Inexplicable TV Commercials

The TV year 2008 has already sported months of watching losers on-cam at various Burger King ‘restaurants’ showing their violent withdrawal symptoms when informed, in effect, “No Whopper For You.”  It comes across like Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting trying to quit heroin.  What ad wizard thought I’d want to be more like the BK patrons?  (Same ones, I guess, who thought I’d want to have a creepy plastic King surprise me with breakfast in bed.)  What kind of shopping mall focus group voted thumbs up on those ads?  Probably bitter people clinging to their traditions of beef and sesame seeds.

Now we find that we are supposed to be taking serious and crucial investment advice from…Dennis Hopper. 

I admit that I find the competitor’s spokesperson Sam Waterston to be preachy and elitist, just like his lawyer character on Law and Order — but at least I wouldn’t be deathly afraid that if I gave Sam my retirement dollars, he would be using them at the next intersection to try to score three tabs of acid.

[Alan Childress]