Forget your troubles! Come on! Get happy!

After decades in the land of Wieden & Kennedy, I find myself in a state of culture shock induced by TV commercials in Detroit.

Wieden & Kennedy, you may recall, is the very creative Portland-based advertising agency which created the 2-minute Chrysler commercial that created all the buzz during Super Bowl this year. It's been said that it was as much an ad for the city of Detroit as it was for Chrysler. Interesting that it took folks from 2500 miles away to polish Detroit to a fancy patina for the ad.

Interesting, that is, until you've suffered through the local commercial fare, one audio-visual assault after another--ugly video, ghastly graphics, pitchmen who YELL AT YOU, and stupid annoying jingles that make you want to blow up your ears. These commercials have the look and feel of the early days of TV... not old-timey enough to be quaint, just old enough to be old.

Deserving of special mention is the ad for a clinic that prescribes "BIO-INDENTICAL" hormones. My special message to them: if you can't even spell it, why would I let you prescribe it for me?

I could go on, I suppose, and I probably should, but TV commercials make me want to go to the kitchen and stare into my refrigerator, so let's just bring this full circle and call it a post. We started with the law, and we'll end it there, with this bit of circular reasoning earnestly stated by Detroit's most flamboyant high-powered attorney at the end of his commercials:



Now, to the fridge... let's see... lemon jello?... nut pie?