Friday, September 11, 2009

Dodge "Family Time"


See the commercial here.

Synopsis: A vile upper-middle-class family whose seething, technology-addicted members can't stand the sight or sound of one another, preferring to fester in grim solitude at their well-appointed home like ingrown toenails, rediscover the joy of non-grunting human interaction by taking a ride in a voluminous, gas-guzzling Dodge Grand Caravan airport shuttle purchased by Mrs. Bitterworth on her way back from meeting with her divorce attorney.


Mom disappointed to see that no one succumbed to CO poisoning


Daughter wishes she'd never escaped from that creepy kidnapper

Message: If you're worried that your husband and children spend too much time around the house talking on the phone, playing video games, and watching TV, buy a minivan in which they can talk on the phone, play video games, and watch TV.


"... and if you look to your right, you'll see life passing you by."

Subliminal Message: It's hopeless; just go with it.


Get the clown car -- the neighbors laugh at you anyway.

Memorable Moment: Dad appears ready to throttle his wife of 21 years for interrupting his game of Madden Football.


Ohh ... you're gonna pay for this ...


I should've married Kelly ... man, that chick had a great rack.


If they couldn't spot this tub from space, I'd bury you in it.

Disturbing Aspect: The older, dangerously-introverted son, dressed all in black, is a powder keg waiting to explode.


Boy angrily rejects brother while texting death threats to classmates

Burning Questions: Did Dodge focus groups really identify with this nihilist pack of idiots? Does putting the word "Grand" in front of the word "Caravan" somehow negate the associative image of goat-towing Gypsies slowly making their way across the Romanian frontier? Is there any better way to announce to the world that you've finally dropped all pretense of being cool?


Family togetherness, brought to you by OPEC

Overall Loathsomeness: 9.6

Mitigating Factor: When you lose your overvalued McMansion to foreclosure, you'll really appreciate the Caravan's stowable plastic tray table.
Posted by The Editor at 12:00 PM

7 comments:

  1. you forgot the part where the sister forgets her brother's name- "you know, you're ok, Bobby."

    "Billy."

    The Stupid! It BURNS!
    ReplyDelete
  2. Pointless Planet forgets nothing, not even Billy's name -- although no baby boy born in the United States has been named either "Billy" or "Bobby" in the last 15 years.
    ReplyDelete
  3. Minivan ads have always been vile. "Now you can do everything you'd be doing at home anyway, but in the minivan! And you'll do it in forced proximity to one another!" I guess for some gruesome families, this would promote desperately-needed togetherness.

    Do you remember the minivan ad from over a decade ago, (it might have been a Caravan, in fact) which touted itself as being either the first or one of the first minivans to have one of those now-ubiquitous pop-out televisions. (It might have predated DVDs, in fact, but not by much)

    Anyway, the commercial was vile because it touted this as a way to keep your horrible children quiet and out of your hair. So we had two children in the back seat, who were so creepily blissed out by the television that they looked as if they were on heroin or peyote. And what was possibly the worst thing about the ad, following car ad convention, they were driving through computer-enhanced Monument Valley or somewhere similar.

    So they were driving through spectacular scenery in the southwestern US, but the kids saw none of it, because they were too busy watching Aladdin or some such shit on their shiny minivan television to look out the window.
    ReplyDelete
  4. Not to mention the more recent minivan commercial that shows an entire fricking family abandoning the dinner table for a seat in the van, which is parked in the driveway, because somehow eating a meal from a plate balanced on some pop-out tray and watching a tiny screen is preferable to having lots of elbow room and a table and a large tv, and being able to talk to people without twisting yourself around and addressing the back seat...
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  5. One of the most absurd innovations of modern American life is the now-ubiquitous van-borne TV. From a parental standpoint, allowing your unmanageable and unimaginative children to watch TV while they're being driven around, just to keep them quiet, would seem to be an act of utter resignation.
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  6. As a natural-born worrier, I don't really trust the van-borne TV screen; it seems to me that in an accident, it might come off its mountings and transform into a guillotine blade.
    ReplyDelete
  7. If only that had happened to this family.
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