SharkBoy spies the truck from across the street.

“Smart Sixteen!” he shouts and goes into a spasmodic dance that is suppose to resemble some hip hop move.

If you’ve seen the bread commercial for Dempster’s Smart 16 bread (a healthy grain bread hidden in ultra bleached slabs of carbs) then you know that it has a permanent place in the city of Lame. In what looks like a Thorn Hill basement wreck room, filled with rosey cheeked kids doing…nothing… flies a loaf of bread. Shitty music starts up, like someone mashed their face against a keyboard with GarageBand open – and the kids start to shuffle around like while kid zombies trying to be urban kid zombies. The loaf of bread dances in the middle of the kids. Look mom, they’re eating it up!

If you know your cartoons, you’ll know that the original Smartman mascot for Dempsters was designed by John Kricfalusi. Look familiar? He created Powdered Toast Man from the Ren and Stimpy Show.

The original cartoon had Smartman, the superhuman loaf of bread coming to the rescue of Mom who didn’t know how to balance her spoiled kid’s diets. The commercial was somewhat ironic and with the same 50s ad flair as the PTM segments. I suspect when it came to a new ’round of commercials, Dempsters didn’t re-hire John K and went with someone who (unsuccessfully) copied the style but left out the cool irony.

My point? Oh right. SharkBoy dancing in the street…

So the truck has Smartman on the side but the picture of the kid, slightly out of focus, holding up a sandwich, in sharp focus, catches SharkBoy’s eye.

See the girl?

Yes... Her.

Her teeth. Are perfect...

How is it the bite out of the bread is so …uniform?

Does she have a hole punch for teeth?!

This is a fine example of how a great, funny ad campaign is ruined by people who just don’t get it. Or care.