Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

This really is a full service blog.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

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Reader Interactions

80Comments

  1. 1.

    LarsThorwald

    I have two boys, seven and five, and they were huge into Star Wars until about 6 months ago. And this ad made me melt, and be nostalgic, and smile, and want to go home and play with my kids.

    Good ad.

  5. 5.

    PurpleGirl

    Ah, I watched a YouTube of something called “Madonna of the Wasps.” It didn’t look or sound like an ad and it wasn’t about anything Star Wars. Did you change the link?

  14. 14.

    birthmarker

    In honor of all you do for us, Cole, I will pull for the Steelers on Sunday. (I don’t follow pro ball usually.)

  17. 17.

    PurpleGirl

    I clicked on it again and got the ad. It was cute. Having attended many Star Trek conventions, I know that little kid and the parent who tries to make something seem real.

  18. 18.

    Tsulagi

    In one pool I’m in got the over/under number of 49. Here’s hoping Rodgers lights it up. Sorry.

  19. 19.

    Stav

    Sorry skipped every Star Wars after #1. What is this about? Not to be cynical, but what a waste of a minute, adds zero value to VW brand.

  20. 20.

    Cris

    @birthmarker: I’m conflicted. I’d pull for the Steelers because of John Cole and because of my third grade teacher who was in love with Terry Bradshaw, but on the other hand I’m watching the game at my pal’s house, and he’s a Browns fan.

  21. 21.

    Violet

    Such a cute ad. Kid deserves an Oscar.

    @Stav:

    What is this about?

    It’s about family and the ad appeals to parents. See all the “Awww…reminds me of my kids” comments above. Apparently the new Passat is a good car for someone with a family.

  23. 23.

    PurpleGirl

    VW apparently thought it would be worth the money to buy the ad time. NFL charges it but the companies don’t have to buy the ad time if they don’t want to.

  25. 25.

    Restrung

    as a Jetta driver, I say fine. But fuck the new Jettas.
    Big assed cars look stupid with their big butts. I might just go Mazda. Or Golf. hmm

  26. 26.

    Cris

    @PurpleGirl: VW apparently thought it would be worth the money to buy the ad time.

    Spending much of my life working in small businesses, it’s really hard for me to understand the value of million-dollar advertising for trillion-dollar companies. In a mom-and-pop, you really choose your ad buys carefully and you try to find ways to track effectiveness (coupons, “mention this ad when you come in…”). I suspect it’s qualitatively different for Coca-Cola or Mercedes Benz. For a company of that size, you invest huge amounts to maintain your near-subconscious level of consumer brand awareness. You can track broad patterns of user response against ad campaigns (and you have access to huge collections of data) but there’s really no cause-and-effect, no “this ad resulted in this many sales.”

  29. 29.

    Linkmeister

    @Cris: I’m watching with the same group I’ve watched with for twenty years. The only professed allegiance by most of us is the 49ers, so recently we’ve been pulling for a) a good close game and b) (because one of us runs his own ad agency) great commercials.

  32. 32.

    Warren Terra

    @cathyx:

    Which should I make for dinner on Superbowl Sunday, chili or babyback ribs?

    Why make it an either-or?

    In the words of the late lamented Molly Ivins:

    Too much is never enough, and wretched excess is even more fun

    I forget the context, but it seems to apply to food-and-the-superbowl.

  34. 34.

    cathyx

    I don’t want to spend so much time cooking, and I can’t decide which one to make. For me, cooking=work, even though I do it and I’m good at it, I don’t love doing it.

  35. 35.

    eemom

    ferfuckSAKE. First The Captain and Tenille and now The Force Be With You?

    WTF are y’all trying to do, force me to relive my entire teenagerhood?

  39. 39.

    Corner Stone

    @Stav: If Ted Stevens was right and there existed a way for me to crawl through these tubes and cock slap you I would.

  40. 40.

    Pococurante

    My eight year old “eeevil jedi” son approves.

    I’m disappointed that someone somewhere else on the internet is not exposing the vile rebel scum who are oppressing Volkswagen commercials.

    If only there was some one, some DougJ, who could expose their hypocrisy.

  41. 41.

    Big City Mary

    Wonderful, I love the advertisers competition more than the football (can hardly tolerate almost middle age men playing sports for a job-too wierd, although love college and high school sports-always tear up passing the lights of a football Friday night high school game-brings back so many good memories, the noise, the smells, the expectations-I digress)but I will send forth good vibes toward the Steelers, but only becuase the Eagles aren’t there!

  42. 42.

    Chyron HR

    @Stav:

    Sorry skipped every Star Wars after #1.

    It’s understandable that you wouldn’t recognize such an obscure character from the franchise, then.

  43. 43.

    Stillwater

    @Pococurante: If only there was some one, some DougJ, who could expose their hypocrisy.

    It starts this way, then moves to regard for teh funny, yeah?, and ends with respeck f’da skillz. Grasshopping.

  53. 53.

    Elizabelle

    @bkny:

    Loved the commercial, and VW was savvy to give no clues about Darth’s gender.

    After the fact, maybe BJ can highlight the best Super Bowl commercials?

    My favorite is still that Monster.com spot from several years back. (Jeez, it’s 1999!)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJB0CzlzSwY

    “When I grow up … I wanna file all day … I wanna have a brown nose.”

  57. 57.

    bkny

    @Elizabelle: there’s alot of commentary at gawker and many point to the pink bedroom. regardless, that commercial is just a treat. i’ve watched it half a dozen times..

  63. 63.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    On the first weekend of February the whole country throws a party for me to do my taxes by playing a football game. I love it.

  64. 64.

    Corner Stone

    @Stillwater: Shhh…working towards the trifecta baby.

    This site has been boring the absolute fuck out of me. I can barely stand to skim it a couple times a week.
    It used to be a rollicking good back and forth but it’s been taken over by a bunch of humorless fucks who exist to suck the life out of cheap entertainment seekers such as myself.

    So I’ve been reading my bible and making amends with those I’ve wronged.

  65. 65.

    jhaygood

    so i’m generally a lurker here, but a daily one. and just thought i’d throw out that i edited that VW spot. and also another for the beetle that’ll be on the super bowl too. one bit of truth in advertising, it’ll be the :30 version of darth that airs on sunday. this :60 is way better…

    cheers! back to lurking…

  66. 66.

    Corner Stone

    @jhaygood: I, for one, fucking loved it.
    My 6 yr old loves Darth, and was DV for Halloween in a closely similar costume. He rocked it. And he went round using the “force” on just about everything.

  69. 69.

    Ron

    I saw that commercial earlier on my facebook newsfeed. Our 4 year old loved it. (He’s also told us he wants a Darth Vader birthday cake and wants to be Darth Vader for Halloween. Where the hell am I gonna find a Darth Vader birthday cake?)

  70. 70.

    ruemara

    @bkny:

    Girls don’t do Star Wars? What an odd concept. I’ve been doing anything Sci-Fi, action or Anime related for nearly 40 years. Glad to see the netizens of geekdom rally around her like that.

    @jhaygood:
    Not to nitpick, because the commercial is all kinds of awesome, but I’m heartened to hear there’s a :30 version. It just seemed ideal for :45 but who sells those spots. Congrats on the work!

  71. 71.

    birthmarker

    @Ron: 4 year olds aren’t that hard to please. You can probably get a black mask and prop it in the corner of the cake. OT, but a big ole 18 year old told me once his best birthday memories were that his mom always let him decorate his own cake. After that I would get a few cake toppers and sprinkles, etc., and let my kids decorate their cakes themselves. Enjoy–it goes really fast….

  72. 72.

    Hawes

    Girls do Star Wars, but boys do Darth Vader. My kids love Vader, which is kinda creepy, but totally in character for the oldest.

    That’s a great ad, but, as someone noted, what does it do for VW?

  73. 73.

    Corner Stone

    Sigh. This site continues to be populated by people with no imagination, or humor.
    Why don’t you mirthless fucks go join the closest Agnostics Society, or Tools of the 18th Century Society or something?
    The rest of us are going to identify with how awesome the moment is when that kid tunes the VW up using the force.*

    *That kid plays it so awesome, like he’s just discovered gravity or some shit when the car starts. I would’ve peed myself from smiling so hard if I was the dad in that scenario.

  74. 74.

    Corner Stone

    I love it how the dad just wants a little lovin from his child and he gets hard core waved off by DV.
    This ad is awesome.

  76. 76.

    Cathie from Canada

    Yes, its a cute commercial — one of the most annoying things about living in Canada is that we get Canadian commercials during the Superbowl, so we don’t know what all the buzz is about until days or weeks later, if ever.
    Trivial, I know, but darn it, it really is annoying.
    (That said, the ad made me wonder whether remote starters are something new in the States? We’ve had them on Canadian cars for years, so it surprised me that the kid wouldn’t have known already that Dad had used the remote.)

  77. 77.

    cs

    From direct experience, I can tell you girls love Darth Vader too. My niece had a Star Wars phase during years 5 to 7. Her favorite character was Vader. When asked why, she responded: “Because no one tells him what to do. He doesn’t have to take a bath or go to bed or do anything that he doesn’t want to do. I want to be Darth Vader when I grow up!”

    Somewhere in my mess of files, I have a video of her in a Vader mask yelling out “Luke, I am your father!” and then giggling when I’d do the Hamil scream “Nooooooooooo!”

  79. 79.

    Paul W.

    Eh, it was alright…. but that was obviously not a kid (way too deliberate with his emotions), which kind of ruined it for me.

    I’ve had better.

  80. 80.

    jhaygood

    @Paul W.: as i mentioned above i edited the spot, and it is indeed a kid. that’s what directors and editors do – manipulate an actor’s performance for a desired effect.

    anyway, glad you’ve had better.

    now back to al jazeera…

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