Pizza Hut's Latest Ad Is A Crime Against Humanity

Despite my best efforts with Tivo, sometimes I end up watching TV as it airs and catch a commercial or two. The experience is only made worse when I catch one of Pizza Hut's commercials for its line of, most assuredly, craptacular pasta meals. I take issue with its premise, legality, and ability to insult viewers.

Count your blessings if you haven't noticed this ad. Here's the plot: Pizza Hut takes a blindfolded family out to an Italian restaurant only to instead have them return home and eat Pizza Hut pasta meals at at their dining room table. It's so clever! After removing their blindfolds the family members are amazed they're eating Pizza Hut pasta and proceed to feign happiness for the taste.

Come to Pizza Huts in India for Bhangra dancing, not good food.

The entire premise is a hoax. No matter how dumb Americans are, no matter how desperate they are for money (appearance fees), and no matter how hungry they are for fame, nobody would agree to be in a Pizza Hut commercial after being fooled. Actually, those are all reasons why they'd agree to be in the commercial. That is, if they aren't the actors we know they are.

Anyway. Let's say they're ordinary people. Why would you agree to be blindfolded and taken out of your house to a restaurant? How would you know to trust the people to take you as promised? Hello! You're agreeing to be kidnapped out of your home for a free meal! WTF? Oh sure, just make sure you lock up when we leave into your unmarked van at night and don't forget to walk the dog.

This is how a real taste test of Pizza Hut's awful pasta would go.

Let's say the blindfoldees locked their house and then had their blindfolds placed over their eyes. The van they're taken in drives around the block only to return them to their home. In the ad they're taken back to their dining room table with blindfolds still on. Does this mean they let themselves back inside? That destroys the premise of any natural surprise of eating at home instead of the restaurant because they'd, well, know their at home. If they went to a restaurant, wouldn't they hear lots of people talking and noise from plates and silverware clanging?

Don't tell me they trusted their kidnappers with their keys. If you agree to be kidnapped to a restaurant you'd have no need to give them the keys because you're just taking the blindfold off before you leave the restaurant. Call me crazy (or pathetic for overthinking this commercial), but whenever I agree to be kidnapped for a restaurant taste test, I'm holding onto my keys and wallet, but I'm losing plenty of dignity. Pizza Hut crime #1: Kidnapping an entire group of actors middle class family.

Almost 65 years after this "pudding and gelatin dessert" taste test by Consumer Reports, Pizza Hut destroys the blindfold industry's reputation.

It's better if you suppose the "family" held onto its keys. This means the only way for Pizza Hut to get the family back inside with blindfolds on was to break into the house. It doesn't take being married to a second-year law student to know that this is breaking and entering (crime #2). I suppose Pizza Hut broke into the house while they family was in the van. Plausible? Not really, but let's go with it.

The family is then directed back up its walkway, something they'd recognize for sure. What restaurant has a generic suburbia stone path from a driveway? The family is now back at home at their dining room table. You'd think they'd recognize the chairs they're sitting on, maybe the table they're leaning on. How about the smell of the house and familiar floor creaks? Of course not, that would make too much sense.

Why order a meatlovers pizza when you can't identify the meat?

They sit down and try the processed pasta and what do you know, but they manage not to instantly regurgitate it back on their plates. It's a miracle! They say things like it tastes better than manure, has less flies in it than roadkill, and smells like milk left in the sun for a week. I can't wait to order.

Of course there's the big reveal when the blindfolds are raised and they're all shocked it's from Pizza Hut yet they're at home. I'd be pissed off that Pizza Hut kidnapped my family only to break and enter into my house and serve me "pasta" from a company whose pizza tastes like cardboard. How about instead of being "wowed" by the taste, you get angry that these strangers are you in your house and have placed several hidden cameras everywhere. Have you checked your bathrooms for video outputs?

Just perfect.

The commercial's entire premise is awful. Who are the advertising wizards who thought of this one? Who would even buy their pasta from Pizza Hut? A company competing in the pizza-tastes-like-cardboard category against the likes of Dominoes, Papa Johns, and Cici's (the best of the lame choices). Making your own pasta is cheaper, healthier, and an easy way to decrease criminal activity in your neighborhood.