Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: Difference between revisions

Might be [[Truth in Television]] for some products and some users. In fact, many of these products were invented specifically for the elderly and disabled, people who legitimately ''could'' have problems with some of these tasks. The Snuggie, for instance, was originally meant for wheelchair users who often have problems regulating their body temperature - the design allows for the upper body and legs to both be fully covered without a corner getting caught in a wheel and without fabric bunching up in the back (which can cause bedsores). The incompetence factor usually arises when the item is marketed to a general audience and it becomes necessary to convince ''them'' that they can't live without these products.

 

 

A [[Sub-Trope]] of [[Strawman Product]].

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

* ''[[Friends]]'' played with this. Character Joey Tribbiani is a struggling actor, and once accepts a role in an infomercial in which he portrays "Kevin", a guy who has trouble with milk cartons that are "flingin'-flangin' hard to open" (he rips one open while trying, spraying milk all over the place). But with the Milk Master 2000, he has no trouble. "Now I can have milk every day!" Later, Joey laments that his fellow cast members in a play tease him about the infomercial by asking him to open milk cartons ... and making fun of him when he can't do it.

** "Are you tired of your bread making you angry?"

** The Snuggie was also parodied in [[Dueling Shows|Dueling Show]] ''[[Sonny With a Chance]]'' with the "Blarmie", the blanket with arms.

** Even funnier, there's something like "The Sack" that actually exists, albeit with a different purpose. There's something similar that's marketed for people who travel frequently and would prefer a protective barrier between them and filthy hotel sheets.

* ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' gives you [http://www.hulu.com/watch/34460/saturday-night-live-jar-glove#s-p10-sr-i3 the Jar Glove].

** One episode featured a series of ads for products combining mayo and mustard in a single jar, like Hellman's [http://www.hellmanns.us/products/dijonnaise_mustard.aspx Dijonnaise]. In the end, a guy is shown missing out on the important moments in his life because the process of spreading mustard then mayonnaise was simply too time consuming.

** An episode features Janeane Garofalo as a woman who simply can't organize the bags in her kitchen, shouting, "Help me!" at the camera. The solution is "bag hutch," a box to put bags in. The writers had to change the name of the product because "bag box" was already the name of a product that did the exact same thing.

* ''[[The Daily Show]]'' featured a segment on New Jersey planning to switch to self-service petrol stations by allowing its citizens to fill their own cars (up until that point having a station attendant do it for you was state-mandated). Ed Helms, in a move satirizing the interviewed labour union leader [[Insane Troll Logic|making some unfortunate statements as to why this switch was a bad thing]], attempted to fill his own petrol and ended up strangling himself with the hose.

 

* In an early [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiy2Yj0r1Rs "Têtes à claques"] video, the amazing power of the "Willi Waller" (an ordinary potato peeler) is contrasted with the difficulty of peeling potatoes with one's fingernails (0:49).

* Pretty much most of the examples written below have been lovingly compiled in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08xQLGWTSag this video.]

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** [http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/129125555978085010.jpg Dear lord, it's spreading.]

** Here's how these things happen according to my retail experience (I never worked for Best Buy though): Someone in marketing/sales came up with the "Let us install it for you!" thing for software to improve sales among the computer-illiterate as well as spread the Geeksquad name around the store, and the bosses thought it was a solid idea. Merchandising printed out a billion of those stickers and the bosses (themselves mostly computer-illiterate) said "Stick these on all your best-selling software." The store managers (generally computer illiterate) pass the order down. The younger kids and gamers who work at Best Buy (the real computer literate ones) would mention how it's a stupid idea to put them on console games, but the manager would reply "Whatever, someone from upper management is coming next week and they want to see stickers."

** This is actually stupid in a different way. Around the time that [[Modern Warfare]] was releases they added in the ability to install games onto the system which was extremely easy.

** There are, however, some customers who ''do'' use the service, as demonstrated by it actually continuing to be offered, although the odds are low that it's due to the incompetence featured by this trope.

*** Similarly, Best Buy's Geek Squad, or any electronic store that has a computer & electronic department, offers customers to do the most basic things like installing software, running virus checks, or just moving files from the hard drive to a flash drive for a pretty penny. Granted, there are people out there who really have no idea how computers work except the basics, but even then...

* There's a commercial for a set of kitchen containers in which you can use each container as a lid to hold more food. Of course, you have to show that you just DON'T HAVE ENOUGH ROOM in a regular flat-lid container. So they show a woman trying to put spaghetti into a normal container. She has, in complete knowledge that there is not enough room in the container, piled on about a quarter of the container's volume of spaghetti ON TOP of the completely full container, and then acts SURPRISED when it goes everywhere when she puts the flat lid on.

* One of the lead up ads to the release of [[Dungeons and Dragons|D&D 4th edition]] was to show gamers flummoxed by the current edition's complicated rules... bearing in mind this was an ad targeting current users of a product made by the same people as the new product.

*** And it was Wizard's pretty much poking fun at themselves about each edition had a rather obvious flaw in it.

* Although the infomercial for the Ronco Miracle Blade III set features shots of actors doing exactly what you'd expect knives to do, like cutting a turkey, but the first shot shows an actress '''stabbing''' a tomato with an inappropriate knife and apparently hitting the artery.

* The ads for the "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZsiOTVLKGI slob stopper]." It's apparently a bib for adults. The commercial opens with a smiling man in a parked car pouring coffee all over himself, while the voiceover says, "Has this ever happened to you?" The ad goes on the show him wearing the product, then doing it again, sitting in the same parked car, apparently ogling a passing runner. And he never stops smiling. If you have enough of a problem with drinking in a non-moving vehicle, you probably need more than a bib.

** If you're an adult and a ''cup'' is too complicated for you to use without a bib, then you shouldn't be allowed to go off unsupervised, much less drive a car.

* The [[Billy Mays]] ad for the Jupiter Jack shows a lady struggling to talk on the phone while driving. She struggles to hold it up to her ear with the shoulder, and drops it so hard that slides all the way across the car.

** Yet another example of someone who shouldn't be driving, period.