your typical suburban family makes a total of $250,000 a year. Seated at the counter behind their mother is the (on the left) a typical dipshit 7-10 year old son: Bowl cut, a long sleeved shirt that is very obviously not a part of a uniform yet inexplicably has a number on the front of it, and an excitable demeanor. Next to him (on the right) is the typical dipshit 7-10 year old daughter: long hair, plain white long sleeved shirt, and a smartassed demeanor. The mother turns to them.

"There's one Snack Stacks left. Who wants it?" she asks them in a fairly bored voice. One Snack Stacks? Isn't "Snack Stacks" plural? They put the "s" on the end because they're sold in bulk, but singularly, it's "one Snack Stack". We'll just assume that she's retarded, and he new name is Retard Mom. Hi, Retard Mom.

Both children (we'll call them Buttsqueeze and Squeezette) immediately respond with "I do!". Then we have a sort of quasi-auction to see who gets the "Snack Stacks" - all one of them. Paraphrased below:

Buttsqueeze: "I'll clean my room for it!"
Squeezette: "Shampoo the carpet."
Buttsqueeze: "Change the oil!"
Retard Mom: "Car's oil needs changing, oil going once..."
Squeezette: "Wash the cat."
Buttsqueeze: "Clean out the gutters!"
Retard Mom: "Gutters going once, gutters going twice..."

Just when Retard Mom is about to give her son the last of the damn potato chips, Squeezette comes up with this gem: "Balance the checkbook and water the fungus". Except the way she says it, it comes out sounding like "funges", or phonetically, "fun-jess". Retard Mom replies, "Sold to the lady with the fungus" (ewwwwww) and Squeezette gives Buttsqueeze a smug look that makes me want to snatch all the ugly off of her dorky prepubescent ass. After the announcer gets through reminding us what this is a commercial for, it cuts to the last scene: Buttsqueeze asks "What's a fungus?", and Squeezette gives him the typical "I'm not related to you" look. Fade to black.

Apart from the annoyance of the cross-eyed little drooler mispronouncing "fungus" (and her mother and brother miraculously understanding her), I can only think of one thing: What the hell does "water the fungus" mean? What fungus? Do they have a shroom garden? Are they going to go piss on some lichen somewhere? Whatever it means, it must be important, because it takes precedence over cleaning the gutters and changing the oil, and is at least on the same level as balancing the checkbook (which by itself shouldn't even be a higher priority than shampooing the carpet, so watering this fungus must be REALLY important). I mean, do people in suburbia keep some sort of nondescript pet fungus in their house that they have to water regularly? It truly blows my mind.

For the past three weeks or so they haven't been playing the ad, so maybe the bastard thing has been retired. Maybe they were playing it even before I started the job and normally phased it out of rotation, or maybe they just finally realized what an awful ad it is and yanked it, casting it away into the Pit of Horrid Advertisements with its housemates-in-hell, the MCI "I Believe I Can Call" spot featuring singing Looney Tunes characters, and every O.B. tampon commercial EVER.

Now if they would just stop playing those Chucky Cheese commercials featuring that speech-impaired mouse dressed like a skateboarder from 1989...