Clearly, when you hire noted not-inbred-but-you-wouldn’t-be-surprised brothers Eli and Peyton Manning to make a rap video to promote your new NFL Fantasy Sports Gloryhole Ignore Your Wife And Loved Ones Package, you know you aren’t gonna be getting the next #1 spot on Hot 97. You know damn well you're getting something campy and OMG LOLZlarious that snarky bloggers will make gifs of and roll their e-eyes at, netting you a shit-ton of views. Well, we hate to give them what they want, but this new video that the Mannings dropped today is fucking terrible. Not terrible in the sense of “Oh wow, look how wooden and dorky their delivery is! Ha ha, these men should stick to football and not rapping, huh?” Lord knows we already knew how piss-poor their prime-time performances are. For proof, see their SNL appearances or Super Bowl XLVIII (eat a dick, Peyton!).No, this commercial/video is funny in the way a disabled child trying to do a stand-up routine at a talent show is. You’re laughing for all the wrong reasons and you feel terrible about yourself. It’s not offbeat enough to be actually funny, à la Terry Crews’ amazing Tim and Eric-directed Old Spice commercials. And it’s not straightforward and pointless enough to be sincerely funny, like when the Lonely Island made pretty much the exact same video for fun. It's just a marketing campaign to sell you some shit, wrapped in an internet-friendly blanket of memes, much like those brands with very hip social media managers who tweet about enjoying their new chicken-fried pancakes with your bae. The video features a man getting showered with mini-footballs (OMG just like those Skittles commercials, kinda!), Joe Namath macking on your mom (LOL so gross but probs tru), unicorns, and Eli auto-tuned in space. They stop one bacon reference short of getting a blog-to-book deal. But wait, you just did so much LOLing, you didn't even realize you've learned all about their #brand! Woah. Very chill. Very #viral.So there you have it. The ad people behind this commercial get what they paid for and we give them exactly what they wanted and get bummed about life for the afternoon. The earth continues to spin as planned. Can't wait till the regular season starts so we can get back to laughing at the Manning brothers for the reasons God intended…
