We live in a stupid age. We have a stupid war. We have stupid intelligence agencies that caused the war. We have a stupid president who seems to argue the intelligence estimates were wrong about Iraq so why can't they be wrong about Iran. We have stupid celebrities and news shows that treat their acts of stupidity as news. We have stupid TV shows. We have stupid ad agencies and sponsors who think it's smart to aim their ad dollars at the young, when it's the no-longer 18-49's who have all the money and are often paying their kids' condo and credit card bills. So it's no surprise to see we are being inundated with stupid commercials aimed at a stupid audience.
If you ask me, commercials in general are stupid. The basic function of commercials is to make us buy too much of things we don't need in the first place. A pretty stupid way to do business. Except it works, thanks to the unbridled stupidity of the TV audience itself.
All of that being said, I am about to nominate the stupidest commercial of the year.
Not an easy thing to do, since there is such a large field of potential winners.
Nevertheless -the envelope, please--the winner is the "Coach, Coach" commercials for Coors' Lite Ice, or whatever the product is called. It is such an insult to human intelligence, I can't even remember the exact product it's selling.
In general, beer commercials are the most vacuous, lame-brained, flat, insipid, stale, jejune, dead from the mouth up testimonials to the light-headiness of its intended consumers. One of the ten greatest achievements of the Age of Stupidity is the way they have convinced so many Americans that the so-called best beers are actually the worst tasting, all lite beers being at the bottom of the barrel. The best beers, in case you haven't noticed, don't advertise on TV.
One of the thrilling dramas on commercial TV over the years has been the rivalry between Bud and Miller. It has hit a new low this season with a Miller commercial showing a Dalmatian jumping from the Clydesdale Bud beer wagon to a Miller Lite truck. The idea, I suppose, is dogs prefer Miller to Bud. It begs the question what do dogs really know about beer, anyway?
Still that is highbrow stuff compared to the "Coach, Coach" series.
Everybody who watches TV football games knows this message by heart. It's the one where a current NFL coach or legend is holding a locker room press conference and is being quizzed by members of the Coors' Nation.
"Coach, coach, what do you think ... "
While hoisting his can of Coors, he then utters a question out of left field.
The coach looks like a deer caught in the headlights. He is staggered, presumably by the absolute stupidity of the question. To call it a non sequitor gives non-sequitors a bad name.
You would think the coach would be smart enough to ignore such a question. After all, coaches are surrounded by college graduates all the time in their locker rooms, some of whom might not be the sharpest pencils in the drawer.
But, no, he gives a non sequitor answer, which is even dumber than the original question.
At first, I found the "Coach, Coach" entertaining, a welcome break from the non-stop hot air being emitted by the nation's leading gridiron gasbag, John Madden, who never shuts up on "NBC Sunday Night Football." Any commercial, no matter how stupid, would be enjoyable during the pause for a few brief words from the sponsors, a pause which often seems long enough to run out of the house and get an oil change at the neighborhood Jiffy Lube. These commercial breaks themselves are especially stupid in terms of the game itself, making the players stand around, cool down, and lose "their momentum," as Madden would say, if he wasn't a tool of the football establishment.
But the "Coach, Coach" series is getting more and more stupid as they make new ones, plumbing previously unexplored depths of ignorance. How dumbeth can you get? Stay tuned.
The "Coach, Coach" commercials defame the nation's NFL coaches. It seems to say the coaches are just as stupid as the Coors drinkers in the locker room. An impossible thing to do but the commercial does it anyway.
So far this season, Dennis Green, coach of the Arizona Cardinals and the legendary former Dallas Cowboys' coach Bill Parcells are in the Coaches Hall of Shame. Bill Walsh of the Super Bowl 49ers handled the chores before his death.
How should the coaches be answering these inquisitors? I leave it to their quick-witted streams of conscious. But why doesn't some coach give the fans a real non sequitor, say something like, "Why does Coors have to taste like horse piss?"