What happened to Adnoxious?

I honestly thought I could push this to the side for a little while and no one in the overcrowded blogosphere would even notice, so as much as I loathe writing about myself, enough of you have written and posted about the sudden dearth of updates lately that I felt a brief word about it would be.. what's the word? "Nice"?

The holiday season is an insanely busy time in my field, which for the sake of brevity we'll call "television post-production." Production houses are notorious for waiting until the last possible minute to wrap their programs, the result being 13,000 television programs that are all clamoring to be finished before the Christmas/New Year break. This means a lot of 12-hour days and very little energy left over for making fun of advertising. Which is a shame, because this time of year really produces some truly terrible commercials.

So Noxxy isn't gone, just exhausted and waiting for the crush to ease so we can all get back to fighting the good fight.

Until then, watch this. BBL.

Bring me a blindfolded 10-year-old, I wanna test this

We try to shy away from vintage advertisements, because they were all Godless heathens back then who didn't know any better, and we've never featured a print ad before, but sometimes it's worth stepping back and remembering that obnoxious advertising can happen anywhere, anytime.

Ah. Huh. In short shorts, no less.

Raisin Bran Extra -- A bowl full of... wait, really?

Oh, hallo, Retarded Consumer. It's been a while.

RC's adore camping out for new products. Since it's so difficult to hold down steady employment, being R and all, there isn't a whole lot else to do 'cept wait for cereal and giggle at brassiere advertisements.

One would think, however, that after exhaustively researching every aspect of Raisin Bran's exciting new product line, one of these three would have had the foresight to call ahead to the store and ask about their hours. In fact, why are they not already familiar with the hours of their local Sav-U-Mart? Is this not their local Sav-U-Mart? Did they fly in from out of town for this?

But you know what goes perfectly with a sad tableau of middle-aged men trying to sledgehammer some pathetic vestige of adventure into their lives before the door to their youth is slammed shut forever, locking them in a sepulcher of wrinkled skin and tepid sex? A wacky catchphrase shouted at top volume formed from a poorly-researched understanding of modern slang. And you said there was no shortcut when it came to ensnaring both the youth AND Gen-X markets. Ha! Never underestimate the amazing powers of a lazy ad exec without a single glimmer of a notion regarding what's cool.

It must be very disheartening to be a working actor, land a part in a commercial, and have to simultaneously brag to your family and urge them never to watch it.

Chances I will Raisin Bran Extra thanks to this ad: A bowl full of FAIL!

Thursday Throwdown -- Mattresses!

Welcome back to the Throwdown, all, where the best of the worst of local advertising is showcased, honored, and then made to compete for our amusement. Now that our stable of competitors has had a restful, tryptophan-tastic holiday break, it's time to get back to the action.

Last week, some rootin'-tootin' gun shootin' took place in the Throwdown arena. Two local gun-store advertisements went head to head, and your winner by a substantial margin was Don's Guns of Indianapolis, Indiana.

The too-friendly-uncle laugh combined with the baffling concept of gun rental really made this no contest. And frankly, I don't think anyone wants to witness the aftermath of an angry Don, so kudos to our mustachioed champion.

On to this week's contest -- mattress stores.

Frankly, I'm amazed that mattress stores have stayed out of the Throwdown for as long as they have. Sorting through this week's competitors, I think it's very likely that this one might go into overtime.

First up, in the red corner -- yes, that really is supposed to be an English accent -- it's the Rich Little-esque comedy stylings of Trent from Trent Bedding Company of Bowling Green, Kentucky!

Does anyone else feel the need for a shower after hearing Trent ask you if he was making you sleepy? Nothing personal, Trent, but, ya know... please stop that.

And in the blue corner, packing so many bizarre local-advertisement cliches into a single commercial, it damn near brought down the Adnoxious server, it's Ted from The Mattress Ranch of Wasilla, Alaska (among others)!

Puppets? Old white man shuckin' and jivin'? Poorly-rhymed song? Location "across from the bus barn"? Sound recorded next to a fleet of idling cargo planes? We plum ran out of checkmarks for this one.

Apropos of nothing, a fun fact about The Mattress Ranch: if you leave their website open long enough, it moos at you.

There you have it. Leave your vote for your favorite in the comments section. May the best purveyor of quality sleeps win.