So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[tonyb]

Like most, I like and can appreciate the creativity behind some of the commercials seen on TV and heard on radio, enjoying them perhaps even more so when I can identify with their tongue-in-cheek elements. But I find myself kind of offended by Progressive’s “Progressive can’t save you from becoming your parents” commercials. As someone who has become his father (and I readily admit that), am I to be anathema or somehow chastised into embarrassment for taking after my father and mother? Who doesn’t assume attributes and mannerisms of their parents as they mature? (I've come to savor most those I can recognize in myself.) One would have to be awfully hard bitten not to. It’s a pretty judgmental, if cynical, stance if you ask me. How dare you! “It’s relatable for a reason” the “Dr Rick” character says at the end of one of them. Really? As fodder to embarrass and be made fun of, to somehow injure one’s self-esteem? Yes, I can relate to the things portrayed. Quite a few of them, actually. And in real life I have been made fun of for some of them, by loved ones and strangers. Such is the jaded society we live in. Will I change because of it? Nope.

Thank you for enduring my rant. I’ll continue to knowingly smile when those commercials come on, but I’ll also continue to be irked by them.

Yeah, that annoys me, too. What’s all the worse is that the characters made to look silly are barely middle-aged. So the “parents” they’re becoming would be more like my age. And I and most every equally decrepit person of my acquaintance exhibits few if any of those behaviors.

But is there a worse TV spot than the one for Kars 4 Kids?

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Pain in the arse? The British influence gets everywhere. Not funny though, losing a debit card, I hope that the card was all you lost.

Maybe he watches a lot of British TV. I'm fond of the police shows. One British word I'm particularly fond of is "nick". It can mean "condition", a police station, or "to arrest", maybe even a few more.

 

[Zombie_61]

...But is there a worse TV spot than the one for Kars 4 Kids?

Oh, please. Stay awake after midnight and just try to get through the Social Security Benefits commercials with Jimmie "JJ" Walker and Robert Conrad.

 

[GHT]

Maybe he watches a lot of British TV. I'm fond of the police shows. One British word I'm particularly fond of is "nick". It can mean "condition", a police station, or "to arrest", maybe even a few more.

It's such a common slang word in British/English I didn't think about how other English speaking countries perceive it. Nick also means, to steal. It's also a small abrasion, whether that's on the skin or any surface.
The phrase “nick of time” is in reference to a measurement of time, as in a measurement between nicks on a stick.
My wife and I have enjoyed many a visit to the US, our accents draw so many comments. One lady though, loved the Inspector Morse police TV shows. She was convinced that all the murders that happened in the UK, happened in Oxford.

 

[tonyb]

Oh, please. Stay awake after midnight and just try to get through the Social Security Benefits commercials with Jimmie "JJ" Walker and Robert Conrad.

Can’t say I’ve ever been subjected to the Robert Conrad one, not as I recall anyway. The Jimmie Walker one amuses more than annoys me, though. Here’s what an actor with but one notable TV role to his credit (and a couple-three entirely forgettable ones) from several decades back, does to supplement his Social Security income. “A hundred dollars put back in your Social Security check every month! Dyn-O-Mite!”

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Joe Namath commercials are even more horrible -- he bugs his eyes and flashes a terrifying gargoyle smile as he lurches into the camera. It'S FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

 

[tonyb]

I’m still trying to understand why I like the Joe Namath one. It likely has more to do with my own history, and my memory of the Namath-led Jets’ big upset in Super Bowl III, than the TV spot itself.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

One lady though, loved the Inspector Morse police TV shows. She was convinced that all the murders that happened in the UK, happened in Oxford.

I guess she didn't watch Dalziel and Pascoe or Frost or Vera, or ...

 

[Zombie_61]

I’m still trying to understand why I like the Joe Namath one. It likely has more to do with my own history, and my memory of the Namath-led Jets’ big upset in Super Bowl III, than the TV spot itself.

Well, Joe Namath had a respectable sports career and a lot of people still like him based on that alone. But he also had the personality to "sustain" his fame by making guest appearances on various television shows (though he was admittedly better off playing "himself" rather than trying to act). Now? He's probably doing the Social Security commercials just to have a little extra spending money in his pockets, or he's bored and wants to keep his name in the minds of his fans and the general public.

Jimmie Walker, on the other hand...I don't dislike him, but I never quite understood why he was so popular. Good Times was his big break, but his catchphrase "Dyn-o-mite!" was created by scriptwriters, as was his nickname "JJ". And his castmates disliked the way he "hammed" things up. It has been reported that Walker's "buffoon" antics on the show led to co-star John Amos' departure. So, in effect, his entire public persona was created by other people. And he hasn't exactly been a recognizable celebrity for quite some time (I can't imagine anyone under the age of 30 knowing who he is), so I'm guessing they were able to hire him for the commercials rather inexpensively by comparison. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Trenchfriend]

Joe Namath?

Just know him from Al Bundy...

 

[tonyb]

I’ve read that the other cast members regarded the JJ character as more suited to a minstrel show. In other words, they found it a bit degrading.

I recall seeing Namath “act” in some forgettable movie (can’t even remember the title) about a biker gang.

Namath, like many a celebrity, has a gift for self-promotion. Hawking Medicare supplemental insurance at the very least keeps his name in circulation, and undoubtedly puts a little scratch in his bank account.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Walker was to the mid-70s as Joe Penner was to the mid-30s -- a performer whose primary appeal rose and fell on the basis of how many school kids were bellowing his catchphrases. Once the fad died down, that was it. Walker has done radio and standup comedy since his TV fame faded away, but as I can attest, those fields are, for most of the people in them, an express route to obscurity. I see his ads, and I feel sorry for the poor goof more than anything else. Although if he says "MONNNNN-AY" one more time, I intend to reach into the television screen and slap that grimace right off his face.

Namath used to annoy me when he was a football star -- that whole Broadway Joe schtick and all the ads he did caused him to wear thin fast, especially in New England, where Jets fans do not exactly abound. He always came across to me as one of those greasy characters whose sex appeal is entirely to themselves.

 

[tonyb]

Say this much for the celebrities featured in those Medicare supplemental insurance TV spots …

They have us talking about them, perhaps for the first time in a long time. And we’re spelling their names right.

 

[tonyb]

As if the barrage of solicitations for extended auto warranties weren’t bad enough …

Now I’m getting hit with some hustle that says I’m pre-approved for a $712K business loan. I get that one at least a couple times a week.

And then there are the mailings with the faux-handwriting font and the overly friendly tone telling me they wish to bring by a dump truck load of cash to buy my house.

I mean really, why would I trust anyone who from the git engages in deception? The phony handwriting on the phony ruled yellow notebook paper does nothing to inspire my confidence.

Oh, and then there are mailings on full-color card stock asking me to RSVP their invitation to attend a dinner at some local high-end steakhouse, where I would undoubtedly be subjected to a sales pitch for one investment “product” or another. One might assume that they determined that vegetarians are less gullible.

 

[Hercule]

I hear your pain. Those solicitations are bothersome. Within a month of buying and moving in to our new house we began receiving cards, letters and calls asking if we wanted to sell. When my wife gets such calls she simply replies "but where will I live then?"

 

[LizzieMaine]

Those sell-me-your-house-for-cash parasites are rampant in my town, where gentrification has escalated to a fever pitch over the past two years. They're the maggots consuming the rotting corpse of what used to be a real community.

 

[tonyb]

Residential real estate values here have doubled in the six years and change we’ve been in this house. This brings me little comfort. Whatever pile of cash we might see on the sale of this place would be exhausted on the purchase of another house. (Unless we moved to a place I’d rather not live.)

But interest rates are ticking up and the economy appears to be cooling, so that ought to put the brakes on it, for a while, anyway. I worry that the people who bought recently will find themselves underwater.

 

[Adam-Five-Five]

 

[LizzieMaine]

Residential real estate values here have doubled in the six years and change we’ve been in this house. This brings me little comfort. Whatever pile of cash we might see on the sale of this place would be exhausted on the purchase of another house. (Unless we moved to a place I’d rather not live.)

But interest rates are ticking up and the economy appears to be cooling, so that ought to put the brakes on it, for a while, anyway. I worry that the people who bought recently will find themselves underwater.

Yep. House-as-investment leaves me cold, especially since, if I sell out, I have nowhere -- and can afford nowhere -- to live in the town where I've lived and worked and been a part of the community for almost forty years. I didn't buy an investment, I bought a home.

 

[tonyb]

Yep. House-as-investment leaves me cold, especially since, if I sell out, I have nowhere -- and can afford nowhere -- to live in the town where I've lived and worked and been a part of the community for almost forty years. I didn't buy an investment, I bought a home.

There’s always that tension. I do believe that people ought to have a financial stake in the places they live. But stable, healthy communities are built on people having more than just their money invested there.

I’ll have to look into the percentages of houses that are owned outright vs. the percentages historically. There’s always an expense — taxes, insurance, utilities, upkeep, etc, But getting that mortgage monkey off one’s back is what I fear too many of us will never know.