America is wierd, as evidenced by advertising

1) Whoever allowed someone to take Elvis's song "Viva Las Vegas" and turn it into an ad for Viagra (Viva Viagra!) should be hanged, drawn and quartered. What a travesty of a piece of American history.

2) One of my favorite series of ads in Norway is for a yeast infection cream. The ads are hilarious, always entailing a woman, overtaken by the horrible urge to scratch that nefarious itch, surreptitiously scratching herself THERE and getting caught midscratch. By a guy. Or, as in one, her boss. They totally crack me up.

Here? The ads about cooch cream are all subtle innuendo about the "discomfort" and embarrassment of it all, and feature a woman looking vaguely uncomfortable and humiliated walking hang-doggedly about in a black sweat suit. Like she is too disgusting to be out in public. Then she gets cured and she walks around all bouncy in a pink dress. If you didn't know what the product was for ahead of time, you wouldn't know what the ad was about. No mention of ANY female body parts, the actual word "yeast" or anything that actually pertains to the reality of the situation.

So how come a yeast infection, an unfortunate, but common, fact of womanhood, is earthily laughed at in Norway but in the US is treated as a nasty humiliation where they can't even use the WORDS for what it really is? Yet it's completely ok to show couples dancing around and laughing as an Elvis soundalike sings about Viagra and uses terms like "erectile dysfunction" and warns that if you have "an erection that lasts longer than 4 hours contact your doctor"? I mean, Ew?

Ew Ew Ew. EW! That ad is on now! Ack!

Completely off topic, half an hour later: I've got a late night tv show on (Leno, I prefer Letterman but the remote's broken and I am too damned lazy to get up to change the channel) and there is a dude singing, tonight's musical guest, who sounds exactly like Carol Channing. Very strange.

Oh, yummy. Now is Conan O Brien. Me likey him.