Chantix Commercial, “It’s Time to Quit Slow Turkey”

Posted January 13, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, advertising, anthropomorphic, avian, commercials, feathered friends, furry, furry commercials, television, twisted reality
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Well, the holly-daze are over, and the winter doldrums are upon us…and just like many of us, the Chantix turkey in a recent commercial fights boredom by finding ways to fill his time.

And fill his time at home he does!  He gets his mail, watches fish in an aquarium, and even works on a jigsaw puzzle…I could never get into that.  The turkey even takes to his kitchen, and makes some kind of concoction in his blender that includes (what else) a generous infusion of bird seed.  The Chantix Turkey can take his time, ‘ya see, to quit smoking slow turkey…

 

Since the Chantix turkey lives in a nicer home than I do, I wonder how he earns his living…and disturbingly, I have something in common with him.  No, I don’t smoke, but I also need to get a life…and wouldn’t the Chantix Turkey at Home be a better reality series than most that are now on?  I’ve watched far worse bird brains…

 

 

Comments: 7 Comments

Geico “Man Cave” Commercial

Posted January 9, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: advertising, animal presence, animals, commercials, furry, furry commercials, television, twisted reality
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Forget your articulate and genial “window bear” commercial.  In this Geico offering, the bear is much less anthropomorphic, and is physically in a house, trashing it…

A well-to-do middle-aged couple sits on recliners in their beautiful home, each watching separate tv screens.  “He wanted a man-cave in our  new home,” begins the woman, “But she wanted to be close to nature, so we met in the middle,” adds the man.  The scene then widens to reveal a true cave entrance in the dwelling wall, out of which emerges…a bear, who making growling bear-noises slowly advances on all fours into the room.

“Look who just woke up!,” comments the woman brightly.  “You are so cute!,” she says to the bear, who advances to the refrigerator and noses it open, the door eventually winding up detached several feet off to the side as the bear stands upright and begins to messily forage within the fridge, physically shaking it and retrieving a bottle.  Foodstuff is strewn on the beautiful hardwood flooring…

“You got it!  You are so smart!,” the adoring woman commends the bear, who sloppily consumes the drink.  Apparently this bear, like some people’s dogs, can do nothing wrong.  It seems that one thing the couple could agree upon is getting help from Geico homeowners insurance.  From the mess that the bear is leaving, they’re gonna need it!  Their cost of regular major appliance replacement alone has got to be astronomical…

 

Comments: 5 Comments

Of Octopus Farms and Anthropomorphic Octopi…

Posted January 2, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, anthropomorphic, aquatic, cartoons
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Scientists warn that octopus farms may not be a great idea despite the fondness of some people for eating them.  This is to say nothing of the fact that an octopus farm sounds like a recurrent theme in a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon.  For one thing, octopuses are carnivorous, eat a lot, and are intelligent. They can figure out how to open jars, recognize individual humans, and identify puzzles that they’ve seen before.  They also can become bored, and toys are sometimes put into aquariums for them to provide cognitive stimulation.  They can even learn how to escape their containment facilities, possibly in search of video gaming systems.  

As fishing for octopuses yields a variable and unreliable supply, efforts to farm them have been made that include dabbling in genetic modifications of the creatures.  Now I, for one, don’t want to have to deal with roving mobs of bored, carnivorous, genetically-modified octopi that have escaped their farm aquariums, although this appears to be a promising premise for a Syfy Channel movie.

One might even become concerned about the plight of Hanna-Barbera’s 1960’s character Squiddly Diddly becoming frustrated in his musical aspirations, and escaping the confines of his aquatic park to take the musical and entertainment worlds by storm. Despite his name, the character was essentially an octopus, and might indulge his carnivorous nature on us if we failed to give him a listen…

 

Comments: 4 Comments

“The Masked Singer” S2 Finale…

Posted December 22, 2019 by vulpesffb
Categories: anthropomorphic, avian, furry, furry interest, fursuits, television


The Masked Singer came to its Season 2 conclusion with The Flamingo, The Fox, and The Rottweiler competing in the finals; this show has been very good to us furries. The wrap episode was expanded to a bloated two hours, with the first hour detailing previous appearances of the finalists.- – How many times have we known series to pad their special episodes?!

First to be eliminated was Flamingo (Adrienne Bailon), and then it was down to a nail-biting Fox vs. Rottweiler extravaganza; either deserved to win.  The runner-up turned out to be Rottweiler, unmasked to be Chris Daughtry.  And who was the marvelous steampunk-styled fox with the flashy dance moves?  Why, just as I had suspected it was Wayne Brady, the multi-talented host of Let’s Make A Deal!  He made me proud to be vulpine…

The Masked Singer has been renewed for a third season, with a preview showing costumed characters that included a mouse and a robot…truly about the craziest show on television, or at least a refreshing departure from reality!

 

Comments: 5 Comments

Chantix “Ice Skating Turkey”

Posted December 19, 2019 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, advertising, anthropomorphic, avian, feathered friends, furry, television, twisted reality
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In his latest commercial, the Chantix Turkey, who dresses as if equipped from the Eddie Bauer catalogue, heads downtown and enjoys a variety of colder-weather activities.  He ice skates but isn’t overly good at it, falling onto his feathered behind.  Who can then blame him for warming his tail feathers by a convenient fire?  In the city, the turkey also is seen emerging from a store, buying a soft pretzel to which he liberally applies mustard, and going to a newsstand.  After such a full day, the turkey rides a bus home, clicking his heels upon entering it in jubilation that he has finally kicked his smoking habit “slow turkey.”

This commercial is notable in that we are shown other living creatures in the world which the turkey inhabits, and they  both at the pretzel vendor and newsstand also appear to be turkeys!  This doesn’t appear to be a Zootopia type scenario with a variety of different animal species, but rather just other anthropomorphic turkeys.  Evolution has then followed a strange path here, although human vices like smoking still exist.  There’s gotta be a comic Twilight Zone episode here…

That’s right…it’s a fowl world!  But then again, you already knew that.  Just someone tell me how the turkey’s feet fit in those clunky hiking boots he seems to favor wearing.  And I think that I could kill for a good hot soft pretzel right about now, wouldn’t you?  Soft pretzels…Mmmm!

 

Comments: 3 Comments

Insurance-Themed Experiences…

Posted December 13, 2019 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, advertising, anthropomorphic, commercials, furry, television, twisted reality
Tags: ,


Are you ready for the insurance-themed experiences of a lifetime?  – -Well, you’re in luck, because you can visit Progressive Park, or thrill to Progressive On Ice!  There should be no trouble getting into either location, and parking is abundant…

It’s fun for the whole family in the commercials at Progressive Park, where you can experience the no-bump bumper cars or the traffic jam roller coaster!  For a more dazzling spectacle, take in Progressive On Ice, where Flo and Jamie look-alikes skate gracefully past scenarios like flimsy accident simulations. and have the whole seating aisle to yourself! 

 

It’s all incredibly silly, but you gotta love the exuberant Progressive fursuited mascot dog who seems to be having a great time in spite of it all.  Just be good, or you may find an iconic Progressive rate comparison tool under your Xmas tree…

 

Comments: 4 Comments

Krampus, and Having a Scary Little Christmas…

Posted December 11, 2019 by vulpesffb
Categories: anomalies, anthropomorphic, furry, historical perspectives, seasonal, strange, twisted reality
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He just might be the perfect antidote for too much enforced Christmas sweetness…Krampus, that is, the nightmarish figure with goatish and demonic features  out of European folklore.  He’d be right at home pursued by paranormal or cryptic investigators as he’s usually portrayed with hooves, claw-like fingers, long spiraled horns, and covered with dark hair.  His tongue is long and protrusive, and his specialty is dealing with naughty children, beating them with birch switches and stuffing them in his sack for transport back to his lair, perhaps to become dinner…

The worst that Santa would do to you is put you on his “Naughty List,” or perhaps leave you a lump of coal. Santa’s a milquetoast compared to Krampus, who would terrorize you as kind of an anti-Santa.  In “Old World” Europe, fairy tales weren’t always for entertainment…they could be morality plays intended to scare children into good or at least compliant behavior.  Grimm’s fairy tales in the original could actually be pretty grim.

In Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, adults get involved in a chaotic Krampus tribute involving public drunkenness and men running through the streets dressed as devils, with Krampus Night traditionally December 5th.  In recent years, some people in the U.S. have begun throwing Krampus parties as a sort of twisted, anti-Christmas celebration. Krampus has enjoyed kind of a renaissance lately, and been featured in horror movies.  So be good, for goodness sake! – -Ahh,  I do so like Old World traditions… 🐺

 

Comments: 3 Comments

Progressive’s “Pets: Secret Keepers”

Posted December 1, 2019 by vulpesffb
Categories: advertising, animal presence, animals, commercials, furry, furry commercials, television
Tags: ,


It’s hard to imagine Progressive’s insurance agents at home or about, when they are not doing insurance-agent things, and this “Secret Keepers” commercial provides that rare glimpse into their more mundane and vulnerable sides.  Who could imagine, for example, that the formidable Flo could get all weepy and emotional over watching someone miss a spare on televised bowling?  Her dog is nearby, seeing everything and revealing nothing…

Then there is the hapless Jamie, shown ironing wearing nothing but his Progressive apron, his Great Dane silent witness to it all.  Another  male associate is submerged for some reason in a bathtub filled with ice, his cat just down the hall.  There’s also the female associate doing the primal scream thing in a car while her dog watches silently; “I feel much better!,” confesses the woman after her eardrum-bursting yell.

Because pets see everything that we do and never say a thing, our “secret keepers” are covered for free in Progressive’s auto insurance policies, you see…and their silence can indeed be golden, for what they know and have seen could be quite embarrassing if not downright incriminating…

 

Comments: 1 Comment

The Legacy of Foxy Fagan…

Posted November 29, 2019 by vulpesffb
Categories: anthropomorphic, cartoons, comics, furries, furry, furry art
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In the mid-1940’s, the funny animal cartoon boom was in full swing, and every publisher wanted a menagerie of such anthropomorphic characters in print.  Foxy Fagan  was an obscure, Golden Age comic book character who was commercially unsuccessful, running for only a brief seven issues from 1946 to 1948.  Furthermore, the drawn character had a disquieting resemblance in some panels to Tom of Tom and Jerry fame, almost as if he was a cat with a few fox features tacked on.  The feet were also terribly wrong for a fox, but were drawn in the cartoon style of the day…

If the late great Foxy Fagan resembles the much more successful feline Tom, that’s because he was drawn by Harvey Eisenberg in collaboration with Joe Barbera’s storylines in a low budget, moonlighting-type operation called Dearfield Publishing which operated out of a shed while both of them were under contract to MGM.  Dearfield also produced Red Rabbit comics.  Eisenberg was a highly experienced and admired cartoonist who was for many years the main artist on the Tom and Jerry comic books, and he also did numerous stories for Disney comic books featuring Chip ‘n’ Dale, also drawing on the Yogi Bear and Flintstones newspaper comics.  He could draw characters convincingly in any pose, and gave them expressive personalities, making them relatable and alive.

Now Foxy Fagan was cut in the Bugs Bunny mold, with Foxy being sly but trouble-prone, and things often didn’t work out as he planned.  His foil was a hapless canine inventor, Bobble, who bore a striking resemblance to the later Hanna-Barbera character Droopy Dog, and kind of played the Porky Pig role.  We can almost see Foxy morphing into Tom in this bottom image, and Tom and Jerry would become an enduring part of cartoon history…

 

 

 

Comments: 3 Comments

Mayhem’s “Elf on the Shelf”

Posted November 21, 2019 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, advertising, Brilliant but twisted, commercials, television
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What could be more seasonally festive than Dean Winters as Mayhem performing the Elf on the Shelf routine?  Beginning with an idyllic and well-decorated living room Christmas scene with subtle background music playing, we are shown the absurdly human-sized Mayhem elf in cutesy elf-attire sitting on the proverbial shelf, one which was clearly not designed to support his weight…

“I’m the ‘Elf on the Shelf’…and thanks to your ‘woodworking skills,’ this is about to get a whole less jolly!,” cautions Mayhem. There is an ominous cracking sound, and then down comes the shelf, with Mayhem and all…electronics sputter and crackle on the floor in their death throes around him, the costly gifts now ruined.  A dog on a chair whines as Mayhem laughs and reminds us, “and unless these are protected by Allstate, this little mess-up is going to cost you big!”  The narrator’s voice then kicks in, telling us that with an Allstate protection plan offered through Walmart, your electronics can be protected from breaks, spills, and other Yuletide mishaps.  

Prone on the floor, Mayhem then fields an electronic device of his own to call out.  “Elf down, elf down!,” he advises…and after being hit with Xmas promotions since October, I’m ready for a Mayhem Xmas special!  Maybe this Mayhem Elf and the pre-redemption Grinch could get together for a feature-length film for the Xmas-weary, perhaps titled Revenge of the Consumers!  And how about a sequel to this commercial, like Elf in the ER? Merriment ensues at General Hospital as doctors try to treat an uninsured, supernatural being dressed in absurd, felt clothing who calamity follows…

 

Comments: 5 Comments

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