It's not a criticism, it's an observation.
Stop the idiotic commercials
Mike Cox

If you watched any TV during the college bowl season or the NFLplayoffs, you've seen it. Three typically spoiled 2008 vintage American kids. A mid- level teenage girl talking on the phone, a boy just reaching puberty playing a hand held video game, and both are bothered by a pesky younger brother.

The dad, clueless and useless, is camped out in front of the TV. Mom drives up in a new minivan, obviously the bread winner, decision maker, and only intelligent member of the household.

She forces the family to ride in the new Dodge Caravan. The family is transformed by the options in the fully loaded van. By the end of the TV ad, the family has gone all Norman Rockwell on us.

As we approach the Super Bowl, more emphasis is placed on TV ads. Like the rest of America, I like to watch the commercials during the game. My question is why there are so few worth watching the rest of the year?

In addition to the minivan ad already mentioned, we have a series of Geico ads featuring washed up former celebrities embellishing real customers' stories. It's bad enough to have Charo, Little Richard, and the Pips back in our living rooms, but do we have to be reminded how old we are by showing a current edition of Peter Frampton? And just how hungry is the guitar legend to submit to this?

There is also a Sprint ad showing us how buying a new phone will enable us to multi task so well it will appear we are cloned.

For the record, I work hard enough as it is and don't want any new contraption to make me work harder. I want something to allow me to have beer and Cheezits every day without buying larger pants. If Sprint can do that, I'm in. Besides, those clones are miniature versions of the real people. That's creepy.

But the worst of the worst is the Jeep commercial with singing animals. The loser traveling the back roads is in enough trouble to begin with. He is badly in need of a lifestyle coach.

And if a squirrel jumps in the car and starts singing along with the radio, somebody needs to cut back on the serotonin uptake inhibitor. The singing birds don't make too much difference, but when the wolf jumps into the back seat, the whole thing goes to hell.

First of all where did the wolf come from? Was he flying? And he is a predator, so eating the bird is natural. Spitting it out goes against his nature. This has to be the idea of one of those PETA reject nature lovers who thinks all the animals can get along if we would all just hold hands and wear tie dye.

But the worst is the song choice. I mean come on. Few humans and absolutely no sensible wolf is going to listen to, much less sing along with Neil Diamond; especially the later years. Even PETA knows that.