Video Breakdown: That Keanu Coke Commercial

Here’s a delightful little gem from the 80’s featuring the singularity known as Keanu in one of his earliest and undoubtedly greatest performances.

                                        

I know nothing about competitive cycling, but here’s the knowledge I gleaned about the sport after watching this.

A)  Wearing a futuristic bike helmet with lots of big, gaping holes in it makes you look way cooler, but it doesn’t really help you go much faster. So it’s basically a fashion statement, but I can dig it.

B)  In your moment of desperation, when it looks like you can’t go any further, you must spur yourself on with an inspirational flashback. Preferably of that time you were sitting on the front porch with your father who often likes to wear some kind of weird lumberjack coat and offer you generic platitudes.

C)   You’ve really got to want it. To validate this motivation, repeat out loud to yourself that you do indeed want it.

D)  None of these things are good enough because you will still finish second.

E)   After you’ve finished your cycling marathon, you will be incredibly parched and your lungs will no doubt feel like they are exploding within you. Now is the perfect moment to gulp down a carbonated beverage. Let the searing bubbles burn their way down your gullet and hydrate your weary body.

F)   When your performance is sub-par, make sure you give the credit to your father. It’s what I like to call “shifting the blame.”

G)   Coke is obviously it.

The Sea Monkey Conspiracy!

Yes. The much maligned Sea Monkeys.

While rediscovering some of my old comics, I came across this ad in one of the books. Suddenly, a veritable sea of memories came crashing over me. Oh, how I had once longed to own those precious Sea Monkeys! What wonders these magical, pink, little humanoid animals must have held! And according to the ad, you could even easily train them to do tricks! Brilliant! And for only $1.25? How could I go wrong?!

Of course, once I presented the ad to my parents, I was told it was all a lie. "They don't really look like this. It's a trick to make you want to buy them." I was sure that they didn't know what they were talking about. It was all right there. In the advertisement. And advertisements can't lie. I was sure of it.

But I never got the chance to see these beautiful little Pepto Bismol sea horse creatures in action. And now I'm glad, because I'm sure the realization that my dear Sea Monkeys were actually common brine shrimp would have brought my world crashing down around me.

Here's the most incredible part of the ad: "Best of all, we even show you how to teach them (the sea monkeys, that is) to obey your commands like a pack of friendly trained seals. What a way to surprise your guests." Even at a young age, I should have become suspicious after reading that, considering they couldn't even muster up one measly exclamation point to cap off this astounding claim. Can you imagine that poor child that tried to impress his friends with the trained seal antics of his pet shrimp? I bet that kid got beat up at school. And called "Sea Monkey Boy." And slow danced against the gym wall by himself at prom.

I guess the moral of the story here is to never trust an ad for glorious little fish-men who raise happy families and live in a castle under the sea and anxiously await your bidding to do tricks. It ain't real. Notice the fine print in the ad: "Caricatures shown not intended to depict Artemia Salina." You got that right. What exactly were you trying to depict then? Jerks.