In Which Imitation Is The Highest Form Of Flattery

As evidenced by the fact that I haven't written anything in a few weeks, there is really nothing new and exciting going on. Perhaps, though, the fact that there is no news is news itself: faced with the lack of anything better to write about, I've decided to play the critic and give my two cents on a TV ad. Now, this is obviously not a new concept. Scores of bloggers write about advertisements, probably because they are so ubiquitous. And today I'm going to be one of them. Besides, anyone who watches as much TV as I do (and hopefully there are but a few) is bound to see some ads that just beg to be analyzed.

Mucinex's Mucus Family Reunion

Reader, meet Mr. Mucus.
Spokesblob for the expectorant Mucinex, Mr. Mucus and his mucus-y friends and family have been trying to hole up in the lungs of print and television advertisement actors for many a year now. Unfortunately for them, Mucinex has always been there to kick them out. Curses; foiled again. Anyway, most people's complaints about Mr. Mucus revolve around him being disgusting, which, as a giant glob of bronchial mucus, he is. I've never been too bothered by his inherent grossness; hey, if Mucinex wants to take the gross-out angle to sell their product, who am I to say they shouldn't? It was only when I saw their most recent TV ad that I became as sincerely disturbed with the campaign as most people have been from the beginning.

Now, this ad is so new that I've only seen it once, and, scour the internet though I did (and believe me, I did), I could not find a clip of it anywhere. So I will have to use the power of words to describe it here (a real-world application for my B.A. in English!):

We begin in the lungs of the unfortunate host. Mr. and Mrs. Mucus are inviting their mucus-blob relatives into their new home. "Aunt Harriet! Uncle Dick!" Mr. Mucus gushes, "It's a mucus family reunion!" Fine. The woman obviously has some sort of infection, and she's literally coughing up a lung trying to get rid of the mucus infestation. Then she takes Mucinex, at which point Mr. Mucus and his entire family are "evicted."

This is where it starts to get weird. After she's disease free, we see Ms. Previously-Infected-Commercial-Lady open the door to her own house. "Aunt Harriet! Uncle Dick!" she exclaims, as she ushers in some relatives of the human variety.

Here's the problem: The respective relatives of Mr. Mucus and his human hostess have the same names! What in the world is going on here? Are the mucuses anthropomorphisms of the humans? Deep down, are we all just really giant blobs of mucus? Or is there a parallel universe in which everything and everyone exists just as it does here, only instead of humans, they're mucus?

That should give you a little something to think about.