– – We’ve met the MiO Cheeta before and likewise the Rhino, but in this commercial for MiO Energy Drinks we go back to the Watering Hole and re-visit the Rhino again, this time finding him so tired that he’s apparently hired a small monkey to perch on his shoulder and slap him in the face to keep him awake! We see the monkey do this repeatedly, at one point using the Rhino’s convenient horn to swing to the opposite side of his face. But the Rhino needn’t suffer this abuse…a Zebra is there, one with incredible eyes. He pours a MiO Energy Drink additive into the Rhino’s drink, which perks the big guy up right away! The Rhino then fires the monkey, which nets him the biggest slap of all!
It’s not the best one in the series in my opinion, but it’s always great to go to the Watering Hole!
– – I, for one, don’t like to discover foreign materials when I open an egg carton, and so I find it vaguely disquieting to ponder the notion of discovering a small armored knight occupying an egg compartment when one such container is opened in a Spam commercial.- -Does his rather surreal presence represent a new stage in chicken evolution?- -Do the other uncracked eggs also contain tiny armor-clad warriors, representing some kind of miniscule medieval army? –And if so, do they intend to take over and occupy my kitchen, perhaps as a prelude to an assault on my neighborhood? One must worry about such things in this age of terrorism.–Should I seizethis anachronistic warrior, and test his mettle by attempting to squeeze him to death? Or do I hurl him down the sink garbage disposal, and hit the “on” switch? Perhaps I should cast him into the microwave, and see if he sparks! The legendary kitchen battle of the housewife against the title characters in the movie Gremlins comes to mind…
Actually, the character is Sir Can-A-Lot, and he has been created as a mascot for Spam in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Hormel product. He is here to “…rescue the world from routine meals,” and help rid you not from tiny dragons, but mealtime boredom. Just don’t look to see him competing in Full Metal Jousting anytime soon…
– – The off-beat comedy Wilfred is returning to the FX network for another season starting June 28th. The protagonist of the show is a depressed former lawyer, Ryan Newman, who has unsuccessfully attempted to kill himself; following that effort, his neighbor’s dog, Wilfred, now appears to him as a foul-mouthed Australian in an obvious dog suit! The dog, while selfish and worldly, serves as a helpful guide and mentor to the often clueless human.
This isn’t a show for kids, with drug use portrayed and the humor frequently raunchy. That having been said, however, the show has surreal and existential overtones, and mixes shock and hilarity with the absurd. We were asked during the previous season to “embrace the mystery” of Wilfred’s existence, and it was unclear as to whether the dog-person actually existed, was a projected manifestation of Ryan’s animal impulses, or if the human was simply insane and Wilfred a hallucination or a medication effect. Some answers may be revealed in the upcoming season, one promo for which is a spoof of the classic spaghetti sequence from Lady and the Tramp!
– – He’s played a raccoon, and now the Allstate “Mayhem” guy is going to the dogs, playing an utterly ineffective guard dog! The commercial spot begins with the Mayhem guy sprawled canine-like on the floor but wearing no costume whatsoever. “I’m your dog, holding down the fort while you’re out catching a movie,” he explains, pausing to gnaw on a hefty bone. “Lucky for me your friends showed up with this awesome bone.- -Hey! You guys are great!,” he declares with a mouthful to the surreal white-faced flashlight-wielding robbers ransacking the house.
Mayhem in canine guise steps outside with the departing thieves to remind us that if we got our home insurance where we purchased our cut-rate car insurance, it might not replace all this…but alas, the canine is apparently wearing one of those “invisible perimeter fence” collars, and he receives twin zapping jolts of electricity which knock him to the ground at that point! We see Mayhem sit up and shake his head to clear it as the thieves drive off…great stuff!
– – The action continues at the Watering Hole, and in this airing it’s time for the girls to come front and center…two long-necked beauties, specifically an ostrich (–perhaps swan?) and a giraffe! The animation is amazing, but reactions to the commercial itself appear to be divided along the lines of, “It’s creepy and disturbing,” versus “They’re hot!” So choose your side, I guess…but I like this universe!
Females everywhere regardless of species apparently have commonalities if this commercial is to be believed, and these two ladies engage in the bar pastimes of shooting down guys who hit on them, and making “catty” comments about other females…in this case, a rhino girl who had her nose done, and a camel chick with humps that “do not exist in nature!“
Whether you love this commercial series or hate it, you can entertain yourself deciding which female celebrities the four presented characters resemble! I’ve heard Taylor Swift, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Snookie mentioned as possibilities…
– – I, for one, enjoy a good creative anachronism, and the Capital One vikings seem oddly at home in this election year, even if they do have seemingly-British rather than Danish, Scandinavian, or by default Germanic accents. We’ve seen these highly-visible Visigoths at places like New Orleans, Vegas, New York, and Washington, D.C….here, apparently checking out some dinosaur exhibits at the Smithsonian. They even formulate a public policy agenda of “No new axes!” Now that’s a slogan we could live…or die by!
Appearing at times with goats, a donkey, or hairy children, perhaps these vikings are the shape of future retro…
– – Frontier Airlines boasts wildlife images that appear on the tails (- -where else?) of each of their aircraft! There are more than 60 animals with distinctive personalities and bios that are said to represent the airline’s character, commitment to service, and humor.
Members of the “stable” include Larry the Lynx, Grizwald the Bear, Jack the Rabbit, Sal the Cougar, and my personal favorites, Foxy the Fox, and Trixie the Fox.
Frontier Airlines was founded in 1994, and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Their corporate slogan is, “A Whole Different Animal.” With tail art like this, Frontier looks like a good place to rack up my frequent flier miles!
– – We all know that many dogs like to ride in cars with their heads sticking out of an open window; a dog who prefers to ride with his tail end sticking out of the window would be, to put it mildly, a contradiction, or at least an unusual preference.- –Well, we meet such a dog in action in a recent Starburst commercial, the idea of which is to show how a sweet which is both juicy like a liquid and also solid is also a contradiction.
Starburst has explored this notion of contradictions before in their commercials about “Scottish Koreans.” This dog, as his owner contends, is not weird, but an innovator…and in any case, they’re cute!
– – It’s not well known that Batman creator Bob Kane also created a comic parody called Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. Originally run from 1960 to 1962, the series almost anticipated the campy extremes of the later-appearing live action Batman TV series. The ‘toons averaged five minutes in length, and 130 were produced, intended for use as airtime filler to accommodate a movie or another feature which didn’t quite fill a time slot.
Parallels to the Batman series were numerous, with “Courageous Cat” and “Minute Mouse” anthropomorphic animal superheroes who lived in the “Cat Cave,” were summoned by a “Cat Signal,” and drove a sleekly-feline “Cat Mobile” which could convert to a plane or boat. The villains were likewise furry, with a frog a recurring archenemy.
The theme music for the show was fashioned after the memorable theme for Peter Gunn! All in all, Courageous Cat was campy fun decently done…
– – A rhinoceros, a cheetah, and a gazelle walk into a bar…it sounds like a hokey joke, but it’s the theme for a Kraft MiO liquid water enhancer commercial! Blending the line between live action and animation,the spot makes over wild animals into twenty-something dudes, inhabiting a bar appropriately called, The Watering Hole. The Rhino is a solid, muscular guy with glasses wearing a tight T-shirt labeled (–What else?) “Animal.” The Cheetah is a sleek speedster in a leather jacket who bewails the fact that MiO energy drinks are “completely crushing my game” by making everyone “…more energized, more alert” after mixing MiO into their water. As a result, the Cheetah is no longer the fastest beast around!
“Remember when I used to be it?,” continues the Cheetah. “I was the man. If you needed to track a gazelle down for dinner, you came to me.” At that point a jeans-jacket wearing Gazelle literally laughs in the Cheetah’s face!
It’s a great furry bar scene, a place where I’d certainly be at home! Watch for a future spot to include a giraffe…
– – We’ve met the MiO Cheeta before and likewise the Rhino, but in this commercial for MiO Energy Drinks we go back to the Watering Hole and re-visit the Rhino again, this time finding him so tired that he’s apparently hired a small monkey to perch on his shoulder and slap him in the face to keep him awake! We see the monkey do this repeatedly, at one point using the Rhino’s convenient horn to swing to the opposite side of his face. But the Rhino needn’t suffer this abuse…a Zebra is there, one with incredible eyes. He pours a MiO Energy Drink additive into the Rhino’s drink, which perks the big guy up right away! The Rhino then fires the monkey, which nets him the biggest slap of all!
– – I, for one, don’t like to discover foreign materials when I open an egg carton, and so I find it vaguely disquieting to ponder the notion of discovering a small armored knight occupying an egg compartment when one such container is opened in a Spam commercial.- -Does his rather surreal presence 
– – The off-beat comedy Wilfred is returning to the FX network for another season starting June 28th. The protagonist of the show is a depressed former lawyer, Ryan Newman, who has unsuccessfully attempted 
– – He’s played a raccoon, and now the Allstate 
– – I, for one, enjoy a good creative anachronism, and the Capital One vikings seem oddly at home in this election year, even if they do have seemingly-British rather than Danish, Scandinavian, or by default Germanic accents. We’ve seen these highly-visible Visigoths at places like New Orleans
– – Frontier Airlines boasts wildlife images that appear on the tails (- -where else?) of each of their aircraft! There are more than 60 animals with distinctive personalities and bios that are said to represent the airline’s character, commitment to service, and humor. 
– – A rhinoceros, a cheetah, and a gazelle walk into a bar…it sounds like a hokey joke, but it’s the theme for a Kraft MiO liquid water enhancer commercial
FOXSYLVANIA 
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