– – Enlightenment can apparently be found anywhere, even on aircraft, when you have Pepto To Go! We’ve already seen the zen-oriented rodent in the forest, and now he pops up on a flight, where he tells a female passenger that he can see that she’s packed…her stomach! Such a pronouncement would be unwelcome from a human, but coming from a squirrel, we marvel at his sage perception.
He appears out of a seatback compartment that looks like a medicine cabinet, and before we know it, the squirrel has somehow teleported into the woman’s pocket, emerging with a vial of Pepto, and telling the passenger that relief can be hers. There is a price to be paid, however, for the woman’s airline peanuts belong to the squirrel, and are shown in his tiny paws as he reappears in the seatback compartment in front of her, and the commercial ends. Wisdom, like the squirrel, is where you find it…and perhaps the squirrel will come when the student is ready…
– – A recent Subway commercial for their Sriracha Chicken Melt sub features a woman named Candice, apparently the librarian, whom we are shown comfortably seated at the main desk in a busy library. With her sprawled on an adjoining table is a magnificent white tiger, who is spied by a startled male assistant, Carl, apparently returning books to the shelf using a cart. “I’m not sure that you should have that here!,” ventures Carl nervously, referring to the tiger. Candice responds as if he was referencing her sandwich, however, saying that she’s just gotten into trying new and spicy things. She then chides Carl for having an overdue scrapbooking book out, and sends the chastised guy on his sorry way. Carl is clearly not an alpha male type…
– – I hate to see mythological creatures exploited, and one usually doesn’t want to mess with dragons. But the Starburst “giggly juicy dragon” is not your typical dragon, even among a race of extraordinary creatures. The dragon in question also seems to dearly love his videos, and apparently is easily entertained by them. The dragon must live under a rock not to already be familiar with the “keyboard cat” video, but then again, dragons are reputed to at times live under rocks, or at least in caves. For that reason, the giggly juicy dragon is probably starved for entertainment, or at the very least doesn’t get out much. The “keyboard cat” apparently can really tickle the dragon’s funnybone, or whatever he may have that passes for one.
— Love them or hate them, cats have been a powerful presence in advertising, and since at least the 20th century, they’ve also been associated with music, especially jazz. They’re part of the language; consider idiomatic references like hep cat, swing cat, cool cat, and the list goes on. Perhaps it’s because cats are independent and tend to choose their own focus that they’ve come to be associated with music forms that are cutting edge and a bit outside of the mainstream, at least at their inception and at one particular point in time.
FOXSYLVANIA 
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