A Big Load, Indeed
When did truck commercials become spam?
Maybe it’s just because I don’t watch much TV, but I was really struck by how stupid some of the claims are getting. There’s the Jeep spot where a family drives underwater, the “peeing” — what is it, Mazda?, as well as the Ford commercial that implies you will become impervious to rattlesnakes if you drive a “Ford tough” truck. (Though I must say I would rather watch animatronic snakes die than hear that quasi-country guy who sings “I’m a Ford truck man.”)
These are just the latest exaggeration of an old trend. In the past, pickups have been shown towing icebreakers and fully-loaded tractor-trailers, all of course with the disclaimer that the activity shown was completely fabricated. I know commercials lie, that’s no big surprise, but usually it’s a more subtle, implied lie: drink this beer and chicks will love you. Microwaved cake is tasty. Cartoon bears use toiler paper. And so on.
But, seriously, where will it end? Now that cartoonish truck commercials are the norm, I look foward to the commercials that bend space and time, perhaps showing how the S-10 played an important part in splitting Pangaea, and each F-150 will be able to tow asteroids (chains not included.)
November 11th, 2005 at 2:50 am
I’m looking forward to the ‘if your going to spend 40 days and 40 nights in the desert then do it in style’ truck advert
November 12th, 2005 at 8:41 am
Toby Keith was a colossal idiot long before shilling trucks.
Anyway, who else remembers the Ford truck commercials from back in the day where the truck drove up this HUGE pile of HUGE boulders, and then the next year it drove up the pile pulling a chevy, then the next year it was hauling a dodge, and pulling a chevy, and then it was like hauling a dodge pulling a chevy that was itself hauling a dodge. I think it was eventually pulling a hauling every truck ever built. Good Times.
November 12th, 2005 at 1:10 pm
THAT’s Toby Keith? Oh g-d, now I hate it even more, which I didn’t think possible.
I think I remember the huge, huge pile and the towing a Chevy.
November 12th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
Oh it very much is Toby
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/tabs/keith-toby/ford-truck-theme-8591.html
I’m surprised ye of the TV challenged youth remembers the 80s ford commercials.
November 12th, 2005 at 10:38 pm
Oh it’s that old? Then I must be thinking of something else. They all look alike.
November 12th, 2005 at 10:39 pm
By the way, I assume Toby’s song was commissioned, a la Celine “I Drove All Night” Dion’s? Because if he was just moved to do it out of his love for the vehicle, that’s like the vocal equivalent of the idiocy that is “Peeing Calvin” stickers. (Or *shudder* truck nuts.)