The Scariest Commercial in the History of Ever

The other night Kathryn and I were watching a show - Heroes? Good Eats, maybe? - when a commercial came on so weird, so scary, so profoundly troubling, that I had to pause (thank you, DVR) and rewind.

Now I think we can all remember some creepy commercials without too much effort. The odd five year old girl with the Southern accent espousing Welch's grape juice, for example, used to give me nightmares. I can't make it through one commercial break on those more peripheral cable channels like the Military Channel or Fox Soccer Channel without being subjected to some hot chick cooing that "she knows you still got it," and that I can pick up some awesome performance enhancers without a prescription.

But it wasn't on an obscure cable channel that we saw the scariest effing thing we've seen in a long time. No, it was on a normal station, and I'm willing to bet you've seen it too.

That's right. I'm talking about the return of Orville Redenbacher.

On its surface the ad is innocent enough - good ol' Orville says something about music and makes a little popcorn. Then, at the end, a group of real people group around him as he bops away with headphones.

Note I say "real" people, and I ain't alluding to a really bad early '80's primetime TV show. No, I'm referring to the fact that while the actors and actresses who collect around Orville appear to be normal human beings, ORVILLE IS QUITE CLEARLY NOT HUMAN.

That's right. Someone either did a really bad makeup job trying to make someone else look like Orville, or they pixelated his happy ass in order to increase Q1 profits down on Redenbacher headquarters. Smart money's on that second one.

I'm serious about this. If you happen to catch the ad, and if you happen to have DVR, pick a moment when Orville has a close up and pause your TV. You'll see what I mean. Creepy.