InASense, Lost… Commercials For Quote-Unquote Religions

I remember being a lad of about 29 years old, and I finally gathered the nerve to ask my mom, “Where do babies come from?”

I often think back to my childhood, and remember Saturday mornings as a kid.  Rolling out of bed from underneath my taped together Garbage Pail Kid posters.  Grabbing a box of Cocoa Krispies and the biggest bowl I could handle.  Turning on the TV without a remote control because we had none.  Zoning out to crappy yet awesome cartoons and the commercials that sold me on Transformers and Star Wars and Centurions and M.A.S.K. with little to no effort.  Then there would come along one of these ads:

Granted, it’s not one of the most heartwarming, but very often, they’d catch me by surprise and effect me on a personal level.  Gee, maybe I should help my neighbor shovel the snow instead of throwing snowballs at them from my fort, I might consider.  What I didn’t realize at the time was that it was a COMMERCIAL FOR A RELIGION!  If I wasn’t born and raised Roaming Recovering Roman Catholic, seeing Jesus H. Christ’s name up there might have been a red alert, but I was, so it didn’t.  (Also, I wasn’t raised in a way that told me we were the only ones that were right, so at least I had that going for me.)

So now this little vid is making it’s way around the web.  I recieved it via a link in an email from frequent idea spurner Dave, and I watched it in similar wonder to the old LSD, er, I mean LDS commercials.  It was beautiful, and in fact made me happy to be alive.  Damn YouTube and their header captions:

I guess what I’m saying is it’s much more effective than this old thang:

In other words, how can so many inches of Tom Cruise can be wrong?  (My guess: 60 of his 67…)

Oh, They Only Pick On You Because They’re Jealous – The Tom Cruise Story

Poor Tom Cruise… I think I’m growing a soft spot for the little guy.  Of late, he’s making the talk show circuit to promote his new movie, “Valkyrie,” and every time I’ve caught his interview, something inside me dies.

It’s pitiful, really, how much pandering he seems to have to go through to get back into the public’s good graces.  Back in the day, when he kept his life private – Mega Movie Star.  Since “meeting” Katie Holmes and doing that crazy interview on Oprah – not so much.

(Although I must say this: when I’m 44, if I hook up with a woman 16 years younger than me, I can’t promise I’m not jumping on some couches, too.  Hopefully, she’s hotter than Holmes.)

Watch his appearance on Letterman last night and tell me if it doesn’t feel like the sap just wants to be liked? 

He’s trying too hard, and it reeks of bad parental advice.  Imagine:

Mommy, they’re being mean to me at school.  I don’t think nobody likes me.

To which Mommy (a.k.a. Daddy Hubbard or Uncle Miscavige) replies:

They’re jealous, my boy.  You can’t let them get to you.  Just get back out there and be the best you you can be.  If they pick on you – ignore them.  Better yet… laugh with them.

A lot of good it did me, Mom.  All I have to show for being the best me I can be is an ass-kicking that left me with a head scar and a detached testicle.  Thanks for a lifetime of explaning why my nutsack hangs to my knees, and that no, I did not steal your _____!

Mental Illness As Defined By Female Characters In Superhero Films (A Drunken Recollection/JusWondering Joint)

I have a friend that, as another of my friends pointed out (who is also friends with him), suffers from Mary Jane Watson Syndrome.

Mary Jane Watson Syndrome?” you may ask.  “That’s not in the DSM-IV.”

You’d be the wrong kind of nerd for asking that question, but it is true.  The Mary Jane Watson Syndrome, as explained by my friend (about my other friend):

He likes to make people think he’s doing better than he’s actually doing, because it’s too embarrassing.  Like in the first “Spider-Man” film, when Mary Jane runs into Peter for the first time in New York, and she tells him all the wonderful things she’s accomplished.  Then the short order chef comes out and exposes her lie…

It’s the Mary Jane Watson Syndrome.

Poignant, geeky, and spot-on, for sure.  But it got me wondering – are there other conditions that could be defined by the ladies in superhero films?  I mean, they typically aren’t written as the most stalwart of women.  Otherwise, who would be left for the hero to save if there were no damsels in distress?

(more after the jump) Read More