Am I Tired or Just Impressed?

It was one of those Friday nights where the fatigue of the week sets in and you find yourself buried in the cracks of your well-loved couch.

With a bag of no-name brand chocolate chip cookie sandwiches (the strange pimply step-child of the Oreo) and a bookmarked, bedraggled copy of Sara Teasdale's biography, I enjoyed the evening. The TV was set to the home and garden channel. With the Travel Channel gone (Why... oh... why?), I appease my travel bug now by watching rich people (they have to be) house shopping for international abodes.

My fingers on the keyboard of Gorgonzola, my randomly-named laptop (blame Chowder), began to slow. Yes, yes, I was on my laptop too. I really am a multi-tasker. The idea was to read a little, watch TV a little, and raise the word count on my novel manuscript another notch. Hey, it's only a first draft. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. It really is better to just get it all down the first time. So in the process of my usual bout of juggling, a commercial came on that made me stop in my tracks.

A new, Christmas-themed Planter's Nuts commerical.

Whuh.

Now, I've had a lot of little surprises over the past couple days, like, for one, finding out that Nickelodeon is making a partically live-action movie for The Fairly Odd Parents... with Jason Alexander as Cosmo. (Whhhyyy? But Cosmo is so young... and cool... I say this, even though I love Seinfeld. Believe me. But this just isn't right). However, this peanut commercial not only made me abandon all my juggling balls, but had me geeking out about it long afterwards.

[There is something you should know: I am madly in love with both claymation and stop motion animation.]

The commercial is wonderfully made and is a great example of a minature story told artfully in a matter of seconds. I wanted to link it up here via Youtube, but it hasn't been put on there yet. I did learn that Mr. Peanut has his own Facebook page and the video is on there. Please take the time to watch it:

Planter's Nuts Commercial

Best part: Richard the Nutcracker going in for the kill. I thought immediately of Twilight - the way Richard moved was completely vampirelike. It was hilarious.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one who found this commercial, well, noteworthy. Tracy Agnew from the Suffolk News-Herald wrote a great article, enligtening us all on the changes that have occurred to the image of Mr. Peanut. I was surprised at how much thought went into the revamp:

Made-over Mr. Peanut debuts

There it is. A great weekend post. And now it's back to work on the manuscript... until another commercial comes along to dethrone me.