Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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{{quote|''"First, there is the sequence where someone is shown trying to unsuccessfully impale the cap of a normal pen, which suggests not only a lack of familiarity with pens, but also the visual-spatial reasoning ability of a pot-smoking chimp."''
|''[[Cracked.com]]'' [http://www.cracked.com/article_15768_as-seen-on-tv-10-most-laughably-misleading-ads.html "The 10 Most Laughably Misleading Ads"]}}
There are people in this world who take incompetence to an art form. You know who we're talking about; people who [[Major Minor Inconvenience|cannot be trusted to use scissors, cut themselves to ribbons when they try to use a potato peeler, and cannot even use a blanket without help]]. How can such utterly incompetent people make a living in this world?
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A popular format is to have the narrator say "stop wasting your time with conventional blankets", and showing a big red X or "no" slash over an [[Deliberately Monochrome|invariably monochrome]] video of someone apparently having a lot of trouble with it, or someone tossing it down and shaking their heads melodramatically. Bonus points if these conventional products cost thousands less in the long run. Expect [[Bad Bad Acting]] to be used to [[That Makes Me Feel Angry|demonstrate frustration.]]
Might be [[Truth in Television]] for some products and some users. In fact, many of these products were invented specifically for
Compare with [[The Power of Cheese]], which is people acting incredibly stupid due to desire for the product being advertised instead of as a "demonstration" of a competitor. Related to [[Brand X]], [[Cable-Satellite Mudslinging]], and [[Side by Side Demonstration]]. May be used to cover up a [[Never Needs Sharpening]] flaw. Compare [[Deceptively Simple Demonstration]], where the product is being used in a way that looks harder than it really is.
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* The Snuggie, as well as its commercials, were parodied in ''[[iCarly]]'' with "The Sack".
** The Snuggie was also parodied in [[Dueling Shows|Dueling Show]] ''[[Sonny With a Chance]]'' with the "Blarmie", the blanket with arms.
** The funny part of ''[[iCarly]]'' making fun of
** Even funnier, there's something like "The Sack" that actually exists
* ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' gives you [https://web.archive.org/web/20120527185224/http://www.hulu.com/watch/34460/saturday-night-live-jar-glove#s-p10-sr-i3 the Jar Glove].
* Parodied and subverted in one episode of ''[[The Honeymooners]]'': Ralph and Ed are trying to sell a multi-function kitchen utensil on an infomercial. They only have two apples, so they don't practice coring them. When they're doing the actual commercial, Ed, in full [[Cloudcuckoolander]] mode, doesn't bother faking having trouble with the normal corer, and finishes in less than five seconds. Meanwhile, Ralph spends several minutes trying to get the product to work, growing increasingly frazzled.
* ''Mr Show''
** One episode featured a series of ads for products combining mayo and mustard in a single jar, like Hellman's [https://web.archive.org/web/20120119135347/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.
* [[Picnicface (series)|Picnicface]] featured a segment called "Infomercial Plus" - an infomercial actor agency that offers people Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket in real life to make your infomercial even better! Highlights included a literal blanket-operating failure, a man unable to comprehend fruit and another utterly incapable of cracking eggs.
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== Uses In Real Advertising ==
* The [[Trope Namer]] comes from the commercials advertising [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huo7h53G0IM "Snuggie Wearable Blankets"], which begin by showing a woman who simply could not make a standard blanket work. As said above, originally the blankets were created for wheelchair users who quite literally couldn't use a regular blanket, at least not safely. However, when able-bodied individuals find their blankets triumphing over them, it becomes logically painful. The best part of the commercial is that the "blanket" she's too incompetent to use is actually a decorative throw - in other words, it's about ''three feet long''. No wonder she can't get warm. This was satirized in this [[Gag Dub]] video for the "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05ZQ7WHw8Y WTF Blanket]".
** Apparently you can buy them for your ''dog''! The commercial even has a small dog in a snuggie wearing glasses and reading a newspaper. Apparently they're trying to tap that incredibly small [[Rocky and Bullwinkle|Mr. Peabody]] niche of glasses-wearing anthropomorphic dogs.
* ''[[Cracked.com]]'' offers a few more examples in "[http://www.cracked.com/article_15768_as-seen-on-tv-10-most-laughably-misleading-ads.html As Seen on TV: The 10 Most Laughably Misleading Ads]". Who'd have thought that ''capping a normal pen'' could be so hard? The commercial cheats by using a cap that is so chewed up that it's unusable.
* Practically every food processor TV spot begins by showing us someone who shouldn't be allowed near a knife trying to use one.
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* The ads for those little rubber caulk spreader things show someone who doesn't have their product using their finger to spread caulk, because they apparently have no cardboard or tools of any kind; additionally, the caulk already looks like it was applied by a pack of kindergartners offered a prize to the one who could apply the most caulk to the bathroom tiles. Most caulk is in fact ''supposed'' to be smoothed out by finger. Even if you don't want to get your hands dirty, you can always use a latex glove.
* The "Total Transformation Program", a "child behavior modification program" advertised just about everywhere, seems to be aimed at parents who aren't dealing very well with what sound like perfectly normal kids. "Have you tried screaming, punishing, pleading, and negotiating and your child still walks all over you?" Modern science ''has'' answers.
** Preston and Steve are [[Crowning Moment of Funny|all over]] [[Memetic Mutation|this one]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120122015009/http://www.wmmr.com/shows/preston-and-steve/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10092066 "I'm gonna totally transform yo' ass into one of my shoes!"]
** Having studied this program in psychology classes, this troper found that the program really is meant for parents who are just that bad at working with normal teenagers... Since the "Trick" of the product is that the "Total transformation" is the parent, not of the kid.
* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2g4YBGn8i4 "Perfect Brownie pan"] commercial opens with a woman who can't seem to use a spatula when trying to remove what one can only imagine are cement brownies from a pan. She has apparently never heard of "greasing the pan".
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* There's a pic that made the rounds on gaming forums a while back: It was from a Best Buy, where the employees had affixed stickers to all the copies of ''Call of Duty 4: [[Modern Warfare]]'' for Xbox 360 that cheerfully offered to "Let us install it for you!"
** Presumably they mean the Xbox 360 itself. A process which involves color matching a trio of cables to your television along with a power cord and Ethernet cable and should take about three minutes, tops. Or if you have an HDMI cable, takes less than thirty seconds, ten of which are spent making sure the cable's the right way.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20110225220322/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."
** [http://www.gamesradar.com/ps3/playstation-3/news/best-buy-defends-charging-30-for-ps3-firmware-updates/a-2010100716412499069/g-20060314115917309058 It won't stop.] Now they're charging $30 for [[Play Station 3]] firmware updates. For readers who don't own a [[Play Station 3]], the update process is as follows: push left on the controller a few times until you get to the options menu. Select firmware update. Agree to terms and conditions. Wait a few minutes as [[Play Station 3]] automatically updates itself. Apparently this is esoteric enough to be worth $30 if you can do it.
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* Dyson vac commercials actually avert this. When demonstrating the vacuuming pattern with a regular upright, then with the Dyson Ball (the one with the mega huge yellow ball wheel that rounds corners easier), the user of the regular vacuum actually does a good job of using the regular upright.
** Which actually makes the visual improvement more believable.
* There's now a new product called [https://
** The big problem is that the ad is really uneven. Half of the testimonials are marketing it as a spa product (it massages as it cleans and pumices calluses away!), and the others market it as a convenience product (for those who have trouble bending over, like the handicapped or overweight). The testimonials kind of blend and it just makes it sound like everybody is too damn lazy to lean over.
** Also, they misspelled "heels."
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* Commercials for Bake Pops showcases people that can't operate ''cake'' but somehow can put cake on a stick with no problem.
* In the ad campaign for Subaru's 2010 Outback, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKBbgH2AU0Q one commercial] plays the aforementioned Snuggie commercial... until [[Commercial Switcheroo|a man takes a crowbar to the screen]] and drives off in his Outback, accompanied by the words, "Maybe you should get out more." They eventually created a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA3jEuqf3rI follow up] featuring a [[Parody Commercial]] called "Lap 'n Snack", for those who ''can't ballance a bowl on their knee''. It even had its own [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKYuqbTOY2k full commercial] and [http://www.facebook.com/lapnsnack Facebook page]!
* There's a product out there called the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh0UvrR8UM4 Broccoli Wad]. [[I Thought It Meant|Despite its name]], it's really a band that you put on your dollars. Why someone would want to use it instead of a wallet or a purse is never quite explained - the only reason given is that it's "easier than a wallet" and that "wise guys don't carry their money in a wallet".
* A commercial for AFN.net showed how convenient it is to use compared to the general internet, since it features conveniently organized information, while the man trying to use the internet in general was distracted and ended up looking at LOL cats. Of course, the man using the general internet might have been more successful had he not been banging his fists randomly on the keyboard...
* The Flash Dustmagnet is basically a flexible feather duster that allows you to dust around things. Invaluable since, as the advert shows, the only alternative is to clutch the entire contents of a shelf to your chest with one hand; while waving a conventional duster ineffectually in the vague direction of the shelf with the other.
{{reflist}}
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