… in which Bing concludes that “some virtual lives are not worth living.”

In a year of pretty good Super Bowl ads (CareerBuilder and Hulu.com were notable standouts), one of my favorites was this one from Pepsi. In concept, anyway. The Gumby/Shrek contrast is pretty good, and the concert scene of lighters vs. cell phones is perfect. Some of the other “everything old is new again” bits work well. But sorry, Will.I.Am: You’re no Bob Dylan. Not even close.

I’ve done enough kid-oriented marketing in my time to know that the restrictions on what you can and can’t say in your communications and packaging are significant. I’ve been involved in plenty of legal discussions that made me wonder if I’d fallen into a Monty Python sketch.

CARU guidelines under the section labeled “Product Presentations and Claims” clearly state: “Copy, sound and visual presentations should not mislead children about product or performance characteristics.”

So how does Lucky Charms get away with saying, “Control Time!” on their box? Right there. Front and center. No asterisk leading to any laughable legal disclaimer such as, “Note: Eating Lucky Charms doesn’t actually give you the ability to control time.”

Seeing something like this just makes me wonder why all those Pythonesque meetings happened in the first place.