Be Tough, Buy a Truck

From watching our truck commercials, a creature from another planet would assume two things:

1) 93 percent of American men work on ranches -- the rest work on farms -- and

2) America has fewer paved roads than the moons of Saturn.

They would also assume, of course, that American men spend most of their day searching for incredibly heavy objects to lug over rugged desert terrain, when, in fact, a more typical load would be couple of Big Macs and a Happy Meal, driven through quiet suburban neighborhoods.

A new wrinkle was added recently with an ad featuring various guys practically drooling about what manly things they could accomplish with a new, powerful truck.

One man says, "I would get my tools back from my neighbor," as he is shown using the truck to rip out a garage door.

Apparently, this man's neighborhood has such a serious problem with people not returning borrowed tools that the only rational option is buying a truck capable of wreaking destruction.

But the selling point is always the same, trucks are tough and powerful (and so are the buyers).

Ford has now taken a step further.

Its Super Bowl ad proclaimed something like, "Ford doesn't just make tough trucks. They make you tough!"

Now Ford might claim this was just a joke, an "edgy" commercial made especially for the Super Bowl, but here's my guess: The other ads were just too subtle.

Ford wanted an ad that said, "Buy a Ford truck and be a Real Man!"

When I was growing up there wasn't much doubt about what made men tough -- muscles.

We had advertisements that showed a bully coming up on the beach and kicking sand on a guy, who's afraid to fight back because he's a 97-pound weakling.

(Due to the super-sizing of America, we no longer have 97-pound weaklings; they now weigh 300 pounds.)

The weakling resolves to build himself up by using the famed Charles Atlas exercise plan that, according to fitness professionals, has never worked for anybody in the history of the universe.

No matter, in the next segment, the guy, oddly bulked up and looking like he and Barry Bonds employ the same sports trainer, steps up and sucker punches the bully.

A new version of the ad would probably show the guy running over the bully with a huge SUV, backing over him a few times before going to look for heavy objects to haul around.

But another commercial competes with Ford's for sheer weirdness, the soda-pop ad with the "Stacey's Mom" soundtrack.

This advertisement seems to suggest to 30-something moms that 12-year-old boys will find them "hot" if they ply them with the right carbonated beverages, in this case Dr Pepper.

While science has established the validity of "beer goggles" -- the power of adult, fermented drinks to render members of the opposite sex more attractive -- there have been, to date, no authoritative studies on "Dr Pepper goggles."

Sorry, Moms, if you want 12-year-old boys to think you're hot, you need to buy a truck.

Write to Don Flood in care of King Features Weekly Service, P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475, or send e-mails to dflood@ezol.com