In a series of Halloween-themed commercials, Geico insurance introduces us to Griselda the witch, a witchy but wonderfully hip witch who builds on traditional stereotypes to in one commercial host a karaoke cooking show, complete with bubbling cauldron in which angel sneezes and a thumb drive are added to the brew!
But I digress…in one wonderful, furry-themed commercial, two female college students have taken in Griselda as a compromise roommate, one seeking someone who can help with the cooking, and the other wanting someone who likes cats. Griselda fits the bill nicely, spoon-feeding one of the students soup that transforms her into an anthropomorphic cat complete with cat ears, facial features, and furry forearms… I’d drink of that brew anytime! While her cooking may be questionable, Geico can really help these students with renters insurance, we’re told.
Anyways, Griselda is a real hoot as is her furry creation, and deserves to be a breakout character. We Halloween lovers thank you, Geico…watch for yourself, and meow!
(tip o’ the pen to Carycomic for the idea for this post!)
The Masked Singer is back for a second season on Fox, that show which plays like American Idol on psychotropic drugs. Contestants wear full body costumes head to toe which totally conceal their identity, and perform popular musical numbers for which they are judged over intervening weeks in an elimination contest. The show is hosted by Nick Cannon, and also features celebrity panelists including Robin Thicke and Dr. Ken Jeong. Shamelessly weird, the show also incorporates “security personnel” who dress like the Men in Black attired in black suits and ties and wearing sunglasses at all times. I’m OK with all of this, as I prefer my fantasy worlds to reality, anyways…weird is good, and works for me!
Episode 1 for the second season commenced with a contestant called Butterfly performing Bang, Bang in competition with Egg who performed Just Dance. The costume worn by Butterfly was suitably dazzling and iridescent, and coupled with a good set of pipes enabled her to emerge victorious over Egg, who was later unmasked to reveal Johnny Weir. In a second matchup, Thingamajig (don’t ask) performing I’m Easy defeated Skeleton who performed Rappers Delight. A third pairing pitted Ladybug who sang Holding Out for a Hero against Rottweiler, who won with Maneater performed against a chain link fence that also appropriately housed a fire hydrant, which thankfully he didn’t use during the performance. Rottweiler was my furry fave for the night, working with backup dancers who wore canine masks and featured a rather sensuous and lithe female worth howling over. This was one fine bitch, and I’m not using the word in the pejorative sense!
The final pairing was even more surreal, with a contestant Tree dressed as a Xmas Tree performing High Hopes and defeating Ice Cream who sang Old Town Road. Ice Cream was unmasked as Tyler “Ninja” Bleving following a second chance “smackdown” defeat by Ladybug, who appropriately won singing Hit Me With Your Best Shot.
With two insect costumes and only one identifiable mammal, I was a little disappointed although an upcoming episode features a feline performer and one of personal interest called Mr. Fox, who appears to have steampunk stylings. Until we see their performances, I’m putting my paws up for Rottweiler…he’s such agood boy, even if he does remind me of Homer Simpson in an episode of The Simpsons where he voiced Poochie the dog…
Dean Winters is back as the Allstate Mayhem guy, a role he plays to perfection…and he’s no stranger to playing animals as well, having played a raccoon in the attic in an earlier outing (below)…
This time he’s portraying a cat, and the absurdity and whimsy of his portrayal is enhanced by the fact that he’s neither in costume nor CGI enhanced, but simply appearing as a normally dressed adult human male adopting feline mannerisms, poses, and behaviors.
“I’m your cat,” announces Winters, “and ever since you brought me home that day, I’ve been plotting to destroy you,” he declares calmly, flashing back to his batting away the petting hand of his male owner on that first day. We are show Winters doing a variety of iconic cat-things, like playing with kitty-toys while lying on his owner’s couch, and spitting a mouse onto their sleeping face. “I’ve been sizing you up, calculating your every move,” Winters shares as he peers from a cat-condo and rides a Roomba. “You think this is love? This is a billion years of tiger DNA, waiting to pounce!” Eventually a faucet left running by the Winters-cat overflows the sink, causing the upstairs bathroom to collapse down to the floor below. His feline agenda is proceeding nicely…
“If you have the wrong type of insurance, you could be stuck coughing up the cash for this,” advises Winters as he coughs up bird feathers by a now vacant cage. “So get Allstate, and you could be better protected from Mayhem, like meow,” he closes, dipping his fingers into a cat-food bowl bearing the name “Mayhem,” and laughing in a rather sinister fashion, his outfit complete with a collar and tag…the devil is in the details, you see!
I would probably have long since starved to death were it not for peanut butter. I’ve eaten it since childhood, and continue to turn to it several times a week. At times, I even crave it; peanut butter is my go-to lunch and snack of choice when I don’t know what to eat. That being said, I indulge my guilty pleasure at home; even I may not be seen at a park, slathering peanut butter on a slice of bread. I’ve never been known to carry a jar of peanut butter around with me; I’m just not that hard-core…
…not so the curly-haired young lady in our Jif commercial! Seated on a park bench, she whips herself up a thickly-spread slice of peanut butter bread, only to find herself approached by a squirrel. Aww…isn’t he cute? Who could deny him? So she gives him a tidbit, and is soon approached by another squirrel, then another! No good deed goes unpunished, after all. Soon the woman is surrounded by dozens of squirrels, kinda like what happens when you feed french fries to sea gulls at the beach…
…It’s then that the commercial takes a surreal turn, for towering above the sea of squirrels is a creepy man-squirrel, wearing a squirrel mask that covers his entire head. He, too, is seeking a hand-out, and even making beseeching squirrel-noises. Is this a peanut butter pervert? And what should the young lady do? Mace him, scream for help, or try to bean him with the peanut butter jar? This question is left unanswered, but some people will go to any lengths for the product. It’s that Jif’ing good, we’re told. I do sympathize, honestly, sharing the addiction…
…but in my twisted mind fed by a love for horror, the question lingers; what happens when the woman runs out of peanut butter? Do the legion of squirrels and their squirrel-headed human-sized leader decide that the lady might be tasty, too? A few pounce on her to take a tentative nibble, and soon she is writhing under a blanket of them…Aieee! (The screen fades to black as we hear squirrels chittering…the Day of the Squirrel is at hand!)
AMC’s show Preacher is one of the most over-the-top shows on television, outrageous yet compelling, and definitely not for children, those easily offended, or squeamish about blood and violence. The series is complex and twisted, and so I won’t begin to attempt to explain it here; it even has Hitler and a likable vampire as recurring characters! At any rate, in the Deviant episode of the current season (Season 4, Episode 3), central character Jesse Custer enters DeSade’s House of Entertainment to rescue a child, and winds up fighting and prevailing against a small army within that included furries, people costumed as anthropomorphic animals.
The fight scene was extended, epic, and spectacular, beginning with fists and progressing from there to blunt objects, then knives, and finally guns. Preacher Jesse was victorious, of course, because it is after all, his show! I’m not quite comfortable with the portrayal of furries on the episode and I’ve seen far better fursuits, but it was all intended to be outrageous in keeping with the general tone of the series, which has previously given us the divinity in a Dalmatian suit…
I’m seeing him more places; large, inflated Car Foxes, that is! When I beheld my first one of them, I fought an urge to pull my car over, throw myself at his feet, and vow my everlasting love and allegiance. But no, people wouldn’t understand, there would be the court-mandated psychiatric evaluations, and the pushy car salesmen would just try to sell me a Ford or Buick. So for the present I worship from afar, knowing that the great and terrible day of the revolution is almost at hand, and that the vision of those far-seeing eyes and kindly smile may be relied on. The Car Fox wouldn’t steer me wrong…
…but sometime under cover of darkness, I shall employ my vulpine gifts of stealth and cunning, and slyly return to liberate the Car Fox from his cruel restraints so that he can lead his children, as is his right and destiny! Then the day of reckoning will be at hand, I reckon...
Fans of Stephen King will get this commercial (The Corning) about Progressive Insurance agents emerging from a cornfield and chanting in a monotone to Charlie the farmer that he is covered for an automotive mishap and saving money because he bundled his home and auto insurance together…
…it’s suitably creepy and surreal. Led by iconic Flo, half a dozen Progressive agents, identically clad in their immaculate white uniforms, issue forth from the dense cornfield and begin their eerie slow chant while standing in near formation. “We’re all here for you, all day, all night,” they intone. “Get in the house, Sarah!,” urges Charlie to his wife, wisely following her inside. Their intonation over, Flo congratulates her team for calming a customer by speaking slowly and clearly.
The best is saved for last when you hear lovable loser Jamie ask the other members of his team if they heard “weird voices” while in the corn. They all deny it, to which Jamie responds, “Me neither.” Listen carefully, and you’ll then hear a faint, otherworldly voice whisper Jamie’s name, presumably from out of the cornfield…Haunting!
Well, most of us are familiar with the Trojan War, ended when the wily ancient Greeks rolled an enormous wooden horse secretly loaded with soldiers up to the impenetrable city gates of Troy. The Trojans, revering horses, thought that the gigantic horse was a gift from their defeated foe, and so rolled it inside of their city where after dark the advance Greek force descended, opening the gates and allowing the full Greek army to launch a devastating surprise nocturnal attack. It was then game over…
…now imagine that the Greeks had crafted a gigantic chicken for their attack device rather than a horse, and you have the premise of this IHOP (International House of Pancakes) commercial done in period costume. Possibly the Trojans would have doubled over with laughter, rendering them incapable of defending their fabled city (“Stop, you’re killing me!”). But no, the soldiers within the great chicken are wondering why they are sneaking into Troy rather than heading over to IHOP to enjoy some nice chicken and pancakes or waffles…make dinner, not war, you know…and pass the pancake syrup, please! A Trojan soldier even hears the Greek soldiers conversing within and questions the giant chicken, to which the Greek strike force leader replies in (-what else?) a chicken voice, complete with squawks! Then the great chicken reverses course and hastens to an IHOP, colliding with cars parked there, and totally out of time and space. That should make for interesting reading on the insurance claims, but I worry about a rift in the time-space continuum…
Brad Pitt as Achilles is nowhere present in this fractured version of the Trojan War, although if he chickened out it was probably at the IHOP, and certainly not the battlefield. Homer (not Simpson) sure didn’t write this Iliad…
Well, everybody’s heard about the bird…the Chantix turkey, that is! And while I’m aware that the turkey is paddleboarding rather than surfing, they missed a great chance to use 1963’s Surfin’ Bird by the Trashmen as the sound track for this commercial!
Now there was foreshadowing for this commercial in the last one when we saw the turkey getting out his flip-flops, knocking them together, arranging seashells, and looking at beach scenes on his phone. We shoulda seen this coming, folks. And as I’ve said before, this turkey has a better life than I do. He even returns from his beach visit in the coolest little convertible vehicle that suits him perfectly!
In my twisted mind, I can see Peter Griffin from Family Guy either getting into a dance-off or perhaps a fistfight with the turkey. And like Peter Griffin, “I dream of an America where everybody knows that the bird is the word.” Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow!
Some of you may remember those creepy but cool, coin-operated fortune-telling booths from years ago that featured a glass booth enclosing most often a stereotypic gypsy, witch, mystic, or psychic seer. You simply dropped a quarter into the booth’s coin slot, and the costumed character’s crystal balllit up, he or she made a few robotic movements, and the booth spit out a slip of paper with your supposed fortune on it, usually something general enough that it would apply to almost anyone.
Well, in this Liberty Mutual commercial, we are shown such a fortune-telling booth in an unusual outdoor location overlooking the Statue of Liberty, undoubtedly symbolic of Liberty Mutual. Such booths were usually housed indoors in arcades. When a lady drops a coin into this fortune teller, the robotic seer, Zoltar, intones that great fortune will find the woman when she allows Liberty Mutual to customize her insurance, permitting her to pay for only what she needs. Grateful for this info, the woman asks Zoltar how she could ever thank him. Eerily, the mechanical seer swivels his head towards her, and mentions that maybe she could “Free Zoltar.” Well, there’s a convenient button for this purpose on the front of the booth which the woman depresses. Instantly the walls of the booth drop, revealing our seer clad in colorful shorts and seated atop a unicycle! He cries “Thanks lady!” and pedals away, a bag held in each hand, and calls for a taxi…
I love happy endings! Perhaps someday someone will free the fortune-telling Elvis that I’ve seen awaiting business out of a booth…
FOXSYLVANIA 
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