Is it me, or are the commercials for NBC’s fall shows actually designed to make you not want to watch them?
Between For Love or Money, Will & Grace and every conceivable iteration of Law & Order, the Missus and I watch a decent amount of NBC. (Helps that we only get 23 channels–minus the two of which that are home shopping, the two that are public access, the one that’s the guide to all the other channels and the four that are in Spanish–so there’s no specials about UFOs or sharks or serial killers or 80s nostalgia to watch.) This means that I’ve seen the almost infomercial-length commercials for Las Vegas and Miss Match approximately seven hundred thousand times each. Jesus Harold Christ in a bright yellow Hummer are they annoying.
First of all, let’s take Las Vegas. “They caaaaall… you laaaaa… dy luck.” No, they call you the goddamn commercial that has actually ruined Guys and Dolls for me for the rest of my goddamn life. And then there’s what goes on in the commercial. Basically they’ve concocted some vile blend of Martin Scorsese’s Casino (an excellent film, by the way, which means that this show is going to be great too!!!! Oh wait, NO IT DOESN’T) and Aaron Spelling’s Melrose Place, and thrown in a very, very tired looking Jimmy Caan because, I guess, he played a mafioso once, and that’s supposed to have generated enough goodwill for us to watch him in this piece-of-shit show, or at least its countless interminable piece-of-shit commercials (actually, it didn’t). So at some point we see Molly Simms (who, surprisingly, actually DID generate a fair amount of goodwill from those Old Navy commercials she did) fuckin’ some guy, and then she turns around and faces the camera (a Caan’s-eye-view) and says, “Oh, hi, Daddy.” Damn, people, but is there anything sexier than seeing a woman with a man’s erect and throbbing penis in her well-lubricated vagina turn around and say hello to her father as he walks in on her copulation? Yes, actually, because THAT’S FUCKING VILE AND DISGUSTING. Meanwhile poor Jimmy gets to say shit that nobody on Earth would ever actually say like yelling “Nobody cheats in my casino!” haughtily to a room full of gamers who are probably like “this guy watches too many Mafia movies.” And it all ends with the voice-over guy saying “and the city of Las Vegas as itself,” as if Vegas had been handed a script and said to its agent “you gotta get me in on this, Bruce.” Bullshit. If its lucky Vegas will be dropped after the pilot like the original captain in Star Trek and move on with its life.
And then there’s Miss Match, a show starring Alee-see-ah Silverstone (oh, I’m sorry, did you think it was pronounced “Aleeshia”? Not now that she’s a member of the NBC Family–that’s the motherfucking Peacock Network, motherfuckers!). Miss Match is about the fact that she’s not just a pretty face. I know this because about seven thousand fucking times per commercial they play the same fucking line from some stupid fucking song, which goes “Sheeee’s… noooot… just a pretty faaaace…” I don’t know, was there a legion of people arguing the contrary? Was America saying to itself, “Remember that girl from Clueless who in a dangerous marathon operation had her career donated to Reese Witherspoon? She was just a pretty face!” Maybe I missed that. Anyway some guy says something stupid about some girl’s hair, and the guy who created Sex & the City was involved somehow, which means maybe there’ll be some character who can eat pussy real good involved. Or not, I don’t know, it’s broadcast.
The only show whose commercials are actually a little intriguing is that new Rob Lowe thing The Lyon’s Den, because they’re making it sound like there’s going to be some big season-long murder mystery a la Laura Palmer, only it’s in Washington D.C. so it’s going to talk about The Important Issues and explore whether Justice Really Is Blind and whatnot. I guess that’s interesting. Rob Lowe was really good in The Stand, but I think leaving The Howard Dean Show might have been a mistake. (That’s what it was called, right?)
I would like to say, in case anyone from GE is reading this, that NBC isn’t the only network with godawful commercials for its fall shows. I was a big fan of America’s Next Top Model (go Adrienne! go people who wear nine inch nails and Pink Floyd t-shirts in general!), which meant that I had to sit through ads for an abortion in sitcom form called Rock Me Baby, starring Dan Corteezy (Oh, I’m sorry, did you think it was Dan Cortezz? Then you a asshole) formerly of MTV Runs Around Screaming A Lot About Sports. A baby urinates on him in the commercial, which is funny! Ha! Ha! Ha! Look, people, people urinating on other people is now funny, and we’re all going to have to get used to the idea, so quit your goddamn crying and be a fucking man about this. BE A GODDAMN MAN FOR ONCE IN YOUR FUCKING LIFE.
I think I understand what went through Elvis Presley’s head, shortly before he’d shoot his television.