MiO’s “All Nighter!”

Posted April 18, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: anthropomorphic, Brilliant but twisted, furry, furry commercials, television

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– – 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 eyesHe 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!

Sir Can-A-Lot…

Posted April 16, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, Brilliant but twisted, strange, television

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– – 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 seize this 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…

“Wilfred” Returns!

Posted April 11, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, animals, anthropomorphic, Brilliant but twisted, furry, strange, television

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– – 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!

Allstate “Mayhem” Guard Dog!

Posted April 8, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, animals, Brilliant but twisted, furry, furry commercials, television

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– – 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 Course of Panda Love…

Posted April 5, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal behavior, animals, furry

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– – Pity the poor lovelorn Scottish pandas, Sunshine (Yang Guang) and Sweetie (Tian Tian)!  Like panda couples of the past, they have failed to mate, and now the panda breeding season for 2012 has come to an end!

The pandas of Edinburgh Zoo on loan from China are normally kept separately, and were introduced to each other on Tuesday.  While things initially looked good for panda love with the male, Sunshine, doing “panda handstands” to display his virility and the female, Sweetie, also seeming interested, a drop in Sweetie’s hormones was noticed late Wednesday, and “limited breeding behavior” was seen in both pandas by Thursday morning…that’s right, things aren’t looking sunny for Sunshine!

…alas, poor pandas!  They are now back in separate displays.  It is felt that lack of mating experience may have hindered the panda pair.- –So much for doing what comes naturally, and there’s always next year! 

Bad Eggs Cancel Egg Hunt!

Posted April 2, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, current events, deplorable practices, famous furries, furry, philosophy, strange happenings, things humans do

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— As we enter Easter week, it would seem that Peter Rottentail made an appearance at past Easter egg hunts at Bancroft Park in Colorado Springs, causing that event to be cancelled because of some parents leaping over guide ropes to blatantly grab eggs for their children!  This avarice caused other children to go eggless while some raked in the eggs,  and kinda spoiled the supposed mood of the event.  We will bypass tempting economic and political analogies represented by this occurrence to state the seemingly obvious to the offending parents and their ideological clones elsewhere:  egg hunts are for kids, to paraphrase the great Trix Rabbit, who can teach us much about the nature of desire, frustration, and deprivation. –Wise, long-suffering Trix Rabbit!   One may learn so much from him, and profit from his instruction!   But I digress…

Things seldom get as distasteful and as thoroughly messed up as when parents seek to live vicariously through their children, expressing their greed and Alpha-male dominance needs through them.   We can see this mentality represented in youth sporting events where some parents convey the notion through action and word that yes, winning is everything!   Some even curse other child competitors, or get into physical altercations with other parents.  It’s a mentality that their child is the only one in the universe, or that in a world of supposed equality, some are more equal than others, remembering George Orwell.

I shall mourn the tainting of the humble and lovely tradition of the Easter Egg hunt, which was never intended to be an ego-invested greed fest.  Perhaps it is as worldly philosopher Homer Simpson once observed that we all want the same thing:  preferential treatment!

Mythic Mayhem!

Posted March 29, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal oddities, animals, anomalies, anthropomorphic, cool things, creature features, fantasy, furry, imaginary animals, movies

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— It’s not easy being a demigod; everyone expects great things out of you!  Pity poor Perseus; as if whipping the Kraken wasn’t enough in 2010’s Clash of the Titans, now he has to beat a whole host of other assorted monsters in Wrath of the Titans.  There will be a slew of them to boot in this special effects extravaganza, everything from a thirty-foot high Cyclops to a Minotaur to my personal fave, a Chimera…I just like things with multiple heads and incongruous parts that spew fire, that’s the way I roll!  Mighty Kronos himself enters the fray,  just dripping with lava…what more could a boy want?  Yes, I know, robots, zombies, mummies, aliens, and werewolves are extremely cool too, but you can’t have them all in the same movie and preserve artistic integrity.- -Besides, I’d die of too much happiness!

While most of the beasties are computer generated, the Minotaur is played by an actor in a latex suit who underwent four hours of makeup for each day on the set!   You’ll also see Perseus’ noble winged steed Pegasus, and the demonic Makhai, who attack like whirling dervishes.  

This isn’t Shakespeare, but it’s good guy fun…and what’s wrong with that?  Wrath of the Titans opens March 30th…and it’s a cornucopia of creatures!!!– -Woo-hoo!

MiO “Watering Hole” Nose Job!

Posted March 26, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, animals, anthropomorphic, Brilliant but twisted, furry, furry commercials, television

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– – 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…

Capital One’s Vikings…

Posted March 23, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, animals, Brilliant but twisted, strange, television

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– – 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 “Spokesanimals…”

Posted March 18, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, cool things, furry, furry commercials, television

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– – 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!