Toyota “Total Recall”

See the commercial here.

Synopsis: On behalf of a giant, inscrutable, Japanese auto manufacturer / organ donor facilitator, a soothing American narrator who sounds like a caring, non-alcoholic version of your father reading you a bedtime story that didn’t come from the TV Guide patiently explains to the company’s surviving customers that making dangerously defective cars and getting yelled at by U.S. congressmen has helped it learn how killing people, though cost-effective, is sometimes bad for business.

“OK, who knows how a gas pedal works?  Anyone?  Anyone?”

“And I hope they replace you with one of them sexy robots.”

Message: You told us you didn’t want randomly self-accelerating cars that caused fatal accidents -- and we listened.

Postage costs saved by deleting dead warranty holders from recall list

Subliminal Message: Floor mats don’t kill people; people who drive cars with floor mats kill people.

Whoops.

Memorable Moment: Toyota seeks to reassure frightened consumers with stock photos from the Great Depression.

Before computers ran cars, only thing we had to fear was fear itself

Back in 1932, most people couldn’t even afford deadly floor mats

This old prison is now being readied for Toyota executives

Disturbing Aspect: Toyota’s assembly plant workers require intensive retraining to grasp the concept that, ideally, cars don’t drive by themselves.

World’s ugliest building houses world’s dumbest safety engineers

They had to remove this Camry’s entire lower intestine

New doorless sedan offers more legroom and quicker crash ejections

Toyota pledges to double the attractiveness of its line inspectors by 2011

Burning Questions: What is the precise mathematical relationship between corporate share price and criminally negligent homicide?  Will future Toyota models come equipped with their own Jaws of Life?  Have the Republicans figured out a way to make this whole thing Obama’s fault?

Young Sarah Palin sees Russia from back seat of family’s ’69 Corolla

Overall Loathsomeness: 8.9

Mitigating Factor: Most Americans know at least one Prius owner who actually deserves to die.

NBC “Olympic Dreams”

  
See the commercial here.

Synopsis: Through their soft-scripted, egocentric stories of lavish personal training, misdirected ambition, and Disneyesque, non-threatening patriotism, unrelatable media-manufactured athlecelebrities desperately try to convince Americans to tune in to NBC’s relentless coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics instead of selecting one of the million or so more relevant and engaging entertainment options available to them.

 
Try hitting a baseball, loser.

 
“I’m not sleeping with him!  Omigod, can you imagine?  Like, ew!”

“Mission Accomplished” banner still at the cleaners

Message: The Olympics is not a tedious, overhyped snoozefest.

This almost makes up for rolling over to the Germans in WWII

 
Come on, giant bowling ball …

  
Rule of thumb: if you’re wearing a dinner jacket, it’s not a sport.

Subliminal Message: It was either this or 835 hours of Leno.

 
Nothing embodies athleticism and grace like a human-shaped pile of rocks 

 
This is what happens if you leave your medals on the railroad tracks

Whatever. 

Memorable Moment: Lindsey Vonn seeks the gold for hotness.

Finally, a good use of our tax dollars

Another 40 reps, and she’ll fit into that Sports Illustrated bikini

 
Except for Ron Silver, this is so much like my dreams, it’s scary.

Disturbing Aspect: Carrot Top headlines the U.S. Team.

 
Can you believe this kid grew up to be an obnoxious snowboarder?

 
USOC geneticists have created the exact opposite of Johnny Unitas

 
Unless you’re Jim Craig or Rocky Balboa, this is not okay.

Burning Questions: Is it morally wrong to feel like you know Bob Costas more intimately than your own spouse?  Was allowing the blandest nation on Earth to host the most tiresome sporting event in existence a wise decision?  Will Evgeni Plushenko ever shut the hell up?

 
As it turns out, winter in Vancouver is surprisingly mild

 
No one had the heart to tell him he was at the wrong Olympics

Overall Loathsomeness: 5.3

Mitigating Factor: The death toll remains at 1.

Levi’s “Pioneers”

See the commercial here.

Synopsis: Greasy, panting teenagers and young adults run wild across a recreation of the long-vanished U.S. countryside, trying to celebrate or reject something, until getting bored and deciding to start randomly fighting and coupling with each other instead.

“We’re opposed to what again?”

“OMG – it’s rain!  Someone posted about this on Facebook!” 

Teens eagerly launch themselves at The Man

Message: Buying a pair of jeans at Target is somehow a revolutionary act.

 
Marxism never looked so hot

“You can’t make me wear corduroy – you don’t have that right!”

Subliminal Message: Nothing affirms the rebellious, freedom-loving spirit of American youth like donning clothing made for a profit-hungry, multinational corporation in the airless garment factories of Lesotho and Guatemala.

 
Liberation Day (not pictured: unhip Third-World sweatshop workers)

Memorable Moment: Brave button-flyers attempt to topple the Establishment with sticks and sex.

This will wake up those fat cats in Washington!

All he could find was a set of antlers, but don’t ask how he got ’em

Speaking of Levi … this is exactly how little Tripp was conceived

Disturbing Aspect: Dazed kids, having become strangely attracted to fire, act out an MTV version of Lord of the Flies.

It’s like an Olympics for idiots

 
All they need now is a boar’s head and some Mountain Dew 

 
The Founding Fathers would be proud

“Dude – we should totally put this on YouTube.”

Burning Questions: How many hours would these dancing doofuses actually last in the wilderness if the production crew was not there to drive them back to L.A. at the end of the shoot?  After the Relaxed Fit Revolution, will Levi’s undertake reprisals against Old Navy?  Can I just wear my jeans, without having to wrestle or kiss a sweaty, shirtless guy?

I don’t think this is what Walt Whitman had in mind … or maybe it was.

  
Unfortunately, 95% of Americans can no longer read unabbreviated words

Overall Loathsomeness: 5.6

Mitigating Factor: When society collapses two years from now, members of the Levi’s Love Brigade will be hunted for their denim.