If creepy is the new funny, then the latest Jolly Ranchers commercial is hilarious.

The latest in a trend of awkward, what-the-heck-was-that-all-about candy commercials this Jolly Ranchers Crunch and Chew commercial features a turtle that not only uses telepathy to communicate with others, but can also fly (without wings, or course – turtles don’t have wings, duh), and when provoked shoot lasers out of its eyes.

And if you think that’s a little weird, the turtle is hanging out with some really creepy guys to boot. The first guy is an older tweaked out guy compulsively lifting weights in front of a television. The next guy is sitting at the table with the turtle and looking like he’s got a severe case of the munchies.

Candy companies have started hitting the awkwardly unconfortable angle really hard. It started with the Skittles commercial with the guy in an interview who has a really long beard that he can manipulate to grab things with. Naturally, he uses his scraggly beard powers to attempt to grab the Skittles from the interviewer. It’s an awkward exchange and it’s awkward to watch. But it definitely gets your attention.

We see this trend with snack foods as well. Cheetos commercials have been pushing the awkward envelope with the latest line of Chester Cheetah commercials. In one commercial the cheetah and another guy are having a house party in a house that has barely begun to be built. If you’ve seen it, you know it’s weird, but that’s the goal of the campaign. The funny thing is, weird works with snack foods and, perhaps, candy too.

The Jolly Ranchers commercial ends with the turtle feeling provoked by the man’s desire to eat him. He shoot off a warning laser shot from his eyeballs and flies out the door. It creates a moment in the room where the viewers look at each other and ask, “did that really just happen?” Jolly Rancher does a good job of working the candy in there as well, so you remember what they’re selling too.

What do you think? Are these commercials targeting stoner-types or are they just trying to get your attention?

You know those vending machine games where you try to direct the claw to the right spot so when it drops it will grab a toy and bring it back to you?  Yeah, I was never any good at those either.  They are designed to make it seemed very difficult for you to win the candy and toys inside.   But the designers didn’t account for this brilliant 3 year old boy.

Who knows what drove your Mr. Noah Jeffrey to climb up through the chute and into the belly of the claw machine.  Maybe he was out of quarters and frustrated that he hadn’t been able to retrieve his prize the conventional way.  Maybe he wanted to show the engineers their design flaw.  Or maybe he saw something he wanted and applied a fundamental law of geometry.  The shortest distance between a boy and his candy is a straight line.

It didn’t take long for Noah to reach the pinnacle of his mountain and assume his role as king of the day.  He must have felt like Scrooge McDuck swimming around his money bin as he waded through the pool of goodies.  But he didn’t waste much time frolicking around.  No sooner than when he reached the inner reservoir did he begin to distribute his riches to the other kids in the area.  This boy is no king, he is the next Robin Hood!

As the growing crowd of children laughed and sang his praise, the boy ate his favorite candies and played with his toys triumphantly.  But this story is not without a fair amount of drama.  Not long after a crowd started to form, his parents came over to see what was happening.  They noticed that Noah was sweating badly.  These vending machines are not made for people to inhabit.  There is little oxygen in there and the lights make it very hot, actually.  Someone needed to help him get out fast.

With the fire department on their way and a crowd of people watching his every move, the young man, prompted enthusiastically (and bribed with more candy), climbed back down the chute.  But the mechanism makes it more difficult to exit the system than to enter, so he got stuck.  It proved only a brief hiccup, however, as his was far enough down by that point that his mother could pull him out the rest of the way.

So the funny story ended happily, with Noah wanting to go back in as soon as he came out.  In the drama of the moment, he’d forgotten to fill his pockets to the brim with assorted bulk candy and toys.