I was…I don’t know, I
was doing something the other day,
and I had the TV on. As usual, unless it’s a foreign film or something that
actually engages my interest (or something so gobsmackingly bad that I’m nailed
in place, like the Father Brown
series currently running on PBS), I wasn’t really paying attention.
Look, the TV for me
is basically a talking lamp. It’s background noise for doing other things.
Anyhow, there I was,
doing whatever it was, and I heard some Christmas song being done entirely by little bells. So I glanced
up, thinking it was the Hershey’s Kisses “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” commercial—you
know, the one where the chocolate doing the “yeeeeaaarr!” note kind of goes
bananas.
But no. It was not.
It was a line of boxer-shorted guys shaking their stuff just like the kisses
did. Only to “Jingle Bells”. And it ends with the guy on “sleigh” doing
essentially what that Kiss does; with, so to speak, a flourish. Play it again,
you’ll see what I mean.
Imagine my
surprise—and my gobsmacking paralysis to see this: I mean, really—I kind of
stood there, mouth agape, eyes blinking in disbelief. It was a huge change from
my expectation of cheap little chocs—to cheap little…oh, never mind.
Then I realized it’s
for Kmart. And not yo mama’s Kmart, apparently.
(Although, in
fairness, when I went to look up the video, I couldn’t remember what the
commercial was for—store, shorts, Chippendales, what. Which means it’s not the
best possible ad—you’re supposed to lock into the product being sold. Or maybe
it just means that I’m not a Kmart customer and there’s nothing that’s going to
change that.)
For me, the bells in
a commercial is always going to mean Hershey’s kisses doing “We Wish You a
Merry Christmas”, even though I don’t buy them or eat them. But I’m going to be
a lot more careful when I look up the next time I hear those bells.
And it’ll be
interesting to follow Kmart’s sales performance this season. And other, you
know, performances.
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