Rusty Saber: Car commercials: what a scream

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Don't get me wrong. There are good things on TV. However, loud commercials aren't one of them. I especially dislike loud car commercials. Not all car dealers do it. Some manage to produce commercials sans idiotic screaming and yelling. To them, I say (quietly, of course), "Thank you!" |ret||ret||tab|

No matter where you go, you hear these screamers trying to sell cars. Why do they think they need to scream at us? Everyone eligible for a driver's license is a potential car buyer. Do they assume all are so "cranially challenged" (that's "stupid" to those who aren't as politically correct as I), they have to be screamed at? |ret||ret||tab|

Some car buyers are halfway intelligent. Are they trying to appeal to the ones a couple of doughnuts shy of a dozen? You know the kind of commercial I'm talking about. It opens somewhat like this: The announcer pushes down on a dynamite detonator. |ret||ret||tab|

A LOUD explosion follows and the announcer speaks at decibels usually reserved for teenagers' car stereos: "YES SIR! YOU GOT IT! AT CARS R US WE'RE BLOWING THE COMPETITION AWAY! WE'RE BLASTING PRICES ON BRAND NEW KLUTZMOBILES! WE'RE SELLING EM BELOW INVOICE! THAT'S RIGHT, IN CASE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT AN INVOICE IS, WE'RE SELLING EM FOR LESS THAN WE PAID FOR EM! HOW CAN WE DO IT? GET ON IN HERE AND FIND OUT! |ret||ret||tab|

IF YOUR CREDIT'S BAD, DON'T SWEAT IT! WE'LL TAKE YOUR FIRST BORN FOR COLLATERAL. YOU'LL GET THE LITTLE RASCAL BACK AS SOON AS YOU PAY UP. DRIVE, PULL OR PUSH IN YOUR TRADE-IN, AND WE'LL MAKE YOU A DEAL THAT WILL BLOW YOU AWAY!" A second explosion is heard. |ret||ret||tab|

I don't know about you, but I put these commercials in the root-canal category. Another disdainful car commercial: The boss is away, and as a practical joke, the employees have a sale he wouldn't approve of. |ret||ret||tab|

Of course, the commercial is as loud as the one above: "HOWDY FRIENDS! I'M SLICK ASCANBE, ASSISTANT MANAGER HERE AT WHEELS IN DEALS, YOUR HIGH-VOLUME, REALLY BIG DISCOUNT YUGO DEALER! THE BOSS, WHO JUST HAPPENS TO BE MY BROTHER-IN-LAW, IS IN LAS VEGAS! WE'RE GONNA TEACH HIM NOT TO LEAVE US EMPLOYEES HERE TO WORK WHILE HE PLAYS! |ret||ret||tab|

WHILE HE'S BEING CLEANED OUT AT THE CRAP TABLES, WE'RE GONNA CLEAN OUT HIS INVENTORY OF CARS. WHEN HE GETS BACK, HE'S NOT GOING TO LIKE IT, BUT DURING THE "BOSS IS AWAY SALE," WE'RE SELLING CARS AT PRICES SO LOW WE'LL PRACTICALLY PAY YOU TO DRIVE EM AWAY. |ret||ret||tab|

HURRY ON DOWN HERE BEFORE THE BOSS GETS BACK AND FIRES US ALL!"|ret||ret||tab|

If you believe the employees actually are holding an unauthorized sale, you probably believe that Al Gore really did invent the Internet.|ret||ret||tab|

In one series of TV ads, Wal-Mart seems to have made a decision about the intelligence of the audience. |ret||ret||tab|

These commercials show people having more fun shopping than anyone should be allowed to have while fully clothed. The giggling shoppers in these commercials can barely contain themselves while describing just how much fun they have shopping at Wal-Mart.|ret||ret||tab|

Unless you were born and raised under a rock in the Himalayas, you know that fighting traffic, hunting for a parking space in a parking lot the size of the state of Delaware and crowding into the store crammed wall-to-wall with people going in all directions isn't a giggling matter.|ret||ret||tab|

A commercial that was the victim of poor timing was the Bud Light ad featuring a woman with a pet Bengal tiger in her kitchen to guard the beer in the refrigerator. This commercial hit the airwaves at about the same time a real Bengal tiger, caged in the backyard of a man who was surely dumb enough to fall for the "boss is away" car sale, tore off the arm of a little boy. |ret||ret||tab|

The arm was sewn back on, but it made a supposedly funny commercial about a tiger cornering a Bud Light thief seem not so funny. The cornered would-be beer thief is depicted as an unlikable clod, but not enough to want to see him mauled by a wild animal. The commercial made it seem kind of neat to have a Bengal tiger in the kitchen. You'd have to have a very dim light bulb to believe this.|ret||ret||tab|

A final annoying commercial: GET YOUR LIMERICKS IN VIA SNAIL MAIL, FAX OR E-MAIL TO SBJ FOR THE RUSTY LIMERICK CONTEST, NOW! |ret||ret||tab|

Pardon me for yelling.|ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University and a Springfield public relations consultant.)|ret||ret||tab|

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