965 Miles For Shitty Dorito Tacos

If you're anything like me, then you spend your commercial breaks during 3:00am episodes of Full House on Nick at Nite sneering at every single ad for every single product or service in existence. There I am, trying to enjoy the wild antics of Uncle Joey and I get bombarded with awful advertisements. Prescription medication commercials that show an elderly couple playing with their dog on the lawn while a ten-page list of horrifying side effects such as "rectal bleeding" or "exploding fetus syndrome" is soothingly read in the voiceover. Dumb young women in pajamas and slippers telling you how easy it is to go through college the dumb way by sitting on your fat dumb ass and clicking through some dumb websites so you can earn your dumb "Harry Potter History" degree in only six dumb months.

Everyone in every commercial is completely full of shit. Nobody is that excited about anything. When was the last time you took a sip of V8, patted your stomach, and nodded approvingly at the bottle? When was the last time you grinned ear-to-ear while spraying Scrubbing Bubbles into your filthy toilet? When was the last time you voluntarily drove almost 1000 miles for fast food? For ANYTHING? Even the pedophiles on Dateline didn't drive 1000 miles.

I don't know if the following commercial is even on TV anymore. It most likely isn't. It's probably been off TV for over a month now. I probably shouldn't even bother writing about it. But I'm still irrationally mad at it so here we are. It's the Taco Bell "Doritos Locos Tacos" commercial.





The Legendary Tale of Nat Christiana's Journey! Here we have four people in a conveniently interracial friendship who are completely full of shit, as per the requirements for advertising on television, trekking across American for the sole purpose of purchasing Taco Bell tacos. But not just any Taco Bell tacos! These are Taco Bell tacos with some orange dust on them, which is decidedly better. Orange dust is certainly worth the 965 miles. If orange dust tacos don't make you want to drag three other wretched friends of yours on a meaningless road trip then I don't know what will.

Allow me to break down the commercial for you:
0:03 - "According to this map we're lost and also passed about 560 other Taco Bells so far."
0:04 - Nat Christiana is driving in the rain with the windows down like terrible friend.

0:06 - The kid who called shotgun also brought along a fucking harmonica, as if a 965-mile drive didn't feel long enough already. This, too, is a terrible friend.

0:08 - The road trip's only female passenger stares longingly out of the window, reflecting on the series of events that led her to this moment in her life and wondering what changes she should have made to prevent it from happening.
0:12 - Nat Christiana makes a funny face into a camera. This clocked in at three seconds of time when he wasn't watching the road and now an entire family of ducks who were trying to cross will never make it to the other side.
0:13 - In true "shitty friend" form, Nat proceeds to be irritating to his peacefully-sleeping passenger.

0:17 - We get to see someone make a facial expression that has never been made by anyone entering a Taco Bell parking lot. Ever.

0:19 - "Oh, after a 20-hour drive we don't get to go inside? OK FINE, Nat, you're the boss, I guess we'll continue to wait in the fucking car, then."

0:21 - Nat takes a bite and immediately poops his pants.

0:22 - "Well played, Nat." is said by the voiceover without a hint of much needed overt sarcasm.

0:28 - "We don't even get to find a hotel and rest for the night? Really? You're a huge asshole, Nat. We're not friends anymore."

I'd always assumed that the premise of this commercial was entirely invented by Taco Bell's advertisers, since I couldn't imagine that anybody could be so devoid of life that a road trip based only around tacos that taste like Doritos was an immediate priority. But no, the tale of Nat Christiana's road trip is true, and the following Youtube video was the inspiration for the commercial.

I like Taco Bell as much as the next guy, but a 2000-mile round-trip adventure for $0.90 tacos is stupid as hell. If he stayed home and spent that gas money on regular Taco Bell and a bag of Doritos he could have eaten all week. Well played, Nat.

I heard a Burger King in Alaska just put a 75-foot tall inflatable hamburger out front. Who's in?