From: radioacti...@gmail.com   
      
   I was surprised and utterly perplexed to learn the following after researching   
   what on earth might be the supposed point of those punishingly-unfunny Liberty   
   Mutual TV commercials for insurance.  (You know, the annoying ones in heavy   
   rotation for years    
   now with that guy hanging out and sharing 30-second contrived adventures with   
   an emu, the fellow's pal/pet/significant-other.)   
      
   Now of course I realized that the emu was selected over, say, a sandpiper or a   
   tarantula, simply because the company's initials are LM (which in turn extend   
   to LiMu), but I couldn't fathom why that awkward guy was teamed with ANY   
   animal, or why they were    
   scripted into such childish scenarios.   
      
   Well, a check of the LM website disclosed this startling fact:   
      
   Some word-salad-for-brains ad agency wizard had the dumb notion of trying to   
   recreate the supposed magic of the "Starsky & Hutch" fictive cop team!  Now,   
   maybe that ABC crime series WAS "magical" (or at least had its various   
   charms)--I wouldn't know, as    
   I yet to ever watch an episode (and even doubt I've seen more than a single   
   scene here and there whilst channel-surfing).   
      
   But was the interplay of the S&H characters on ABC over several seasons so   
   original AND memorable that decades later even a SINGLE potential Liberty   
   Mutual insured client would EVER had made that mental connection?  Not one   
   person I've mentioned this to    
   said they could discern ANY connection between the ABC series and the LM   
   commercial series.   
      
   Well, at least the ad agency responsible for this sterling stupidity didn't   
   ALSO in these puerile spots follow the current industry trend of woke-ily   
   casting an actor "of color" in the human role (to "blackwash" memories of   
   Soul's and Glasser's    
   characters, as their insurance-industry competition did with "Jake from State   
   Farm", who you'll recall started out as a white guy).  Though I suppose you   
   COULD argue that that emu IS a "character of color"--pale yellow, on my video   
   screen.   
      
   As for the sole Soul penetration into the AM radio hit parade ("Don't Give Up   
   On Us"):  Soul's singing voice was weak for sure, but not as hardly as weak as   
   that one-hit-wonder's bland (or dare I say "soulless"?) melody.   
      
   BRYAN STYBLE/Florida   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)