Commercials Need To Be Better Governed
 Sunday, March 16th, 2008

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Until I get to the point where I've boycotted everything that's left, I still occasionally do watch television.  And I don't think I'm alone in finding the most annoying thing about it to be commercials.  The hypocrisies rage eternal.  Every commercial for a prescription is required to tell you any reported possible side effects; yet there is no law about showing the same commercials multiple times in a short time period, just to hammer it well into your head...until it makes more and more sense...I would assume there are completely healthy people out there wondering if they have restless leg syndrome or some kind of anxiety and/or sleeping disorder.

And that's not to make light of serious conditions, but hearing it once per show is enough, you know?

If you thought watching TV was a mode of escape, you thought wrong.  At the tail-end of tax season, those hiding from their taxes are confronted with commercials of a raging storm, thunder and lightening pulsating, with the words "Are you hiding?" and "It'll catch up to you," "It will only get worse," "Call our law firm now."  Eating while you're watching?  A commercial for bariatric surgery and stomach bands plays three times in one hour.  Look how great your life could be.  You could manage, or even rid yourself of Type II diabetes.  You could stop taking so many medications. You could lose the weight.

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Think you can work for yourself and get millions for nothing?  Well, we'll make you think you can!

Think you can't get financed for a new vehicle?  Well there's a new car waiting for you at Billy Bob's Used Car Rip-U-Off, and even if you have a DVR player or a TiVo, you still can't read the blurred, small print at the bottom of the commercial at the very end, because it's too small and too blurry...even on pause.  Perhaps you're promising your first born son, or the balance of your life insurance.  Who really knows?

Oh, and life insurance.  That's another great one.  Let's scare all the seniors into thinking their children and grandchildren will be stuck with thousands in funeral expenses if they don't call now.   The part about your-rates-may-skyrocket-after-the-first-year is worked in there quicker than a cartoon character can snatch a warming pie off a windowsill.

These houses are all cheap and being foreclosed upon.  Call now, and then pay to buy the outdated listings.

Up late tonight?  You need this special mattress.  Or this insomnia medication.

And now that you're fully paranoid, do you have an anxiety problem?

Want to lose weight?  This pill has nothing but sugar in it, and is not approved by the FDA, but I can tell you it's the next best formula, because the small print is illegible.

Here's a culinary school you can pay for that will get you hired nowhere but the local burger joint.

Here's a college degree that looks like a college degree but isn't really a college degree.

Have a cold?  You may have asbestos poisoning.  Call this law firm.

Knock, knock.  Who's there?  Truth in advertising.  Truth in advertising who?  Exactly.

Hey, don't tell me that's any cheesier than the commercials.

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