Wally Award: Funniest Headline of the Year

Time for one more award as we close out the year. The coveted Wally for Funniest Headline of the Year goes to the wretches at Yahoo! News who came up with this one.  

Writes itself, doesn't it? The actual headline by BBC News science reporter Alicia Curry [or her editor! Ed.] was "Blue Origin astronaut reveals depression after 'tsunami of harassment'", but there's nothing funny about that... right, ladies?

VIDEO: Wally Award winner: TV commercial of the year

We got off to a really slow start this month, so have to kick it into overdrive [Wut dat? Ed.] to post something about the many things we have to take care of before the yearend. Today we present the coveted Wally Award for best TV commercial of the year. And the winner is... drum roll... "Dinner Party at Chuck's Roadhouse". Here `tis...

Credit where credit is due: Chuck's Roadhouse primarily works with Ajax Creative for their advertising, especially for major campaigns such as "Legend of Chuck" and their Super Bowl ads. They also collaborate with other production houses like Minifridge Media for specific video projects, such as their "Life's Open Roads" commercial series. Chuck's also has an in-house marketing team to take care of franchise support and local marketing initiatives.

VIDEO: Best "Buy Canadian" TV ad so far this year

President Trump has managed to do something which Canadian politicians can only yap about and dream of. With his repeated public statements about turning the Great No-longer-white North into the 51st of the Disunited States of America, he has united Canadians of every region, every province, every language, every [Get on with it. Ed.] etc. 

You'd be hard-pressed indeed to find a single Canuck, who wants to share in the benefits of being part of the US of A, such as unaffordable health care, unrestricted gun ownership, incomprehensible politics, and the joys of DEI and other constructs of America's liberal democracy.

The odd thing is that the chief practitioner and beneficiary of the Politics of TDS is Mark Carnage, Canuckistan's Prime Minister and the archtype of a globalist One-Worlder. On the strength of one polite phone conversation with President Trump -- in which he now admits the Donald did talk about the 51st state things -- Mr Carnage has wrapped himself in the maple leaf flag for his role as Captain Canada, proclaiming that he is the only one who can save the GNN from the invasion of the Merkans.

The effects of TTDS -- Trump Tariff Derangement Syndrome -- are already noticeable in the form of many and various "Buy Canadian" campaigns. Retailers are busy labelling any Canadian products they can find (most things are made in China or the USA) with little maple leaves and "Product of Canada/Produit du Canada" stickers. 

Canadian marketers are all in -- elbows up! -- on this, flooding the media with ads proclaiming their Canuckiness. Some of the commercials are pretty clever. This is one of them, which we hereby enter into the competition for the 2025 Wally Award for Creativity in Advertising (Canadian Division).    . 

Pretty funny, eh! Dear American readers, see if you can figure out the brand of American soup which Aylmer says you shouldn't buy because there's is... errr... more Canadian. Hint: once upon a time the American soup used to feature a pic of smiling and obese (therefore American?) kids on the label. The company name sounds as if it should be Scottish, but it ain't!

VIDEO: Early favourite for TV commercial of the year

It's early going, but this ad looks like a good bet for the coveted Wally Award for TV Commercial of the Year.

 

Oh... almost forgot... it's for Norwegian State Railways.

2024 Wally Awards: Stupidest Criminal of the Year

Rather than do a lengthy yearend review of stuff you already know and will read about elsewhere, we've decided to just hand out the coveted Wallies, without further ado. The Wally for Stupidest Criminal is not selected by a jury, as we simply have too many entries to judge, so we just pick the most recent submission. This one came in over the weekend from the Hamilton (ON) police service. We have edited their press release slightly.

On December 18, 2024 at 12:30 p.m. Hamilton Police responded to the Bank of Montreal located at 375 Upper Paradise Road [See? I told you it exists. Ed.] for a robbery. Investigators learned a lone, male suspect arrived at the financial institution on a bicycle, leaving the bike outside by the building.

Entering the bank, the suspect approached a bank teller, passed a note demanding cash and verbally threatened the employee while motioning they were [read: "he was". Ed.] in possession of a weapon. [Read: Suspect said he had a gun. Ed.] The suspect was confronted by other employees in the bank and the suspect fled empty handed. 

Upon exiting BMO bank, the suspect returned to his bicycle location only to discover a fellow delinquent had stolen his bike. The dazed and confused male then kicked their legs in high gear and escaped north on Upper Paradise Road on foot. The suspect was last seen near Upper Paradise Road and Elmwood Avenue. 

The robbery suspect is described as the following: Male White 5'4"-5'8" in height [Of course "height". What else would the numbers refer to? Ed.] Wearing a long, multi-coloured scarf, black sunglasses, blue surgical mask, black jacket with fur trim, black gloves, dark pants, white shoes.

The bike thief is described as the following: Male Wearing all black.

Investigators are asking area residents to check their residential cameras and their dash cameras during the time of this incident. 

Walt is not so churlish as to suggest that the appeal in the last paragraph is needed because the Hamilton cops couldn't find a blackberry in a saucer of milk, let alone a man wearing a long, multi-coloured scarf and black sunglasses walking along a busy city street during the lunch hour.

The heistmeister wannabe gets the Wally for Stupidest Criminal for a) wearing a highly recognizable scarf his mother made for him, and b) falling for the greenscam that says riding a bike is better for the environment than driving a getaway car.

Note from Ed.: I couldn't resist the interpolations above. I am sick, sore and tired of "official English", as practised by "law enforcement personnel", not to mention the woke use of the plural pronoun when "he" or "she" is obvious. "They" should only refer to a SNL "Pat".

2024 Wally Awards: Bore of the Year

Rather than do a lengthy yearend review of stuff you already know and will read about elsewhere, we've decided to just hand out the coveted Wallies, without further ado. Today we present the winners of the Bore of the Year Award. May I have the envelope please?

And the winners are...

We say "winners are" because the un-comedian will have to share his Wally with all the other unfunny people and celebs who threatened to pack up their bags if the Donald won the election. Don't let the screen door (geddit?) slap your asses on the way out.

And the runner-up...

We distinguish noted cuckservative (((David Frum))) from the group of asses mentioned above, since, as far as we know, Mr Frum has kept his Canadian citizenship and could go back to the Great No-longer-white North any time he wants to. Why is he still in Trump's America?!

2024 Wally Awards: Embarrassment of the Year

Rather than do a lengthy yearend review of stuff you already know and will read about elsewhere, we've decided to just hand out the coveted Wallies, without further ado. Today we present the Embarrassment of the Year. (Entries restricted to USA.) May I have the envelope please?

The winner is... Senile Joe Biden in "D-day doo-doo"

I don't think there's been such a cringe-worthy episode since President Bush the Elder vomited on the Prime Minister of Japan.

Runner up... Harris-Walz jazz dance duet.

What's so embarrassing about this, I hear you libtards ask. Really, is this the best the Dimocrats can do?

2024 Wally Awards: Eyesore of the Year

Rather than do a lengthy yearend review of stuff you already know and will read about elsewhere, we've decided to just hand out the coveted Wallies, without further ado. We begin with Eyesore of the Year. May I have the envelope please?

And the runner-up...

Let us give thanks that we will see a lot less of these rebarbative wimmin in 2025.

Coming tomorrow: Embarrassment of the Year.

UPDATED: The VIDEO challenging "real men" to vote for Harris

The leftist group "Vote Save America" dropped this really strange video this weekend, apparently in an attempt to persuade "real male" voters to support Kamela Harris, whose polling numbers of the cubic public demographic are almost as low as the Cackler's IQ.

The cringe-worthy ad, directed by Jacob Reed, who formally worked on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, dares the viewer to compare himself to "real men" who are "man enough to fight a bear, eat a carburetor, and elect a woman. How about you?"

The Dumbocrats are likely already trying to figure out how to get it off the Internet, but as we all know, once something is posted, it floats out there in the ether forever. Although the year isn't over yet, this unintentionally hilarious screen gem is hereby nominated for a special Wally Award, title to be determined.

FURTHER READING from the Babylon Bee: "Experts Say Kamala Can Still Win If She Doesn’t Appear In Public Again Between Now And Election Day", 11/110/24.

UPDATE ADDED 14/10/24: Also from the Bee: "Kamala Campaign Forced To Hire Gay Actors For Ad After Being Unable To Find Any Straight Male Kamala Supporters", Babylon Bee, 12/10/24.

Question for the Cackler's campaign team: Do you think you're doing her any favours by making voters ROFL?

Blowback from "Best Real Name" award

Ed. here. An assiduous reader disagrees with Walt's choice of Chun In-bum as Best Real Name of 2024. (See yesterday's post.)

First, she thinks the award is premature, given that there are 11 months to go before we welcome in a new year and a new, greater America. (Didja get the political point there?)

Secondly, she says that Chun In-bum ought not to be eligible for the award, because it's not an "English" name, meaning it probably means sometehing un-funny in Korean, and is only funny to us because it sounds like... well... "funny" is in the mind of the reader/hearer.

We take issue with that assertion. To us, "Chun In-bum" just sounds funny. And, believe it or not, "Bum" is not an uncommon name in Korea. There was a story during the Vietnam War about the Korean Foreign Minister, whose name made Americans laugh. It was Lee Bum Suk.. Embarrassed TV bingo-callers (newscasters who read off the Autocue) tried to soften it up a bit by pronouncing it as "Lee Boom Sook", but Mr Lee made it clear that, no, it was "Lee Bum Suck".

OK, forget the Korean names. Our reader wants a nice American name? Walt has one for ya, taken from p. 144 of An American Company: the Tragedy of United Fruit, by Thomas P. McCann, a former PR executive of the company. (Crown Publishers, New York, 1976). 

"One of the company's supervisors, who later rose to become an Assistant Manager of one of the tropical divisions, was a Texan named Remington Patterson Coon. His friends called him Pat."    

The author does not mention Mr Coon's race, but given his position in one of the great imperialist American companies, we'll guess he was white. Anyway, his name is not entered in this year's contest. Further nominations are welcome.

VIDEO: Specsavers scoops coveted Wally Award

Just because I'm not posting much this year doesn't mean I've given up. When it comes to my three favourite topics -- religion, hockey and politics [not necessarily in that order. Ed.], it just seems that we're in a lull, or a calm before the storm -- just waiting for something truly blogworth to happen.

The National Hockey League playoffs are upon us, and since the Montréal Canadiens are out, our Sports (read: Hockey) Editor, Poor Len Canayen, has gone fishing. See below?

As for religion, the crisis in the Roman Catholic Church continues. Just before Easter, it looked like God might finally intervene and do something about Jorge Bergoglio, the man who calls himself Pope Francis. But no. Pope Bergoglio is back to his usual routine of saying three woke things before breakfast, while we "Rad Trads" wait for something providential to happen.

Then there's politics. In Canada, Prime Minister Blackie McBlackface can't be dislodged since he has a deal, in writing, with the socialists to prop up his minority government no matter what. He could break wind in King Charles' face and they'd still support him. The deal expires in 2025, so forget about Canuckistan until then.

The Excited States of America is disintegrating in front of our eyes as well as behind our backs. Later today I'll review Colin Woodard's American Nations, a 2011 book containing some scary analysis of the state of the Disunion, along with a dirfe prediction. 

All that Mr Woodard foresaw is happening, in spades. Cooked Joe Biden has announced that he will run for re-election, and that's fine with the New York Times, which opines that the US of A can get along without a fully functional president. Why? Because (although the NYT doesn't say so) the Deep State is running everything, for better or worse... mostly worse.

So... I've been watching a lot of non-news TV, wallowing in the wokeness and other stupidity, which is relieved occasionally by a clever commercial. I'm not going to wait until the end of the year to announce the winner of the coveted Wally Award for Excellence in TV Advertising. It goes to the agency who created this fine piece of work for Specsavers.

 

I do wonder if this was created by Canadians. Perhaps Steve Smith and Rick Green, the chief writers for the old Red Green TV show. Sure looks to me like Red and his nephew Harold! Well done, whoever you are.

2022 Wally Awards: Best TV commercial

A few days ago we revealed the winner of the 2022 Wally Award for Worst TV Commerical. Here's the positive counterpart -- Best TV commercial for 2022.

How clean is your floor? Thanks and Happy New Year to Agent 6 for submitting this.

2022 Wally Awards: Worst TV commercial

Think about this. You're a creative genius at the agency that handles AirBnB. For your punishment, the account exec hands you, just in time for Christmas Winter Holiday, a problem that "only you can solve": create a message that will overcome the negative publicity about guests wrecking hosts' short-term rentals, and persuade them it's safe to list their homes.

So you do some research, maybe some polling or focus group stuff, to find out what people are afraid of. Turns out people are afraid of "strangers". Specifically, people who aren't from the same "community". Most short-term rental homes are owned by racist colonialist white people, who are afraid of renting to, errr, other-complected people.

The evil white supremacists are afraid to rent to black people because those BLM types will trash their homes. And they're afraid that people who they call by a name that rhymes with "lackeys" will leave their homes smelling of curry... or worse. 

What can we say that would overcome this innate fear of The Other. How about showing some of them renting out their own million-dollar homes to some white folks? Nahhhh. How about... well, damn! No matter which races we show, it's gonna be misinterpreted. Political correctness means we can barely mention the fears we're addressing. Even the word "stranger" is verging on the improper, because, as we all know, there are no more "strangers" in the Brandon's Woke America.

Then, rising from somewhere in your subconscious, you remember a grainy old photo which was said to show a... a... a sasquatch, crashing through the brush. Perfectly PC because a sasquatch is obviously (d) none of the above!

And so you pitch, and AirBnB buys this... the winner of the coveted Wally Award for the Worst TV Commercial of the year 2022.

 

If the idea of having a family of sasquatches stay in your house for a week or two doesn't disturb you, you won't agree with our judges' decision, but frankly, Walt et al. found it just plain stupid.

Footnote: Some nigglers may say, rightly, that this commercial has been around for a year. We know that. It was flighted just over a year ago, too late for inclusion in last year's nominations. So we carried it forward, and with the only competition being the numberless commercials showing black bankers, brain surgeons and billionaires, it was an easy winner.

2022 Wally Awards: Best pictorial explanation of "our" foreign aid policy

Sometimes it's hard to understand government policies, particularly foreign policy and the trillions spent on foreign. For a clearer understanding of how your tax dollars are spent to help the development of third world shitholes, check out this photo, taken somewhere in the Middle East.

One picture may be worth 1000 words, but is it worth $1000? You be the judge. And be sure to let the rulers of your country know how proud you are of their wokeness.

Footnote and protest alert! Organizers of the original Freedom Convoy protest that paralyzed the capital of Canuckistan (Prime Minister McBlackface's residence is pictured above) for three weeks in early 2022 say they're planning on bringing a new convoy to Winnipeg MB next month. 

In a Facebook post reported by CTV, Canada Unity shared a live video in which they proclaimed that a "world unity convoy” would be held in Winterpeg, so named because of its insalubrious climate, from the 17th to 20th of February, to coincide with the Whitewash Rouleau Commission report into last year's protest.

Mr Socks is said to be making reservations for a skiing holiday at "an undiscosed location" (read: NOT Winnipeg) for the 16th through 21st.

VIDEO: Latest Wally winner

We introduced the Wally awards (originally called "Commies", but changed because, well...) for outstanding creativity in advertising. Previous winners have included TV spots for the Nissan Rogue (twice), the Bank of Nova Scotia ("Gear of a Champion"), Dairy Farmers of Canada (for telling the truth in 10 seconds), and the famous Olex caveman commercial. 

That one appeared way back in 2015, and for some reason "caveman" commercials have been popular ever since. Perhaps they appeal to the primitive man in all of us. Or maybe they just tickle the funny-bone. Larry David has done some excellent work in this genre, but our latest Wally Award for Creativity in Television Advertising goes to the creators of "Early Adopters", a spot for Wealthsimple Crypto.

   

For those who haven't heard of it, Wealthsimple Technologies Inc. is an online financial services company that has seen a surge in new retail clients throughout the Plannedemic with its zero-fee trading platform. In this spot they're trying to talk us into investing in crypto currencies like Bitcoin. The appeal is to old fogies like Walt, who refuse to get in on the Latest New Thing.

Seems that clever advertising doesn't always help companies that market something that people are skeptical about. This week, Wealthsimple's largest shareholder devalued the stock by 20% as the broad-based sell-off of publicly traded technology stocks spreads to private markets. 

IGM Financial, a subsidiary of Power Corp. of Canada, revealed in its latest financial statements released Thursday that it had marked down its valuation for Wealthsimple to $925 million as of March 31st, from $1153 billion at the end of 2021. 

"This is not a reflection of the business model, its prospects or the management at Wealthsimple," said IGM CEO James O’Sullivan. "We are extremely proud of Wealthsimple as their largest shareholder but from a distance, you only have to look at the publicly-traded fintech companies to see that valuations have reset and so this reflects our judgment as to what an appropriate value is."

Maybe so, but if I played the markets, I'd be investing not in Wealthsimple, but in the advertising agency that created this Wally award-winning commercial.

VIDEO: Wally award for commercial of the year

Time now to present the coveted Wally Award for Excellence in Advertising. This was originally intended as an annual award, but has become a sometime thing, presented only when Walt's humerus is truly tickled. That's happened maybe six times in the 12-year history of WWW. The latest winner is... may I have the envelope please... Zulu Alpha Kilo, for "Don't get milked", developed for insurance comparison website Rates.ca (styled RATESDOTCA).

   

Udderly absurd, eh? Canadian marketing website TheMessage sez half the battle in advertising is getting noticed, and "it seems a safe assumption that 'Don't get milked' will garner more than a few 'WTF did I just watch?' reactions." 

Zulu Alpha Kilo founder and CEO Zak Mroueh told The Message, "We knew we had to do something that would breakthrough and get the attention we were looking for. We landed on a very clear, but extremely memorable way of getting Canadians to think about their car insurance and realize that they might be overpaying."

Walt noticed that they managed to make the characters a black man (gainfully employed) interacting with a white woman, so they've got the wokeness nailed down too. Well done on all counts.

Anus horribilis 2020: Walt's Newsmaker of the Year

Ed. here. 2020 is almost over, thank God, truly an Annus Horribilis if ever there was one. (I know my Latin but Walt insists on leaving the headline as he wrote it.) Sorry for the interruption yestereday evening. We return now to our yearend review, to present the coveted Wally Award to the Newsmaker of the Year. May I have the envelope please? ... And the winner is...

   

Well who did you expect? Sleepy Joe Biden, the all-but-invisible "President-elect"? Do an analysis of the amount of time and space given by the meeja to the contestants in the fraudulent election for the Presidensity between Hallowe'en and Christmas, and you'll see that Still-President Donald J. Trump is the winner, leaving Old Joe waaaay up the track.

The lamestream media has been preoccupied with The Donald for at least five years. First there was speculation over whether or not he would throw his hat in the ring. Then there was the great debate over whether to take his campaign for the Republican nomination seriously. Should they put it in the political news or the entertainment news. Still news, right?

Then Mr Trump was nominated, and the controlled media had to start taking him seriously... although not respectfully. The minute his candidacy for othe Highest Office in the Land became official, the anti-Trump campaign began. Suddenly America's media were filled with rumours, speculation, disinformation and outright lies. (Hello, Russian conspiracy!)

But the media storm of scorn didn't matter. In an election which was a model of fairness and honesty compared with V.2020, the American people chose as their leader a man after their own collective heart.

If you search YouTube, you can still find dozens of videos of the astonishment and humiliation of all those "exports", "analysts", pollsters and other pundits -- not forgetting "celebrities" -- who had to eat generous helpings of crow, live and on the air, when it became apparent that the horrible, politically incorrect "Orange Man" was going to become the 45th President of the United States. But that was only the beginning!

   

The sun hadn't even risen (out here at least) on The Morning After, when the "Resistance" began. How many times have you seen this iconic photo, or read the slogan "Not my president!" since then? 

The anti-Trumpers went... and remain... stark staring bonkers in their refusal to accept the fact that Donald Trump won the 2016 election, became President... and still is President. 

Our own Agent 17 offered to bet that President Trump wouldn't finish his term. And the Swamp -- the Democrats and the Washington establishment -- did their damndest to make it so. Remember the impeachment farce?

That didn't work either, so here we are, with just over three weeks of the Trump presidency remaining, and the same fake news media -- for that's what they are -- less concerned with predicting the shape and direction of a Biden administration than with guessing how President Trump might contrive to remain in office. 

Will Old Joe's inauguration be forestalled by another appeal to SCOTUS? A declaration of martial law? A military coup? Or some kind of divine intervention? (Remember what happened to Pope John Paul I!) Check the fake news outlets -- CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, CBC, any of them! -- today and see if that's not what they're talking about. That, dear reader, is why Still-President Donald J. Trump is Walt's Newsmaker of the Year!

Further reading: "CNN: 'Our Ratings Are Only Tanking Because Trump Is Killing Off Viewers By The Millions'", Babylon Bee, 26/8/19. Satire from the pre-Covid daze!