Female Host: "...What's got the entertainment world buzzing..."

Male Host: "...Who's Hot Who's Not..."

Voice Interrupting (Off Camera): "Excuse Me, Excuse Me"

Camera pulls back to reveal Stage Hand being pushed out of the way of the now revealed owner of the off camera voice (Chris Rock of Saturday Night Live Fame)

Chris: "... But I have some really big news from 1-800-Collect..."

Yadda, Yadda, Yadda.

Maybe I'm just an old fuddy duddy at the tender age of 32.something soon to be 33 (now that's a record age). Correct me if I'm wrong but the whole idea of buying air time (on commercial television) is to sell a product or service of some kind. Most TV ad campaigns for the last 5 to 10 years or so have ignored this fact of (effective) advertising. A major exception to this has been everybody's favorite type of commercial the info-commercial.

One guilty factor of this practice is the style of fast action/ fast cutting & editing used supposedly to cater to today's short attention span "I want it now" audience and to keep the audience interested in watching.

What the heck did he just say?

The audience however comprehends nothing and complains to whoever is within listening range about the strange, weird and stupid commercial. Many claim, but should more accurately blame this type of fast action editing on MTV and it's "MTV Generation" youthful audience that has the been there, done that attitude and a very short attention span.

HuH? Did you say something?

I think the first real example of this sort of thing was referenced to in the TV series Max Headroom (20 Minutes in the Future) with what they called "Blip Verts", but in the series these fast action commercials overloaded the viewers brain and caused his/her head to explode. At least in the show the audience knew what was being sold; Zik Zak a Japanese made generic brand name of almost every product under the sun.

Where did the idea of switching back and forth from crystal clear black and white; to blurry color; to simulated kinescope with brown tint; to unadjusted color etc.. etc.. etc come from? Most commercials that use blurring and color altering effects don't sell a product to me, they only make me think my 10 year old (remoteless, non-cable ready, hooked up to an overly- priced cable rental converter box) TV has finally broken down and bought the farm.

How can you sell a product on television if you never actually show the product, the use of the product or it's container? Hum... No wait a minute I'm not talking religion, I'm talking advertising. Just mentioning the name in passing doesn't mean you'll make more sales. Often the reverse is true because your audience remembers the weird commercial but forgets what the product is. Is this the best way of marketing? I think Not.

The recent Nike campaign YUCK! must be the stupidest marketing idea ever conceived. Most of their commercials never show a shoe, and the only clue you have as to what is being sold is the silly Nike Logo flashed on the screen at the very end with the words just do it!

Another recent commercial practice that only succeeds in annoying me is that of one TV channel advertising it's upcoming programming on another channel. This occurs mostly because of your local Cable System switching to local home-made commercials, instead of using the station's own feed. Recently I was watching an HBO commercial for the upcoming month's movies on a local broadcast NBC station, on a TV NOT HOOKED UP TO CABLE!. Now I know that this occurs because rich companies like HBO buy air time on the NBC station. What I don't get is when your watching HBO and you see a commercial for a Showtime Only special show. This is because of the Local Cable system inserting local or any type of commercial into the time slot on the channel designated to HBO. This practice not only confuses me, but it annoys the heck out of me.

Because of advanced computer technology, it's starting to get difficult to tell the difference between commercials for computer video games and commercials for new movies coming to the theaters. Or even when the program your watching is back on or not. That really sucks when your VCR remote doesn't pause or is completely busted. Perhaps advertisers will have to start adding a commercial identification screen to the beginning and the end of their commercials to let the consumer know what kind of product or service is being sold, and also that it is a commercial you are about to watch.

I'm not even going to go into the split screen technique used during the end credits of programs, except to say I don't mind it too much if it's used to show a preview of next week's episode (of the show you just watched), But most of the time it's used to show some stupid commercial that doesn't tell you what's being sold.