Career Builders Ad

I watched most of the ads on the Super Bowl, except whatever was playing when I was in the bathroom. And most of them were tolerable, but I have a few comments.

The one entirely intolerable ad this year was the one for Career Builders. It started and was disgusting from the get-go, then about 13-15 seconds into it I hit the mute button. That was the only one that got the mute tonight.

I thought hitting the mute at that point was a vain gesture, a worthless protest, but it turned out to be valuable. Because the commercial was a full minute -- it must have been, since it seemed to go on forever. Good riddance to that one, may it receive widespread shame.

The others? Some were a little too violent for my taste, people getting the crap beaten out of them. Some of them were too schmaltzy. For instance, I hate all of the Budweiser horse commercials, in which somewhere there's always a close-up of the horse's eye, meant to show his determination, a kind of pivot point in the ad where an important decision has to be made or an important move to influence the outcome has to be made. They're real likely ... and of course they always have a happy ending for the horse, but they're not satisfying (to me) on any level.

Horses don't run off and hunt for a denied love. Animals don't run away and live happily ever after. It's ridiculous.