jack in the box, you are ON NOTICE

I posted this over at the FFOT, but I also wanted to go on record here about how much I hate - with a blinding blazing hate that really should be reserved for things like cancer and terrorists - the new Jack in the Box ad.

If your television runs the ads, you'll know the one.

Two men - adult men - are in a giant-sized stroller (like one of those twin stroller things). Pushed by a woman. (It is unclear what relation the woman has to the men. She is far too young to be their mother, too well-dressed to be a nanny, and my mind doesn't want to go to the psychsexual places that the other options lead).

Anyway, they are discussing some presentation or something when one guy's bottom lip starts to quiver. And then, in this TONE* he starts crying.

(*You've heard the myth of the Brown Note, no? Well, this is like that only instead of the effect expected from the Brown Note, what it does to me is makes my blood pressure spike 20 to 30 points. Fortunately I have borderline low blood pressure to begin with).

And then the other executive starts crying.

And then the woman stops. And gives them a snack. Because that's what they're crying for.

Oh my stars and garters I hate that commercial. I hate it on the simple level of the sound is UNBELIEVABLY ANNOYING. I have a hard time putting up with children crying, and I understand that sometimes children cry in that way because they have no words to express what they need. But to portray grown men doing it...well, not only is the sound ten times more annoying but there is also that anger of "They should be able to get their own damn snacks."

And then there is the "let's all hate on men" stereotype.

I happen to like men. The men I know don't behave like those men, not even in jest. They'd be embarrassed to. I wonder how many grown men find that commercial grating and insulting. I generally hate all the "let's portray men as idiots" commercials. It's not "empowering" to women, it's not "funny," it's not "cute." I'm ready to be done with it. It's like the women-drivers jokes of the 50s, just applied to a different gender. Turnabout is NOT fair play.

And then again, there's just that SOUND. Thank goodness I have a "clicker" and I can change the channel...the first few times I got caught by it and had to hear that sound, I wanted to dope slap the guys. And then I wanted to take the actors out of character and pimp slap them for taking such a stupid part. And then I wanted to line up the entire ad agency that made the commercial, run down the line, and slap every person in it. And then I want to find the Jack from Jack in the Box and slap him until his stupid unnatural freakish round ball head spins around on his neck like Napoleon Dynamite's tetherball.

And I am never, ever buying anything from Jack in the Box again. (Not like I ever really HAVE; fast food has started to taste like Bad Idea to me. And it has started to taste like Why Didn't You Go Home And Fix a Nice Boiled Egg and Some Toast Instead? But you know what I mean.)

Next to the political commercials, this is the most annoying thing on television right now. And that's saying a lot, because Nancy Grace still has a show.