Brick

Here’s some vuvuzela blasts to adver­tise­ments of the you-must-be-kidding sort. Vir­tu­ally all of these are from the Sun­day news­pa­per coupon sets. Because these go a long way to pay­ing my salary, please buy every one of these. They’re fine prod­ucts at hon­est prices.

• • •

Del Monte has a new cam­paign for its canned fruits and veg­eta­bles. The slo­gan goes, “When fresh fruit spoils, your food dol­lars dis­ap­pear.” The rest of the ad’s big print goes, “Pick Del Monte canned fruit instead. Enjoy sunny taste. With­out the waste.”

Moldy peaches are no fun, but keep­ing an eye on them, eat­ing the soft­est ones first or cook­ing them in some­thing, will strengthen the world’s sup­ply of tin cans and syrup.

• • •

Kraft is remar­ket­ing, repack­ag­ing or repur­pos­ing its processed Amer­i­can cheese as ideal for microwaved nachos that even chil­dren can make. “Kraft Sin­gles Melt Downs — Kids Can Melt Their Own Fun!”

Any­one who can punch 15 sec­onds (as pic­tured) on a microwave key­pad can use real cheese, with more fla­vor, cal­cium and pro­tein, as eas­ily as lay­ing over a hand­ful of chips a slice of Velveeta, in three fla­vors, Nacho, Pizza and Taco. Take the plas­tic wrap off first, kids! It takes no more time, and want those fla­vors? Mom has spices you can sprin­kle –chili pow­der, Ital­ian mix and, uh, chili pow­der –and you won’t get extra salt and preser­v­a­tives you didn’t need in the first place.

That was before I checked the related web­site. A video mini-drama auto­mat­i­cally opens of a high school prin­ci­pal hav­ing a bad morn­ing with, yes, a melt­down. Appar­ently, this 2:03 video has been re-edited into 30-second TV spots. Intact, this feels much longer than two min­utes. Maybe it’s intended to remind adults if not kids of come­dies like Fer­ris Buehler’s Day Off or Break­fast Club, but soon the over­writ­ing and over­act­ing seem real — even before the 2-second seg­ment with a gun.

• • •

Our friends at Kleenex (Kimberly-Clark has “Per­sonal Care prod­ucts man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties” in Con­way and Maumelle, Ark.) have intro­duced paper hand tow­els with a pop-up dis­penser not unlike their tissues.

The copy reads, “Your hands are only as clean as the towel used to dry them.” The pic­ture shows two bath­room walls side by side, shar­ing a towel bar. Hang­ing on the left is a wadded, smudged, for­merly white towel. On the right is an upside-down dis­penser box of Kleenex Hands Tow­els with a crisp piece of paper ready to grab. Slo­gan, “A Clean, Fresh Towel Every Time.” The box, with a wedge-shaped top, is designed to rest on and behind the towel bar, or right-side up next to the sink.

The web­site includes a song for chil­dren to sing as they wash. For con­ve­nience, it’s an MP3 audio with a pleas­ant male voice, under which are printed the lyrics with a bounc­ing ball hop­ping hap­pily to each syl­la­ble as it goes along. On the same page are two videos. One is an ani­ma­tion with a boy and a dog, an orches­trated ver­sion of the singer on the MP3. The one with the real lit­tle boy is rap. Hip-hop, get a mop, don’t be a sop, as they say in the ‘hood.

We could expect the sequel videos to explain how to use Cot­tonelle toi­let tis­sue so let’s check. Nope. It’s a video where a gray-haired seri­ous man in a suit and tie addresses the over and under controversy.

I wanna go baffroom.

• • •

Want the con­ve­nience of mod­ern pub­lic restrooms in your own bath­room and kitchen? Lysol rec­om­mends its No-Touch Hand Soap Sys­tem. Put this unit by the faucet, and place your palm under the noz­zle where an infrared eye will sense that you’re ready for a dol­lop of hygiene. The price online is about $17.

Slo­gan: “Never touch a germy soap pump again” and the copy con­tin­ues, “Helps stop the spread of bac­te­ria … Starter Kit Includes No-Touch Dis­penser, Hand Soap Refill and Four AA Batteries.”

The web­site has a help­ful, fear-mongering video and notes the soap — you have to use Lysol’s with a spe­cially shaped bot­tle — comes in three vari­eties, Sooth­ing Cucum­ber Splash, Refresh­ing Grape­fruit Essence, and Cleans­ing Green Tea & Ginger.

It’s a won­der the soap isn’t canned by Del Monte.