Disturbing commercials

1) the one where the teenage girl is introducing her boyfriend to her parents, starts chewing on a piece of Dentyne Fire and starts macking on her bf with abandon. The kicker is the mom reaches for the gum at the end of the commercial.

Eewwweee.

2) There's a diamond commercial out that uses a crappy remake of "99 Red Balloons." Apparently it is unaware that the song is about nuclear holocaust due to false information — namely, 99 red balloons floating by looks like a bunch of MiGs or something. You know, "this is what we've waited for, this is it boys, this is war, the president is on the line, 99 red balloons go by," and "The war machine springs to life, opens up one eager eye" and, of course, "everyone's a superhero, everyone's a CAPTAIN KIRK." What with the connection between diamonds and terrorism and South African diamond merchants and the entirely bizarre diamond economy (I mean, how often do you find Orthodox Jews and Islamic terrorists dealing in the same business?) they might want to choose a perkier song. Like, "Let the bodies hit the floor."

3) Not a commercial, but an observation of marketing skills. There's a local biz that does the whole H&R Block thing — the same kind of "rapid refund" ripoff loan and stuff — that's all over the region. They hire people to stand out on the street dressed as Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty to encourage us to get our taxes done there. Except they hire people that are scary! I saw one doing the special meth dance and talking to passing cars. Possibly he was talking about the services, but I didn't want to make eye contact at that particular stoplight. Or any of them. They often are wearing earphones; I can't blame them, but I would think Uncle Sam would take the whole rendering-unto-Caesar thing more seriously. Also, they tend to choose ugly, ratty-looking drunk chicks to play the statue of Liberty. They're always staggering around, going "Wooo!" and bending over while they yell. While they're dressed as Lady Liberty. She's sposed to provide relief to the dirty, poor and huddling masses, not be one of them.