So radio commercials are having a bit of a resurgeance or renaissance of sorts judging by the new variety I hear–not just local construction companies and, later, gambling ads, but national brands like Vicks and national brands with local presences like Whataburger are running spots. Good! Keep broadcast radio alive for me, for the times I listen to it (which is brief interludes until I realize that the playlists are as long as Spotify radio).
But Vicks has one where the setup is that two sports commentators are talking about an upcoming game deciding the champ between the two teams, but one has a sore throat. He takes the medication and is ready to go leading to this exchange:
Healed commentator: He really vaporized that ball!
Other guy: You deserve a penalty for that pun.
And I got to thinking, “What sport is that?” I mean, a sport where you apparently hit the ball as hard as you can but has penalties? Not baseball. Not hockey (it mentions a ball). “Vaporize” the ball does not make sense in soccer or football.
Golf? Tennis? The commercial had a roaring crowd in the background, so probably no.
Which leads to the next question: Did the copywriters and everyone involved not know these things did not go together? Or was the whole thing an exercise in LLM-generation (supervised by someone who did not know anything about sportsball and was probably proud of it)?
