Captain D's is currently running an ad campaign that should be considered a war crime. When my television starts chanting "Fish D'Lish," I have to drive for the remote's mute button before the repetition drives me mad (or madder than I already am, anyway).

Once upon a time, I heard Stephen Colbert suggest that the best way to kill an earworm is to sing a shorter earworm that "cannot loop." His example was "by Mennen" as sung at the end of Speed Stick commercials. John Oliver suggested the "Ricola" yodel, and that's the one that usually works for me. I've been singing "Ricola" a lot lately.

On a marginally related note, I've recently been playing with the Talkback accessibility option on my phone. Theoretically, I could use it to control my phone hands free, but I've been using it to read Wikipedia articles out loud while I walk the dogs. Today I listened to the story of the Second Peloponnesian War. I found it amusing to hear my phone insist on calling the Persian king "Xerxes Eye."

That led me to wonder what Talkback's narrator would call this website, which has a made-up name I brainstormed on a napkin in my first apartment in Athens. Everyone seems to get it wrong on the first try. To my surprise, the phone handled "wriphe" perfectly. (For the record, it's pronounced like "rife," which was Merriam-Webster.com's Word of the Day on Sunday, and I'm going to have to steal their explanation to be another tagline for this site: "Rife Wriphe usually describes things that are very common and often—though not always—bad or unpleasant.")

So of course you know what I tested Talkback on next. Hint: It rhymes with "dish o'fish." What can I say? Advertising works.

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Look, Wendy's, I really don't need your marketing calling people liars because they like homemade "saucy nuggs." If you want to sell low-cost, high-profit processed frozen chicken slurry pressed into Play-Doh molds and smothered in oil, fine. You have the same right as everyone else who has access to a Sysco account. Just stop casting aspersions on what I may or may not do with chicken in my own kitchen, thank you very much.

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In news shocking to all Baby Boomers and younger, it has been widely reported that current manufacturer Ferrara Candy has decided to discontinue Fruit Stripe Gum, thereby once-and-for-all answering the question: no, we will not still feed you when we are 64.

Sixty-four years is a long time, but Ferrara Candy has only been selling Fruit Stripe for a small fraction of that time. Prior to 2012, Ferrara Candy was known as Farley & Sathers Candy, which itself was only founded in 2002 and bought the pre-existing Fruit Stripe brand from Hershey Foods in 2003. Hershey only had Fruit Stripe for about a year; they bought it in 2001 from Nabisco, which had acquired it in a 1981 merger with E.R. Squibb Company, which got their hands on it in a 1968 merger with Beech-Nut Life Savers who had introduced it in 1960.

(For more fun information on American corporation brand hi-jinks through history, I encourage you to visit the online archive of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which retired their old TESS [Trademark Electronic Search System] last year for a more modern and easier to use but less acronymically friendly "cloud-based trademark search system" [CBTSS? Blech.] )

As has been the trend in recent beloved-but-unprofitable food brands being killed off by one corporate parent only to spring back to life under another (see: Hostess Twinkies and Necco Wafters), I expect that this media brouhaha will lead to continued life for Fruit Stripe. In fact, as of January 10, there is already a pending request at the US Patent Office for a new trademark just registered by Iconic Candies, a company dedicated to continuing discontinued "classic brands" like Bar None (discontinued by Hershey in 1997) and Creme Savers (discontinued by M&M/Mars in 2011).

Anyway, while we await zombie Fruit Stripe's inevitable return, in tribute to its nostalgic greatness, I offer a page from my personal comic book collection in which I demonstrated my 4-year-old's love of brightly artificial-colored, briefly artificially-flavored chewing gum by helping brand mascot Yipes the zebra navigate a maze of marketing Q&As.

from The Friendly Ghost, Casper, July 1980, No. 211

(Disclaimer: I might have cheated.)

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Watching football this week, I saw a commercial promoting the an upcoming Aquaman movie trailer. That's literally a commercial for a commercial.

Meanwhile, McDonald's has taken to airing commercials featuring movie clips that feature McDonald's product placement, in other words a commercial featuring other commercials.

As loathe as I am to give any attention to a Coca-Cola competitor, the highlight of the televised NFL opening weekend was easily this Frito-Lay ad (title: "Unretirement") featuring a handful of washed-up NFL has-beens... plus Dan Marino.

Nothing sells potato chips like a little memento mori.

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It's a fact of life in the smartphone age that advertisers have gotten so good at anticipating your future purchases, they'll send you ads for diapers before you even realize you're pregnant.

So I probably shouldn't be too quick to dismiss this ad I got earlier today:

So I guess I love baseball, cheerleaders, constipated hookers... and the Bible?

That makes me a true American! Thanks, Etsy!

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How'd that old commercial go? "You got chocolate in my Batman!"

I didn't know it when I picked this up at my local Fine Foods Store, but this is the third year Hershey's has produced a DC's Super Hero Bar. I think it's a fun idea, even if the candy itself doesn't really seem to understand how sequential art is supposed to work.

This reminds me that back in art school in the 90s, I made a white chocolate candy bar in which each "panel" told a different chapter of my life-up-til-then story. I created a custom wrapper, too. I assure you, it looked better than it tasted.

By the way, don't miss out on International Batman Day 2022, which Warner Bros has decided is tomorrow, September 17. (It used to move around the calendar a lot, but this "holiday" seems to have settled into the third Saturday in September in recent years.) Celebrate it however you like.

Personally, Batman recommends chocolate.

Source: gifer.com

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Shaving cream.

For adult men.

To shave their manly faces.

Advertising dinosaurs.

For those who don't know, a fake Barbasol can containing dino DNA was a key element in the original Jurassic Park movie... and apparently the new Jurassic Park movie.

To celebrate, Barbasol has launched a sweepstakes in which the grand prize winner can choose to watch a movie or... go camping. Which, if you've ever actually watched a Jurassic Park movie, seems like the kind of prize that you may want to actually avoid.

But this is America, and Madison Avenue has never let a little thing like logic get in the way of a marketing opportunity.

So grab your razor and get cutting! The future of mankind may depend on it!

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advertisement from The Red And Black, November 23, 1945

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Maybe. But the real question is can I fuck them?

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Say hello to this year's post-Thanksgiving yard sign, Speedy Alka-Seltzer:

Speedy Alka-Seltzer was a 1950s advertising character. I don't know how many people will recognize him today. (The original Speedy was a stop-motion stick puppet, but this painting is based on a 3-foot talking doll made for mid-century promotion in pharmacies. You might have seen a surviving model on Antiques Roadshow.)

Mom was enthusiastic — it was actually her idea — so he'll be out by the mailbox for at least the next week reminding people not to party too hardy.

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