'Only idiots and losers would use our product'

Have I lost touch with what's funny, or has Anheuser Busch? While putting my brain on hold and watching the NFL bread and circus Saturday, I again found myself amazed at what appears to me to be the wondrously unfunny ads for the "Bud Light Daredevil."

In the latest episode, their hero takes on the daring task of going shopping with his girlfriend while there's a playoff game on TV. In the next scene, an extremely attractive woman is seen checking out items in a clothing store while the daredevil clutches the racks for dear life, finally collapsing into a heap. Paramedics rush him into an easy chair in front of a widescreen TV. I don't laugh. And I reach for a Miller.

I seem to detect a growing trend in TV ads, where the message seems to be: Only idiots and losers would use our product. The other example that springs to mind is the roomful of nerds who don't know how to protect their computers without the kindly men of America Online. In real life, the Bud Light man would not need to worry about shopping with his girlfriend. He wouldn't have one.