Animal ads: the furry frontier

It's time for that damn pink bunny to move over.

There have been a rash of fun, annoying and downright silly commercials by well-known corporations advertising their product(s) through the use of animals. Cute, cuddly grizzly bears, bright tropical parrots, an old and worn hound dog, a puffy goldfish, and some dirty pigeons on a quest to soil a clean car. You know you've seen them, laughed at them, or rolled your eyes at them. I'm not one for commercials at all, but two recent ones are delectable eye candy, and are sometimes more entertaining than the show they are interrupting.

The two recent ads from Pepsi and Texaco know they can lure potential customers - with the introduction of special effects, computer animation, kitsch and pop culture as we know and love it - to the ever-changing realm of advertising.

One of these commercials is the brand new Pepsi ad featuring the grizzly bears dancing to that audio epitome of pop culture, "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People. This is my personal favorite of current commercials -I crack up every time I see it. I hope thes e bears release a home work-out video. These bears obviously have no relation to those bears featured on the "Ed Sullivan Show" during the 1950s and '60s. Instead, these bears can dance, gyrate, spell (unlike the advertising people who couldn't figure out that "Pepsi" is one letter longer than "YMCA") and just plain dance better than anything I've seen at a local dance pit.

Apparently Pepsi Company has become a sort of animal fetishist. It also has an ad running featuring a goldfish who will do a trick for Pepsi. What's next, the bears doing the Macarena?

The other commercial, (by gas company Texaco) features an ol' hound dog hanging out at the old mom 'n' pop gas station singing about the thrill being gone from life. Then, out of nowhere, comes the annoyingly catchy hit "The Sign" by faded Swedish group ( and ABBA clone) Ace of Base. Lip-synching this tune is a newly arrived thrill, a flock of (no, not Seagulls) brightly colored parrots bouncing around with energy, excitement and ecstasy. I can't wait for Exxon's commercial featuring overzealous peacocks p arading like showgirls and lip-synching to the Spice Girls' "Wannabe." Maybe they can provide a clear definition for "zing-a-zing-ahhh ... "

Maybe the television suits should hire these computer-animated bears and parrots to star in some of their very high priced, yet very low-ranked shows. Yeah, don't you think it would be funny to see some of these animals work the Macarena or the Butterfly next to real (and unfunny) marionettes like Ted Danson, Bill Cosby and Arsenio?