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It’s Jake, From State Farm: Secret Agent

19 Jul

July 20, 2020

Everyone knows the It’s Jake from State Farm commercial. Guy is buying car insurance late at night and his wife thinks he’s  having phone sex. 

“What are you wearing, Jake from State Farm?”

“Uh, khakis.”

Well, there’s a new Jake in town. They even reshot the commercial to insert the new Jake.

Actors get replaced all the time. No big deal. But this is a little different. The actor is clearly not the same guy. Now that can be ignored, James Bond gets a new actor all the time. But this is different. When he’s asked what he’s wearing, Jake leans out to the guy in the next desk and asks if that has ever happened to him. The guy leans back and says “all the time.”

It’s the original Jake from State Farm! He’s sitting in the seat formerly occupied by a different agent in the original commercial. 

They can’t both be named Jake. Obviously, “Jake” is merely a code name. State Farm is a front for some sort of government intelligence gathering agency. It’s obvious. “State,” as in The State, government. “Farm” is an acronym. F.A.R.M.

Agent Jake, from State F.A.R.M. 

 

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Retail Re-tales

29 Nov

November 29, 2018

With Black Friday behind us, I certainly hope you all got your, um, whatever the big thing is this year. As far as I can tell, there is no big hot toy or must have item this season. And that’s a real shame. I’m old enough to remember when people were stabbing each other in the backs to get a Cabbage Patch doll or Colecovision. Shopping today just isn’t the same without the threat of premeditated homicide in the checkout line.

But I am old enough to remember back in the 90’s when the retail industry got together and tried to change the image of Black Friday.

For some reason, probably the threat of premeditated homicide I mentioned above, the Big Retail Companies™ felt that Black Friday had a negative connotation. Long lines, crowds, sold out items, murder, etc, so they tried to change the name. Now back then retail was a different beast than we have now. People weren’t shopping online like today, and the stores were different too. People bought clothes at places like Chess King and Merry-Go-Round and shopped in huge department stores like Bamberger’s and Korvette’s. Where are these titans of industry today? Long gone and buried. And it’s no surprise given that these are the folks who tried to change the name of Black Friday to Green Friday.

BAM!-Berger’s!

Yup, Green Friday.

Today that sounds like an environmental message: Go Green This Friday With Recycled Shoelaces! Reduce Your Carbon Footprint By Flying Pantsless This Friday! and yes, it sounded that way back in the 90’s too. But they weren’t thinking of green grass, but of green money. All the green green cash that would be flooding their registers. So to stop people from thinking about long lines and stab wounds, they tried to get people to associate the day after Thanksgiving with Green Friday.

And you know what?

Nobody gave a damn.

And that is why we still call it Black Friday today.

Ah, tradition.

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