Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Fake SNL Macy's Ad Nails What We Hate About Christmas, Especially When There's Children

Things aren't nearly this happy in a fake Macy's Christmas ad
from Saturday Night Live that gives us a dose of reality in the
midst of all the fake Christmas cheer. 
I'm a bah hum-bug kinda guy during the Christmas season, so I really get irritated by those chirpy-voiced ads on TV from those retailers announcing their holiday sales specials.

Most of the narrators sound like they are offering a sippy cup to their toddlers.

I don't know why they're offering me things in that tone of voice. I'm not a toddler and I like to think I'm more mature, smarter and more experienced than a toddler.

But who knows?

Now, Saturday Night Live hasn't been very great this year, but this week, they did a fake commercial from Macy's that is just perfect.

The sippy cup voiced actress touts the latest clothing offerings from the retailer. The first few seconds of the video offer the standard offerings for the adults. You'd easily mistake it for a real Macy's Christmas ad.

Then the bulk of the rest of the ad gets into those cute childrens' outfits that will ultimately be worn by not-so-cute children. And their exasperated parents have to deal with it. Which causes all kinds of stress, such as public embarrassment, hatred toward kids and marital discord, all things that are NOT supposed to happen at Christmas, according to the marketers.

Sample ad copy from this video, which is so like real life:

"All month long, we're taking 25% off boys' merino wool sweaters that won't fit over his head," the sippy cup narrator states.  The video shows a fed-up dad trying to put the sweater on his squirmy young son. "If you'd stop squirming, it would be on already!," the blandly handsome dad hisses at the kid.

As we all know, the stress of Christmas brings all these on more than any other time of year. So yeah, bah-humbug!

I think the video, at least in one sense, brings us the true feeling of Christmas, or at least the aspect of it in which society demands that everything be perfect and happy, but we can't quite live up to reality.

I think a lot of people agree. The video had 4.3 million views within less than 48 hours of when it was posted.

It's a great video for everybody. But I imagine it's fantastic for parents of young children. Watch and enjoy and feel the catharsis:

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