Week 6 EOC: Make 'em laugh

This very popular commercial first aired at this last year’s Super Bowl. A commercial for Doritos corn chips, it went on to become one of the most talked about commercials of the entire Super Bowl spectacle, which for many years now, has nearly become more of a forum for funny and impressive commercials to entertain the massive TV audience, then it is about the actual football game. Sad? That part’s up to you.

In any case, this commercial worked. I personally heard about this ad from many different sources as part of Doritos ad campaign to have independent film makers come up with the best ideas to sell Doritos.

The humor of this ad comes mostly from the juvenile appeal of physical comedy favored by many American’s. In this ad a selfish jerk of a man is enjoying a bag of tasty Doritos, meanwhile taunting a nearby dog by not giving him any. But hold on, justice/vengeance/retribution is all served as the dog (in a very amusingly human gesture) takes off its anti-bark collar and puts it on the annoying man who refuses to share his chips. The revenge fully unfolds when the dog barks, sending the man into a convulsing set of electric shocks (normally meant to keep the dog from barking).

The humor of this ad comes from several angles. The jerk, clearly deserving of some form of punishment for taunting a poor animal is given his just desserts, at the hands of the very “stupid/helpless” animal he was torturing, no less. Secondly, the humor appeals to anyone who has ever seen an animal abused or mistreated and wished the vengeful wrath of God (or your chosen deity) down upon the abuser. In many ways it is the humor of role reversal. And though the particular topic of animal cruelty is not an amusing one, the thought of someone who deserves the role reversal is. Another element of the humor also comes from the comical element of seeing a dog perform actions (or obviously thinking things through) in a distinctly human manor. It’s an old sympathetic fallacy, but it’s still funny, even today.