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By Tgreen, July 21, 2009 12:19 pm

Fast food commercials scare me. Yes, they do. They scare the bejeezus out of me sometimes. The stuff they advertise is referred to as food, but then you look at the TV screen and you have to scratch your head and wonder who they’re trying to kid. Well, they’re trying to kid you, kid. And it’s scary.

For example, have you seen the new Quizno’s ads? They’re now offering something called Toasty Torpedoes. Toasty Torpedoes. I don’t know why, and I’m sure it’s totally my fault, but Toasty Torpedoes sounds dirty. It sounds like, maybe, an act that involves, well, one torpedo-like item and one really, uh, warm and toasty destination. Not like something I want to order for lunch. Well, maybe like something I want to have at lunchtime, but not something I want anywhere near my mouth.

Taco Bell is another one trying to entice us with the product name. First they had the Volcano taco, which involved a red taco shell and cheese sauce they claimed was superhot. That didn’t last too long, so now they’re selling the Volcano burrito. Which makes me think they either over-ordered the hot cheese sauce, or under-ordered the red taco shells. But hey, good for Taco Bell for being so flexible. The Volcano burrito commercial shows a wedding party full of guys who ate a Volcabo burrito and whose faces are now bright red. Because yeah, I want to eat a burrito that makes me look like instead of eating the molten hot cheese sauce, I let someone spray a gallon of it on my face. Or maybe these faces are so red because of the great effort required to pass that dense Taco Bell burrito while on the toilet an hour after eating one. Either way, the Volcano burrito is scary, and probably not for the reasons Taco Bell would like us to think.

Almost as bad is the new snack wrap from McDonald’s. You’ve seen the snack wrap commercials before, right? They cram some chicken, some lettuce, and some mysterious sauce into a tortilla and trick you into thinking it’s healthy. Hey, it’s a wrap, right? It’s got vegetables in there, and a tortilla. Don’t think about the fact that usually there’s a slab of fried chicken in there too. It’s a wrap, and wraps are healthy. But now it appears McDonald’s has given up trying to trick us. They’re selling a snack wrap with a Big Mac jammed in there.

Yep, they take that same bit of lettuce, a pickle, the Big Mac secret sauce, and a Big Mac patty cut into 2 pieces and wrap it up in a tortilla. It looks pretty gross in the commercial, where, in theory at least, fast food is presented in the best way it’s possibly ever going to look. To pick on the Big Mac for another second, just think of how the Big Mac looks on TV. Not too bad, huh? It looks like something you might want to eat. And yet when you get one at McDonald’s, it’s a totally different experience. Your Big Mac looks like it’s been stepped on and kicked around. It’s like you see Alec Baldwin on the TV commercial, then go to the restaurant and get Daniel Baldwin on your tray. But the Big Mac pieces crammed into a tortilla? They already look like Stephen Baldwin in the commercial. So what are you going to find when you actually order one? Is there a Baldwin worse than Stephen? Is there like an Ichabod Baldwin out there I don’t know about? That’s what I imagine this snack wrap looks like in real life. The thought chills me.

But I’m not sure if it chills me as much as the White Castle commercial for their pulled pork sandwiches. The idea of White Castle serving a pulled pork sandwich is terrifying enough. In fact, it’s so terrifying that you would think it would be impossible for any commercial to make the idea seem even worse than it already is. And then you turn on your TV one day, minding your own business and innocently hoping to catch some of those last precious new episodes of According to Jim, and you see someone dressed up in a giant pig costume doing a striptease on stage and dumping a giant bucket of BBQ sauce all over itself. The horror. The horror. It’s almost like the commercial is telling you that under no circumstances should you actually consider eating one of these things. And if that’s really the case, then bravo, White Castle, for looking out for us. But it probably would’ve been best for all of us if you’d left the pork pulling to a professional.

Heh, pork pulling.