You know, all I wanted to do was watch the effing Brady Bunch. That's all I wanted. I wanted to laugh at the funny, funny comedy of the sort only a lovely lady bringing up three very lovely girls, and four men living all together can provide. What can I say? I was probably seven years old. I had just reached the age of reason, I'd begun to understand the world we were living in, and I needed some bad comedy bad.

The thing is, TBS would run these three commercials every day during the after-school reruns. Three commercials so inapproriately depressing that they could just ruin your whole day.

The first commercial was about a kid named Joey, whose father would beat him up all the time. It was in black and white, and for some reason it had a jingle, which was a really depressing song that reminded me of Jim Croce. I remember it to this day: "Join the abused child fight / and put an end to the sleepless nights." Awful.

The second commercial was for some sort of social service hotline. It was really low-budget, and featured a series of still photographs with voiceovers of the people in the photos. I only remember the old lady, who was talking to her cat. She said, "Did you ever feel so lonely you thought you just couldn't go on?" Then you hear the fucking cat meow.

Finally, there was the dog commercial, which I hated the most. You see a nice family enjoying a fancy dinner. The lighting is all warm and glowing. Then the camera pans back and shows the outside of the house. We no longer hear the family, we only hear the cold, biting wind. The lighting is now bluish and harsh. On a cement pad in the backyard, there's a filthy german shepard leashed to a metal pole on about three feet of chain, shivering. Nice.

As I said, I just wanted some laughs, man. Who the hell watches the Brady Bunch at 3:30pm except for kids? Who were these ads for?

It's almost as bad as that episode of Good Times when Janet Jackson takes off her shirt and reveals a burn on her back in the perfect shape of an iron.

Jesus.