Animals on TV

Animals frighten me. There I said it. No. Not animals in the zoo, not my doggie, while I am oddly petrified of cats I do not run for cover if I see a stray cat run past me on the street. What I mean...are the animals that are personified with certain human traits. A few weeks ago I was sitting in front of the TV, with my laptop, looking for jobs and writing. A commercial came on, that I am sure amused half the viewers. It was a lizard or a tree frog, a reptile of some kind. She was tending her apartment. If you do not remember the scenario she said something to the effect of: 'You can take the girl out of the Amazon but not the...' Yeah. You've seen it, claims her apartment SMELLS like a RAINFOREST. I found her story to be unbelievable! What reason would a happy, Amazon born reptile willingly leave her native jungle to live in a large city? Can we assume her husband got a good job in the city? (Pardon me if this sounds sexist, but the majority of these commercials do still pretend that all woman stay home while hubby is off at the office.) Can we assume they were paid to relocate to the city? Furthermore, what if they did not peacefully leave their abode in the Amazon? For I believe that they didn't peacefully move! No way, clearly they HAD to relocate because their darling Amazonian grove was most likely uprooted for the benefit of logging, or some other thrash and burn technique used to clear rain forests.
Yet...do we hear her story? No. We simply hear that she happily uses Glade air freshener. I am SURE her rainforest hideaway was land cleared by Glade, and she and her husband were awarded a good job and home in the city. They were exploited! You can't fool me!
Another commercial, which I frankly can't watch, involves a pair of giraffes of their wedding day. Preposterous! They are decked out in the typical wedding clothes, white gown & tuxedo. (I fail to notice every time if the lady is wearing a vail, do you know the COST of a vail long enough for a giraffe? ABSURD!) They have been re-imagined as bipedal creatures though, with their two front legs as hands, so that they can hold bibles, presumably exchange rings and - of course - receive some cough drops. Come on a Christian Wedding? Giraffes are no doubt a part of an Animistic religion, where they worship trees, nature and ancestors. The groom - apparently - has a case of a scratchy throat. He can't say 'I Do.' The giraffe of course takes the cough drop from (I think) the best man. It miraculously cures his throat. He is able to enter the bonds of Holy Matrimony. What if there was something behind the giraffe's lack of speech? How do we know they are entering into matrimony happily? Maybe this was a defense mechanism! Maybe the groom suddenly realized he wasn't over that awkward night! The camping night with his fiance and her brother, when he went down on his future brother-in-law! Maybe he was forced into marriage because he's only seventeen, and frankly he wants a paternity test. Maybe he found out how much the wedding cost and doesn't want to enter a union in that much debt!
Then again...maybe this commercial irritates me because (and I have looked) I found no pictures online of a giraffe in a wedding dress. This saddened me! Clearly this means the designers of the ad never got to use a real model to draw off of! So the wedding gown on said giraffe is NOT correct in terms of draping and proportions! See how they make us into willing children? Then again...maybe this commercial irritates me because I would like to see a giraffe dressed for a wedding. Maybe next time Vera Wang should design a gown. Dunhill, whose tobacco and clothing products doubtlessly got to Africa during the British Empire should (in support of Africa becoming a part of the global economy) design and donate a tuxedo.
Cats on TV bother me especially. I am startled whilst buried in my computer and hear a commercial for cat-food or litter because the meowing almost always opens the ad. However, there is one in the newspaper, the Sunday circulars, that I find MORE disturbing. Cats...with paws over their crotches. Cats...with another paw over their mouths. They are clearly upset about having to use the littler box, lest the results of said visit perfume the laundry room where the litter box is kept. Anyone who has lived with a cat knows that cats don't give a shit about their litter box smelling like...shit. Furthermore, what about the people who create their ads? Don't they know there is a certain litter box that hooks up to your toilet or other pipes in your home? This allows most of the offensive mess to be taken care of by the sewer. Yet the ad people, in their ivory towers, they continue to tell cat owners, "Sure, let them defecate, repeatedly! Then take their dirty little paws out from the litter box to carry germs all over your house. Sounds completely healthy. We've run tests! No fecal matter comes along with Mittens!" Indeed...
There were commercials aired a few years ago that involved dogs. They are forever sketched onto my memory, although in shattered images. It is a blur as to whether they tormented me during a long stay at home while I was living in New York, or if they were indeed running up there. It was for a local lottery. It showed dogs in all manner of human trappings. The dogs were dressed, in beds and on sofas, drinking coffee, brandishing remotes, if I recall correctly. The dogs mouths mouthed the words of the campaign, which was well and good. Barking with subtitles may have sent me running in the streets. These facts - the trappings, the talking - were mere trifles in comparison to what came next.
Hands. I refuse to remember if the dogs had human or dog-puppet hands. The sad thing is I am sure they were human hands! There, yes, they were HUMAN HANDS!!! These dogs didn't look like they were remarkably trained...they looked as if they came from the dog pound on the 'Island of Doctor Moreau!'
Another favorite is a roughly 2 yr old ad from the anti-drug council. It shows a suburban teenage girl just home from school. She heads to the refrigerator. Her dog hops up on the counter. He begins to speak to her. He really wishes she would stop smoking weed. God, if Sugar and I were in the same situation I might have a heart attack! No one would think the dog spoke, they would think I died of a marijuana drug overdose. If given the gift of gab Sugar would use the time instead to tell me to wake her up before I...masturbate so that she can leave the room. We have had MANY awkward mornings...afternoons...evenings...you get the point! Well, the drug-council dog's lips move, thanks to computer animation more developed I guess than the dogs with arms, very believably. Much more believably that the earlier lottery commercials. Now, the commentator on youtube.com says that if your dog is talking to you you're most likely smoking something other than weed. Nahhh, I've seen crackheads, they look nothing like the girl, Lindsey, in the ad. A crackhead would accept the dog speaking, and answer back, or else become violent with it. The question I ask, is if this dog is smart enough to tell Lindsey not to smoke...shouldn't he just go and tell her parents? The ones most likely on his ownership papers, who pay his bills? Talking to stoned Lindsey is not I feel the most intelligent choice he could be making. Please, let's give more credit to our animals than making them the subject of advertisers across the nation! Our animals don't deserve to look stupid when humanized...