So I happened to see a television ad for a movie last night. I don't recall the specific movie -- some comedy, obviously. The voiceover enthusiastically described it as being "the funniest movie since The Hangover!"

Immediately this struck me as sounding incredibly stupid. Wasn't The Hangover fairly recent? I was thinking that the movie had come out within the last two or three years, in which case the commercial would essentially have been saying, "This is the funniest movie in two or three years!" Even taking into account the significant number of films released each year, that just doesn't sound terribly impressive.

In reality, The Hangover was released in 2009. In June. "This is the funniest movie in nine months!" Ugh.

Except it's worse than just that -- because if you're me, you start thinking about all of the people involved in the conception of this commercial. Why didn't anyone say, "Hey, that's bloody freaking stupid"? Who thought that it would sound impressive to refer to a movie as being the funniest movie since another movie that was released less than a year ago?!? And what does it say about the viewing public (or at least the advertisers' impression of them) that this was deemed to be an effective sales pitch?!?!?

What's worse is that when I googled the phrase to try to determine what movie I saw advertised last night -- or at least to see if anyone else had commented on the ridiculousness of touting a movie as being the funniest movie in less than a year -- I found it used in reference to multiple films. In a serious capacity. People used it in reference to freaking Zombieland, which hit theaters a whopping four months later. There was an explanation among these references -- that The Hangover was so funny that it has now become the standard for funny movies, regardless of when it or they are released -- but it still sounds pretty lame to praise a movie as if it fills a void that's existed so briefly it can hardly be called a "void" at all. Pretty soon movies will be touted as being the funniest movie since that movie that came out last weekend.

Or maybe -- I hope -- these people and the commercial were all using the descriptor ironically, because of course it's ridiculous to try to sell a movie as being the funniest movie since a movie released less than a year ago. Perhaps it was even an ad for The Hangover on DVD! I'm pretty sure it wasn't, but that might have been a little amusing. "It's the funniest movie since The Hangover -- because it is The Hangover!" Okay, so it's not a gut-buster, but it'd warrant a chuckle.

In any case, imagine the volume of stupid things out there, and imagine not only being instantly cognizant of the depths of stupidity in every single one that you encountered, but also considering and being thoroughly disgusted by the thought of how many people contributed to that excrement -- and by how many people will respond to it with both enthusiasm and their hard-earned cash.

Stupid is like kryptonite to me, and most of the time I barely have the strength to breathe. 😐