Madness in a coffee ad... Coffee with cake? or death?

Ok so I'm watching Eddie Izzard on BBC America (whose content is pretty far removed from what gets shown on the actual BBC channels, but hey, we don't have to shell out 150 quid a year for an absurdity called a TV licence)...

Cut to a coffee commercial. Totally aimed at my damn demographic. Maxwell house has an ad that is a send up of the Madness' "Our House" video. It's sent me rushing for Napster (sadly, reincarnated in Internet 2.0 paid service with a smaller albeit more stable selection and a heapin' helping of DRM) to see if I can hear the real thing because its such an ABOMINATION. I actually rewound the commercial on my PVR to take it in again because it was so damn bad.

Let's see... we open with people who we're supposed to assume are latin american coffee growers, except they're dressed like they just walked out of Banana Republic at the mall. They're singing in a latino-british accent. WTF? Love to have been a fly on the wall when the creatives knocked back their Starbucks (they ain't drinkin' Maxwell House at the agency it'd be a little déclassé) and probably decided to hire a consultant to get it just right to make sure.

Actually I'd left the room when it was clear there was about to be a commercial but got drawn back into the room by the bastardization of the tune, that and I mis-heard "each bean is custom roasted" as "each penis" which of course got my undivided attention.

But THIS in the middle of an Eddie Izzard comedy show? It's just not compatible. It's so corny and lowbrow it doesn't fit in. The average American needs subtitles to understand Eddie Izzard even during the parts of his routines that are in English - he's funny in French too. He has that certain je ne sais quois... or in his own words "Je ne mets jamais mes spectacles par écrit parce que je suis paresseux et un peu dyslexique. Et puis ce n'est pas adapté au genre d'humour que je produis : j'ai une petite idée et j'improvise autour de ce thème une fois sur scène."

As for his whole cake or death conundrum - today I'll pick cake. Tomorrow's another day.

Oh and Napster actually HAD the track. They often don't have the more esoteric 80's stuff like when I get thinking about Chicago house music and such, or even Men Without Hats which is de rigeur in an internet 2.0 office... You'd think with all the damn marketing at my ancient demographic the service would have it - but their target market is 15 years younger than me I think.