Going to pot (Ooo! A pun!)
Jan. 16th, 2003 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slipjig3So anyway, the battle goes on between consumers and marketing execs over who is the most blitheringly stupid. Have any of you seen the Ronco-esque ads for the latest Miracle Invention You Can't Live Without? It's basically a big pot for cooking pasta, which has (wait for it) the colander built right in to the lid! You just lock the lid in place, pour the water out of the holes punched into the lid, and voila! Perfectly drained pasta, and you didn't even have to remove it from the pot! How amazing is that? [NOTE: anyone who is sarcasm-impaired might want to move on to something else.]
So, okay, fine. Nothing wrong with the product, other than the faint whiff of tackiness, right? Well:
1) Among all the inconveniences I face in the kitchen, I can honestly say that pouring macaroni into a colander is pretty close to the bottom of the list. But the advertising monkeys, doing what they do best, try to show us just how necessary this wonder-product is, and how astonishing it is that we've been able to function as human beings for so long without it. So we get scenes of Mom trying to pour spaghetti into a strainer and failing miserably, splashing stuff around and getting bits of pasta all over creation, intercut with a shot of Mom's hungry family at the dinner table being blatantly pissed off that THE F%@#ING SPAGHETTI ISN'T READY YET. Personally, I think (a) this particular obviously-fictional Mom should not be trusted with hot stoves and/or sharp cutting implements, and (b) the equally-fictional family should get off their lazy duffs and do something.
2) We also get to see other miracle uses for the wonder-product, including using it to drain the grease from ground beef, which we see happening before our very eyes as Fictional Mom pours the beef tallow right into the sink. Good show, Mom! (Plus, if you order now, you also get the Miracle Plumber's Snake! Clears grease clogs in second! Order now!)
3) Here's the amazing part: there are not one, but two different pots-with-holes-in-the-lids being advertised right now. Yes, two. One is called simply The Pasta Pot, and the other is something to the effect of *gack* Pasta Magic. (For my next trick, with a wave of my wand, I'll mystically perforate this cheap pot lid! Alakazam! *poof*) The pots have exactly the same concept, very nearly the same design, and excruciatingly similar commercials, right down to the potato demonstration. As far as I can tell, the only real difference is the array of goodies you'll get If You Order Now: with one, it's the Mini-Pasta Pot, and with the other, it's the Amazing Cheese Grater. Wow. I'm so whelmed.
4) You can order either of these pots with your Free Gifts for only $14.95. Now, assuming that these companies are trying to actually make a profit (because frankly, there are much easier ways to make charitable donations), take a moment to do the math and estimate how much it cost to make these wonder-products. Now calculate how long they'll last before your six-year-old child manages to trash the thing by banging it with a lemon reamer.
Thank you for your time, Purveyors of Miracle Inventions, but, see, I have opposable thumbs. Move along, now.
So, okay, fine. Nothing wrong with the product, other than the faint whiff of tackiness, right? Well:
1) Among all the inconveniences I face in the kitchen, I can honestly say that pouring macaroni into a colander is pretty close to the bottom of the list. But the advertising monkeys, doing what they do best, try to show us just how necessary this wonder-product is, and how astonishing it is that we've been able to function as human beings for so long without it. So we get scenes of Mom trying to pour spaghetti into a strainer and failing miserably, splashing stuff around and getting bits of pasta all over creation, intercut with a shot of Mom's hungry family at the dinner table being blatantly pissed off that THE F%@#ING SPAGHETTI ISN'T READY YET. Personally, I think (a) this particular obviously-fictional Mom should not be trusted with hot stoves and/or sharp cutting implements, and (b) the equally-fictional family should get off their lazy duffs and do something.
2) We also get to see other miracle uses for the wonder-product, including using it to drain the grease from ground beef, which we see happening before our very eyes as Fictional Mom pours the beef tallow right into the sink. Good show, Mom! (Plus, if you order now, you also get the Miracle Plumber's Snake! Clears grease clogs in second! Order now!)
3) Here's the amazing part: there are not one, but two different pots-with-holes-in-the-lids being advertised right now. Yes, two. One is called simply The Pasta Pot, and the other is something to the effect of *gack* Pasta Magic. (For my next trick, with a wave of my wand, I'll mystically perforate this cheap pot lid! Alakazam! *poof*) The pots have exactly the same concept, very nearly the same design, and excruciatingly similar commercials, right down to the potato demonstration. As far as I can tell, the only real difference is the array of goodies you'll get If You Order Now: with one, it's the Mini-Pasta Pot, and with the other, it's the Amazing Cheese Grater. Wow. I'm so whelmed.
4) You can order either of these pots with your Free Gifts for only $14.95. Now, assuming that these companies are trying to actually make a profit (because frankly, there are much easier ways to make charitable donations), take a moment to do the math and estimate how much it cost to make these wonder-products. Now calculate how long they'll last before your six-year-old child manages to trash the thing by banging it with a lemon reamer.
Thank you for your time, Purveyors of Miracle Inventions, but, see, I have opposable thumbs. Move along, now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-16 07:28 am (UTC)Let us not forget that the pot looks to only hold, what? 4 quarts of water? Do you know what happens to a pound of pasta in that small amount of water?? Sticky, nasty.. ARGH. Trainging a whole new generation how to make crappy pasta. At least it won't put Mama Rosa out of business. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-16 08:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-16 09:13 am (UTC)BTW: My pasta pot is also good for potatoes and asparagus, and other yummy vegies. Just don't brown beef in it, and if you ground your own stuff you won't have that nasty fat problem ANYWAY. Geesh. ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-16 10:46 am (UTC)Yeah, the housewives in the commercial are klutzy. I'm thinking to myself, "Do I really want this person involved in food preparation? I mean, I'm suppose to eat this stuff, eh?"
(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-18 11:10 am (UTC)How do you handle breathing if you’re too fucking STUPID to operate a colander?.
From the post:
According to today’s Wall Street Journal, marketers claim to have sold at least 2,000,000 of those perforated pasta pots. (oooo, alliteration...) That’s 2,000,000 people who either are, or are perceived by “friends” or “family” to be, too fucking stupid to be trusted with a colander.