Our latest couch-time venture is the Roku. The plus, great HD
content with limited commercials. The minus, the same commercials over and
over. Not that this would normally bother me, and it doesn’t… until the episode
has been sponsored by Burger King.
I’m surprised at the venom I feel swelling inside as one of the
commercials sets up. It’s a hot day. Junior is outside mowing the lawn. Dad,
looking fresh and cool as a cucumber comes by, puts up his arms, and says “Hey,
let’s have a barbeque today!” Cut to the next scene where they’re sitting on
some hard-as-hell fast food booth seats and eating some shitty
barbeque-“inspired” sandwiches. They can’t even call it barbeque! It’s inspired
by barbeque! Kind of reminds me of a Mitch Hedberg line:
I like when they say a movie is inspired by a true story. That's kind of silly. "Hey, Mitch, did you hear that story about that lady who drove her car into the lake with her kids and they all drowned?" "Yeah, I did, and you know what - that inspires me to write a movie about a gorilla!"
And that’s about as close as these
sandwiches look to being like barbeque. Worst of all is that really angry side
of me that wants to try one of these lameburgers so that I can be more pissed
about it. My luck, they’d actually taste okay.
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| Can anyone tell me what's going on in this picture? |
What really bothers me about that
commercial (and about the other “Barbecue Today!” ads from BK) is that it takes
away my understanding – literal and inferred – of a barbeque. “Having a
barbeque” is pretty simple concept and… isn’t it really more about the time we
spend with one another while the food sizzles on the grill, while someone’s in
the kitchen putting on the finishing touches to the slaw and potato salad? Isn’t
it the scent of baked beans and iced tea, maybe even an ice cold beer? It’s
certainly not driving down the block to Burger King.
Of course, as soon as I post this,
I’ll be over it. Just as I was over the Starbucks French Roast pretty soon
after I posted about it. (Oh, hey, they
finally got rid of French Roast here… we still have the SBUX offering, but the
dark roast is now Sumatra… significant improvement, if you ask me).
