Mayhem Is Going To Get You. After It Gets Your Children.

Imagine, if you will, a man. A scary man in a black suit. This man-this entity-loves causing vehicle-related chaos wherever he goes, and no one's car is safe. Have you run screaming in horror to check YOUR car yet? You should. Because Mayhem is coming, and he feels no remorse.

Such is the premise of a new series of frankly brilliant commercials just aired by Allstate insurance company. The ads follow the darkly comedic exploits of Mayhem personified in the form of actor Dean Winters (most notably famous for his work on the HBO drama "Oz").

This central idea is a refreshingly original way of catching people's attention, making them laugh, and (in an ever so subtle way) scaring the hell out of them so they buy your insurance services.

Our favorite scenarios by far are the teenage girl recklessly driving her pink suburban tank into someone else's car (OMG!) and the malicious windstorm. Both things/people narrated by Mayhem in his gravelly, film-noir voice; adding to the surreality and making the situation that much funnier.

Winters is perfectly cast in the role. He sells the character's evil nature seemingly without effort, waggling his eyebrows at the viewer and cackling after getting hit with a car or rear-ended. Mayhem also retains the scrapes and bruises he sustains in each accident from commercial to commercial, adding a sort of continuity to the whole thing.

Overall, our verdict is that we much prefer this new, more frightening gentleman over the guy from The Unit. He was nice and everything, but did anyone ever see him drop a tree branch on a car? Or jog with a sexy headband? The answer to that riddle is no, Billy.

P.S. we know that our last post was only two days ago, but we're trying to make up for all the times we haven't been there in your life, reader, so we thought we'd try and post a little more often. Don't expect it to become a regular thing though. The zombie concubine cosmonauts could find us any minute. Ad is posted below.

Tugging On Your Heartstrings? There's An App For That.

To the delight of geeks and pretentious dill-holes around the world, the iPhone 4 was recently released by Apple, with a sturdy new construction born of the fires of Mount Doom.

In spite of the fact that nothing is really needed to sell the technological yay-o that is Apple products, Mr. Steve Jobs (in all of his black-turtlenecked spookiness) has had his ad people come up with a campaign that gets all up in there with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

We do have to begrudgingly give Apple credit for possessing the uncanny ability to maximize the emotional impact of a thirty second commercial. The scenes depicted range from a grandfather laying eyes on his newborn grandson from (presumably) miles away to a cutesy exchange between a young couple after her new haircut.

The centerpiece of this campaign is the iPhone's "facetime" feature, which utilizes the phone's new front camera to provide a mobile "skype"-esque experience.

If we were less classy journalists, we'd make a joke here about, say, ATT dropping the call before granddad even gets to see little junior. However, we're better than that. You should be ashamed of yourself for thinking we'd stoop so low.

The most obvious reason that these commercials have so much appeal is that they are specifically designed to skew wide and hit home with a varied audience. The actors are diverse in both age and race, and the scenes shown seem plucked right out of your life. Or the life of someone you know. Because you have friends. We swear we typed that with a straight face.

On an unrelated note, a quick follow-up on our geriatric sleeper cell story of an earlier post. We invite you to look at most of the U.S. Congress. Enough said. Be ready.

While we do concede that Apple's ads are expertly crafted and affective, the eternal question of whether or not the blatant emotional manipulation present in them is ethical still exists. We invite you to comment on the issue as always, dear reader. One of the ads is posted below.

Respect Your Elders, or Get Jacked In The Neck With A Taser.

We recently happened to catch quite a comedic gem in the form of a Doritos commercial on the old idiot box a few days ago.

The commercial serves to illustrate exactly why old people make the perfect assassins. You never see the death blow coming, because who would ever expect it from the sweet old man behind you in the vending machine line?

We've actually been convinced for quite some time that there is a network of geriatric sleeper agents being place in key societal positions, and said network will eventually execute a coup of the government if we don't act now. More on this story as it develops.

But we digress. Frito Lay's Doritos ads have been, in our opinion, consistently funny over the last couple of years. If you've seen their Super Bowl spots, you already know that they focus in large part on random and unexpected comedy to sell their product (a la "snack attack samurai" and the infamous "mousetrap" commercial).

If slapstick isn't your bag (baby), you might not find these ads funny at all. And you're a horrible person. However, if you do, the "old man" advertisement is posted below for you to watch over and over again.