Built Ford Tough. Just Not In Reality.

Ever now and then, I pay attention to a television commercial. This evening, Mrs. Wiggy and I were watching HGTV - something about nuts with too much money who build houses in the Great White North or something like that. Buncha trust fund babies, as far as I could tell, names like Hemingway and Sellers. Anyway.

A commercial came on for Ford trucks. I've seen this one before, it shows a Ford truck with a bunch of Ford executives sitting in a crew-cab style pickup truck while it crushed from both ends by massive bulldozers. RRRRR!

The truck gets the squeeze, all right. But look, the cab is intact! And the Ford executives, they get out and stand proudly in front of the steaming hulk of their truck. Wow, look, they put their fat-cat asses on the line. They're proud and brave. Whew, I'm sure glad they're OK.

But wait.

What's that on the screen, in little teeny-tiny letters?

Dramatization. Underbody Digitally Modified.

OK, let me get this straight. The bottom of the truck was digitally modified.

Um, why? Did the guts of the truck spill out of the bottom, making a big mess of gasoline and oil and brake fluid and so on? I would expect it to, it just got crushed by a pair of bulldozers, for crying out loud.

Or did something else happen?

Maybe a couple of Ford execs got the pinch. Oooh, that's taking incentive programs to a new level, eh? Or maybe it was some captured GM execs. They'll do anything for money these days.

But come on. I understand 'digitally modified' - it means almost nothing, it doesn't say what was done. How was it changed?

I see disclaimers all the time - some guy racing the newest Blortbag 2000 and tear-assing through a four-wheel drift that would have made Hunter Thompson proud and the disclaimer tells us that he's a professional driver on a closed course. Well, no screaming eagle shit, there, pardner. I didn't think he was your average Joe Sixpack on his way to work. Well, maybe in some cities...

But this disclaimer pretty much says "You know what we just showed you? About how safe our truck is? Well, that's pretty much crap. OK, then, see ya." It contradicts the commercial itself, is what.

Nobody expects TV commercials to tell the truth. Ever dang thing is new, improved, new and improved, cheaper, bigger, better, and so on. By this time, everything should be perfect, cost nothing, and come in unlimited quantities.

But this is something new. We show you a picture of how safe our truck is, then we say in tiny little letters that no, this didn't really happen.

Now, I don't know if Ford trucks are safe or not. But I do know that they are selling us a line of crap, hoping that no one sees the little disclaimer where they pretty much admit they're lying. I got a flying middle finger for them, and it's not digitally enhanced, either.

Best,

Wiggy