The Part of the Itch

Commercials suck. Honestly. Who needs them? Who even likes them? The best ones are rare, and soon become so forcefully repetitive that a viewer can discover and be sickened from overuse by the same advertisement inside the window of an hour-long show.

Television would have never been created without this disgusting drivel, and if television had never been created we would never know the superb genius of Mad Men.

After an excruciating 17 months, the greatest show on television finally returned to fill that burning emptiness we've all been numbing with cheap booze and meaningless sex.

The fact that Matthew Weiner had the ability to write an enthralling series around characters who supply, by a wide margin, the most unwanted and annoying product in the history of mankind is nothing short of brilliance.

It's not just how cool Draper is, how pithy Roger's one-liners are, how bodacious everything about Joan always is, how big a tool Pete can be, how determined Peggy is to show them all, how Selectric typewriters are employed in a delicious '60s office setting or the drama created by all these factors. What fascinates me most about this show is the idea that a time used to exist when advertising was an art form.

Ask yourself if today's commercials are works of art. How much "creative" has gone into these things?

I had an epiphany yesterday. It makes me feel stupid because I should've had this epiphany years ago, but here it is: commercials on mute.

I know, I know. Duh. But if watching commercials without sound doesn't immediately make your viewing experience more pleasant (OK, tolerable), I formally and officially invite you to freely punch me in the face the next time you see me.

Miserable jingles? Gone. Stupid pitches? Gone. Moronic ad copy that pretty faces are paid to recite (... guaranteed! ... call now! ... or your money back! ... lost thirty pounds! ... no contracts! ... try it risk free! ... been injured in a ... just ninety-nine cents! ...)? Gone. Moving mouths are all that's left, and sometimes streaming text that provides concisely all pertinent consumer information. After this revelation, it feels as though my mind is finally at peace.

Now it's a moving magazine ad. This novel silence allows me to interact and play games with the pitch, like filling those moving mouths with my own ad copy. If you can appreciate Mad Libs, you can appreciate this. Usually my copy is pretty liberal towards blatant vulgarity.

Regardless of my penchant for potty-word hilarity, I'm of the opinion that television as a medium is better at killing thoughts than creating them (this can also apply to drinking Scotch). That being said, I'm genuinely ashamed of how much television I watch and how much of my life I've spent doing it. Because of this, I can't wait for the day when television can be viewed by paying for individual shows. When that day comes, these are the ten shows (and only ten!) that would be on my TV. My desert island list, in order of importance:

Mad Men

Workaholics

South Park

Ugly Americans

True Blood

Mythbusters

The Daily Show

The Colbert Report (package deal)

Chopped

& Jersey Shore

But who am I kidding? I've listed these (great) shows for no reason. As far as I know, advertisers love the ridiculous amount of bullshit on TV. As I write this they're probably screaming for more out the windows of their billionth-floor offices on Madison Avenue. More shows! More channels! More air time! More money!

I realize now that I'm wasting my time.

But wasting time is where ideas come from, according to the people who are paid to create things, and the fact is creative people wouldn't get paid if it wasn't for advertisers and their annoying, unwanted product. Both parties know that.

I think Matthew Weiner should really be rewarded for giving us a world where advertising is interesting, where the people who do it are cool, intelligent, and have shitloads of artistic vision spewing from their fingertips. A fictional world of advertisers making good advertisements might have the power to seep into reality, providing a more enriching experience for everyone involved, viewer and producer alike.

Would the real world not be a better place if commercials sucked significantly less? I think it would, because it would influence for the better the art of the pitch, not just for advertisers and car salesman, but for everyone. The pitch is everything to/for/about everyone. It's persuasion. It's how you sell yourself, your abilities, your beliefs, your ideas, your value to everyone with whom you ever come in contact. Everyone wants to do this better.

You can call it growing bullshit, but that would only be true if the product reeks.