Honda Pilot - "Crazy Train" Road Trip

This was inevitable, given the roaring success of the "Sweet Child O' Mine" scene from Step Brothers and the "Don't Stop Believin'" cover on Glee (which was in turn a ripoff of another a capella cover by Petra Haden).  Its inevitability doesn't make it any more tolerable, though.

I decided to throw in the extended cut because there are a few key things to observe.  Also, it allows me almost 90 seconds of rage, and I tend to be more entertaining the more pissed off I am.

The future doesn't look bright for these kids.

Let me start by being incredibly unkind.  Everyone in this Honda Pilot, save for the black kid (assuming he's a friend of the kid who starts the singing, why the fuck would this family want to take yet ANOTHER kid with them?  They have 5 already) and the emo kid in the other back window seat, is outrageously fucking hideous.  Those little girls look like characters from the Dark Crystal or Fraggles or some other beastly goddamn Jim Henson creation.  Visually, this is one of the most awful commercials in recent memory.

As if the visual didn't make me want to hang myself with a broken guitar string, the audio is even worse. The "aye aye aye" part is when it starts to go off the rails (shitty pun most certainly intended) and it only gets worse once these unfortunate looking girls begin singing (although, I'll admit the cup shake by the Role Models look-alike kid was pretty cool).

I can't definitively decide which girl is the worst, but I'm leaning toward the little one who sings all sassy and with vibrato, only still without really singing the right notes.  What's worse is this commercial will only to serve to encourage her, and we'll see her on the 2024 season of American Idol getting tortured by the judges for thinking she is actually worth a rat's ass at singing.  But damn, the first singer is really bad too.  It doesn't matter, they all suck and I feel no remorse for ridiculing children.

The parents can't be excused from this shitpile.  If I were driving that ugly-ass SUV I would tell the kids to shut the fuck up and I would blast "Easy Lover" by Phil Collins for hours while they sat there in agony.  Instead, they add to the awful cacophony with lame mouth-guitar noises.  I know driving through the desert (I would love to know what their destination is for this trip) sucks, but don't make it any worse than you have to.

I have to give credit to the sullen emo kid in the back seat.  He looks confused, disinterested and disgusted at various points in the ad.  At no point does he even feign participation, as he just keeps his headphones in, probably listening to Say Anything.  But major kudos to him for not buckling and joining in this shitfest.

Hey kids, Ozzy wasn't always a crazy, lovable old guy.

One thing I can't escape is the thought that we now have an entire generation of adults who think Ozzy Osbourne is some lovable, zany old English man who mumbles and stumbles his way around the house and occasionally performs concerts.  None of the kids in this commercial, and very few in the world, understand that the man was a notorious substance abuser who was as famous for his crazy antics and exploits as his music by the time "Crazy Train" came out.

Ozzy bit a bat's dove's head off while fucked up in a meeting with record executives, bit a bat's head off during a concert, nearly killed his wife in a blackout at an airport, and was accused of contributing to a suicide with subliminal messages and hidden lyrics.  Sure, nowadays he's a funny old bastard and is a sort of caricature of his former identity, but few people under 25 know that Ozzy's past was quite sketchy.

Final Grade: F

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