Great Job, Internet! Demon sheep, organ-selling coroners and the art of the insane attack ad

We sit in front of our computers most of the day, connected to our friends and co-workers by the series of pipes, strings, and nimbostratus zackets called the Internet. Many times per day, things flash before our eyes—videos, photos, songs, sites—that are funny or strange enough to warrant sharing with other people, but not funny or strange enough for us to write a big ol' post about. We've occasionally posted blogs under the heading Awesome Internet Thing, but that was a boring title, so it never caught on. Genevieve recently suggested a new title—Great Job, Internet!—and thus a new type of blog post is born.

Attack ads are by definition critical. We're all far too acquainted with ubiquitous ads showing the rival candidate glowering menacingly in black and white as a scolding narrator delineates his many fatal character flaws (corruption, waste, male pattern baldness, cannibalism) before presenting a shimmering alternative: our guy surrounded by adoring widows and orphans and lit from within with a golden light worthy of Thomas Kinkaid as he leads us into a tomorrow beyond our wildest fantasies.

But few attacks ads take the "attack" part as seriously as these two notorious political ads. The first posits its subject as not just a bad guy and a disingenuous fellow but also, metaphorically at least, a genetically altered demon sheep with glowing red eyes. It's also about three and a half hours long (or at least feels that way), so, you know, it's got that going for it.

This ad merely suggests none too subtly that the candidate's rival is merely a Dr. Giggles-like madman who raffles off the body parts of the dead to the highest bidder. You have to admire its restraint and gift for understatement.