Ditched Toys Are the Reason We've 'Smurfed' Up Christmas

"So what if I'm gay? You let my rainbow fade away," accuses a Care Bear in this awesome video where toys rebuke cynical adults for ditching them after puberty, thereby ruining their Christmases -- and ours -- forever.

And if our He-Man could talk, he probably would be just that ditzy.

Thanks go out to Grey, Vancouver for putting it together.

Thanks to 'Net, 'Don't Tase me, Bro!' Becomes the Stuff of Pop Culture

Remember that YouTube video of the college kid getting repeatedly Tased for hassling John Kerry? His repeated cry, "Don't Tase me, bro!" has become the most memorable quote of '07.

Editor Fred Shapiro of the Yale Book of Quotations calls it a "symbol of pop culture success," beating out Imus' "nappy-headed hos" comment.

Can you guess what the second-most-memorable quote on the list was? We'll give you a hint: "I personally believe..."

Vlad Putin Makes Time's 'Person of the Year'

Why does Vladimir Putin deserve to be named Person of the Year? Probably because of his insightful commentary on Call of Duty 4.

Quoting from Time Magazine, the Quintura blog provides a more intuitive reason, if "imposing stability on a nation [...] at significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize" can be considered more intuitive. (We'd call it "catty.")

Some might call it an improvement on last year's choice, though.

Putin on Call of Duty 4: 'Silent but Deadly, Like a Boris Yeltsin Fart'

For Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, DDB, LA ran a campaign where real-life warmongers become video game reviewers.

We've been putting off covering it because watching all the spots (:60 EACH!) seems so labor-intensive. After sitting through all five, we've concluded they are less funny versions of this Hitler Xbox spoof.

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Come On Now, Even Wales Got Schooled in Existentialism

Here's an ad for Brecon Five vodka that got people's panties in a twist because it plays on the stereotype that Welsh people are stupid. (We never heard that, but we did hear they were cannibals.)

Brecon Five is a label under the Welsh Whisky Company. It's not the only vodka ever to poke fun at its heritage to make itself look better.

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That Old Idea That There Are No New Ideas Is No Official

We've thought this at the end of every year for a long time but now it's ben made official. It seems 2007 has been dubbed The Year We Finally Ran Out of Ideas and that sentiment has taken on the for of a cartoonish re-cap of the year in which sequel-itis, Orville resurrection, the Dentsu scandal and Sony's rabbits are given their proper spot in the compendium of the year's work.

Omnicom Touts Cutting Edge Capabilities...With 2006 Work

This is the perfect time to use George Parker's BDA acronym which stands for Big Dumb Agencies. Adrants reader Lauren tipped us to a story in AdWeek about Omnicom's John Wren touting the holding company's "non-traditional" work.

The story miffed here a bit and she wrote us, "Congratulations Omnicom and welcome to the digital age. This article really bothered me because it seems like the advertising trades are so obsessed with covering any bit of news coming out of holding companies that they are missing the real news, the real trends and maybe even the cool interactive work that's being done now, and not in 2006. And (gasp) maybe, just maybe it's not the holding companies that are ahead of the game this time..."

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To Find New Flavor, the Dew Launches Dystopian Virtual World

Crowdsourcing meets sci-fi meets a quasi-virtual world in Mountain Dew's exploding head-inducing campaign, DEWmocracy.

Supported by traditional advertising, DEWmocracy paints a dismal future filled with corporate suits that travel in the backs of pick-up trucks, and where high fructose corn syrup is considered a magical elixir capable of overthrowing big brother.

Through the site, the Dew ultimately aims to put consumers on an adventure to come up with its newest flavor and packaging, while grabbing as much marketing data on its brave virtual freedom fighters.

Fresh with ideas from his performance in Battlefield Earth, Forest Whitaker helped entertainment concept firm Protagonist in creating this brave dew world.

Folksonomy Socially Graphs the Ajaxed Web 2.0 Bubble

If you don't think we're in a bubble reminiscent of 1999-2001, take a look at this video. It's amazing what a bit of time crunched historical retrospective will do to one's perspective on that topic. It's pretty amazing what's happened in the last two to three years. This video captures it and more. Give it a look and then let us now whether or not you think we're in a bubble and if you think it's about to pop. Comment here or over on AdGabber where the video is hosted.

Be sure to check out the similarly styled video on the last two years worth of viral videos.

Washington Monument Sports A Condom. Just Wait. It'll Happen

Just when you think every last bit of space has been commandeered by ads, another pops up. We know someday someone's going to offer to paint our house for free in exchange for placing a giant logo on the front of our house. And Kevin Dugan, in an article on his blog posits we may soon see the Washington Monument sheathed in a Durex condom, ads embedded in one's bodies so they appear on x-rays, ads painted in the bowl of a toilet (this one's a no brainer), ads on baby scales and ads on headstones in graveyards.

Think it won't happen? Did you ever think you'd see ads on the paper that covers the exam table in a doctor's office or on the front of snow plows?