Updated every weekday.

Reviewed today: Miller Beer, Twist

We have a new policy here at cynical.com. Since most commercials fall in between entertaining and awful and hardly merit comment, we will only review one commercial per day. This means that we may review several commercials from the same advertiser for the same campaign, but hey, it gives us more material. If you don't like this policy, cynical.com is offering a full money-back guarantee.

So. Today we are reviewing Miller's 'Twist' commercial. We are giving them points for actually having the commercial online, so if you haven't seen it, follow the link at the top of the page to Miller's web page, and after typing in your birthday (lie if you're under 21), click on "As Seen on TV" and then click on 'Twist'. You will need the Shockwave Flash plugin and the Quicktime Plugin. Go ahead, I'll wait. I assume you will open a new browser instance so you won't lose your place.

Okay, hopefully you did that. If not, I will describe the commercial. Those of you who checked their site can skip this paragraph. The commercial is part of the same series that originated with "creative genius" "Dick". If you do not know what I'm talking about, you must not watch enough TV. Anyway, the commercial begins with the familiar Dick music. a man pulls a beer from his refrigerator, looks at the cap, thinks for a moment then sets it down on the table and starts dancing in front of it. After a few moments he stops and looks at the cap again, where we can see it says "Twist to open". Then he starts dancing again.

This is what I think of generally as a one shot commercial. It's funniest the first time you see it, but like a joke you've heard already, eventually it's not funny at all. On the other hand, commercials are in such an abysmal state that it's hard to complain, even if you only laugh once. The Dick series of commercials also has a consistent opener to let you know that you're about to see something that's potentially more entertaining than the rest of the schlock that passes for advertising. It is like entering the mind of Dick, where anything can happen. Jesus, I'm starting to sound like one of their commercials, but it's true that it has been very rare that a commercial in this series becomes one that commands the channel be changed.

Rating: 25 seconds. Eventually this joke will wear off, but not immediately.

Conclusion: Buy Miller.

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