yendi

I've griped before about having to watch commercials during football games. Commercials so often represent the nadir of human creative stupidity, and Tivo allows me to blissfully zoom past them, stopping only when a preview for a movie/TV show airs, or the rare interesting commercial (the zanier BK "KIng" spots) makes it onto a show.

Yesterday, while watching football, I watched two of the more insulting commercials I've seen.

1. First, there was a regionalist McDonald's commercial. I'm generally opposed to the idea that good/bad food comes from one place, and anti-New York attitudes (towards the city, as opposed to towards a sports team) really piss me off (one of many reasons I won't eat Pace Picante Sauce, although the fact that it tastes like processed ass is another one). As Tony Bourdain shows time and again, there's good food everywhere.

Anyway, this particular commercial is an ad for McDonald's coffee, and features a New Englander claiming, at the end, to never have heard of "Manhattan Clam Chowder."

Okay, folks. Listen up: Manhattan Clam Chowder comes from New England. Rhode Island, to be precise.

And the name "Manhattan Chowder" was coined by a bunch of regionalist, racist assholes from New England who didn't like the tomato-based chowder and the Portuguese immigrants who brought it, because, naturally, anything with the word "Manhattan" in it had to be inferior.

So, yeah. Fuck you McDonald's. Also, even with Newman's Own, your coffee still sucks. Until your employees learn how to brew the stuff, they could be using stuff shat out of a civet, and it would still suck.

2. And then there's the Dunkin' Donuts commercial. See, there's this guy named Dan, who always used to eat cereal. But now he's eating a sandwich from Dunkin' Donuts instead and bringing it into the office (where he works at some presumed low-paying job where he wears a nametag). And the poor boxes of cereal are lonely, and whining to each other that they never see their friend Dan anymore.

So far, I'm okay with the commercial. Nothing wrong with saying that your food is yummier than another breakfast option, after all.

But then we get the kicker: Dunkin' sandwiches are better than cereal because "everyone can afford a hot breakfast to go."

Look. I like Dunkin's breakfast sandwiches. But each sandwich is about $2.50-$4, with combos running $4-6 (depending on whether you get hash browns and the size and style of your coffee).

A box of cereal is $3-5. A box of quick packets of oatmeal (ideal for bringing into the office) is $3 for a ten-day supply. Hell, a box of Jimmy Dean frozen breakfast sandwiches will only run you about $4-5.

So, while I happen to like Dunkin's breakfast sandwiches, the fact is, going there every day add $20-30 to your food budget every week. That's not affordable in my world, frankly, and I'm not sure I see how it's affordable in Dan's world, either.

So, the moral of this post: Avoid commercials.