These Are Audi Commercials?

Startled Smarters, disturbed by a man's affection for his armadillo.

Audi is going head-to-head with Mercedes-Benz in their latest commercials. First they gave us the “Goodnight” TV spot, which mocked Mercedes owners as old and stodgy, more concerned with image than with content. Their latest ads take that message one step farther, occasionally crossing the line of what most Audi customers would consider to be good taste. The best part? These videos are just teasers for the actual ads, which will air during the Superbowl. I dare you to watch them and not smile, although I’ll warn you that they contain some graphic content. In the first, entitled “Startled Smart” (a spoof of the “Scared Straight” concept), high risk youth get a picture of life inside a luxury prison. If you don’t want to see a man kiss a stuffed armadillo, and if implied caviar-jar-licking or cheese fondling puts you off, look elsewhere.

The first video is amusing, but the second is laugh out loud funny. Kenny G plays the head of riot suppression inside a luxury prison, where he pitches his platinum CD entitled “Prison Sax”, complete with songs like “3 1/2 Minute Hug” and “You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours”. Just in case the thinly veiled references to hot, sweaty man-on-man sex weren’t enough to take the ad over the top of good taste, Kenny G actually gets to say “If anybody calls me Kenny Z around here, I’ll f**k them up.”