This commercial for DirecTV, featuring a man and his living, breathing marionette significant other, has been running on television pretty frequently since mid-April. This means that you have all probably seen it by now, and have raised a number of very reasonable questions and concerns about its premise, including, for example “Why?” and “I don’t…” and “WHO SAID THIS WAS OKAY? I WANT NAMES.” This is excellent news for me, because it means I can bypass most of the introduction and get straight to my own list of questions about it. Hooray for effeciency.
Let’s begin.
How did this couple meet?
Do you think this guy has always had a thing for marionettes?
Do you think he was at the grocery store one day and saw her just flailing about hopelessly in the produce section, an ever-growing pile of green peppers laying at her feet as she struggled to get two of them into a plastic bag, and “Dream Weaver” started playing in his head as he watched her?
You know, like in Wayne’s World?
Or did he find her on the Internet, possibly after months of swiping left through thousands of human women on Tinder?
Do you think he got in such a left-swiping groove that he accidentally buzzed right past her and then started FREAKING OUT like “NOOOOOOO. BACK. UN-SWIPE. UN-SWIPE,” only to realize she was gone forever?
Do you think that’s why he started bugging out so hard when he saw her at the grocery store?
Or did he build her in his woodworking shop and then walk in the next morning to find out SURPRISE she came to life like a partial Pinocchio at some point during the night, and then he was all “HOLY CRAP. HOLY CRAP. How did you … how can this … this is impossible. You … you… Hey, you’re pretty hot” and just went with it?
Did he try to explain it to his friends by saying “No no no. I don’t have some creepy marionette fetish or anything. It’s just her. We fell in love. The heart wants what the heart wants,” and all of his friends responded by looking at their menus or their phones or literally anywhere else other than the face of their friend who just told them he loved a wooden — or plastic-ish — doll?
And anyway, how did this friend of his not know he had a living marionette doll for a wife?
Wouldn’t that have come up at some point?
Even if it’s just a new neighbor or something, don’t you think he should have given him a heads up before inviting him in, like “Listen. Before you come in, one quick thing. This doesn’t have to be weird or anything, but…” instead of letting his lemonade carrying doll/wife sneak up on them from behind?
When people started finding out about them, did it become a big deal, with news stories and blog posts titled “Meet The Perv Who Married His Marionette” or whatever flooding the news cycle for a week or two before everyone moved on to another topic, like a video of a dog flying a helicopter?
Do you think there’s some hyper-conservative anti-gay political figure in this world who saw the story about the guy marrying his marionette and immediately went on cable news to yell “This is exactly what I was talking about. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the gays. It’s just that we let them start marrying each other, and now look. People marrying puppets. It’s sick, that’s what it is”?
Man, f*ck that guy, right?
Hey, wait a second … what are her wires even hooked up to?
Are … are they hooked up to nothing?
How is she marionnetting around inside the house if her wires aren’t hooked up to anything?
WHAT KIND OF SORCERY IS THIS?
Or did they install an elaborate multi-million-dollar track system in the ceilings of their home that helps her get around without some huge literal puppet master moving her arms and legs?
If that’s the case, how do you explain this?
Don’t see any high-tech tracking system there, do you?
And another thing, even if they do have some sort of in-home system set up, how would she get around outside?
Does she just stay in the house all day?
Is that any way to live?
Do you find it morally troubling that this guy may have created a marionette wife for himself who has the capacity to think and feel, but who is also essentially a prisoner in their home?
It’s a little stupid for me to be nitpicking this part of the commercials when there are very clearly two living, breathing wooden dolls running around, one of whom appears to be the product of human/doll mating, huh?
If that’s his kid, why is he full marionette?
Do you think the kid is his?
Like, is the kid from a previous relationship she had with another marionette who left her high and dry after she got pregnant?
Was it JC Chasez from N’ Sync?
I mean, remember the beginning of the “Bye Bye Bye” video?
You’re picturing JC Chasez humping a marionette now, aren’t you?
Speaking of marionette sex… how do the man and his wife have sex?
CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE I WAITED OVER 30 QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT THE SEX THING?
I’m so mature, right?
But seriously, does she have fully functioning sexual organs?
Did he build them into her hoping they would work if/when she came to life?
If you really think about it and take it out of the context of this commercial, isn’t that just about the creepiest thing you’ve ever heard?
Do you think, if they get a little carried away, he ever gets splinter, you know, down there?
If you got a splinter in your penis from humping your marionette too rigorously, would you go to the emergency room, or just immediately die of shame right there on the floor?
How do you think the nurses and doctors would react when he explains the situation?
Like, do you think the nurse would be all “How did this happen?” and he’d try to play it off like people get splinters in their penis all the time and it’s not a big deal, and then the nurse would look over into the waiting room and see his wife laying limp on a chair and be all “Ohhhhhhhh. You’re the guy from the news”?
Or do you think it happens so frequently that the doctors see him and are just like “Again, Kevin?”
How many people do you think will end up at this post after Googling “splinters in the penis”?
Will these and other questions be addressed in a forthcoming sitcom based on this campaign titled What Wood You Do For Love?, starring Dave from Happy Endings as the husband and Judy Greer as the voice of the marionette?
What is the deal with those strange-ass Framily commercials Judy Greer is in now, anyway?
Everyone in advertising is on drugs, yes?
Isn’t is funny to picture Don Draper’s face if Stan came to him with the idea for a national campaign about the home life of a man and his creepy doll/wife?
HEY, WAIT. HOW DID SHE EVEN MAKE THAT LEMONADE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
This is all so confusing.
