FEED ME... does it have to be human? FEED ME... does it have to be Sprite?

I was up late last night watching the Colbert Report on Comedy Central and waiting for Lauren to get back from a birth. During one of the breaks, a commercial came on for Sprite. I always turn down the volume to almost silent during commercials because the ad companies always jack up the sound on us. Combined with the fact that I was also half-asleep (I'm usually passed out by 11:00), I don't actually know what the context of this particular Sprite ad was. I just know that at low volume, and in a haze of consciousness, it was one of the creepiest images I've ever seen put out by people trying to sell soda. Basically some guy was in a greenhouse watering what appeared to be a large quantity of either Snapdragons or Venus Flytraps. My assumption is that he was spraying Sprite all over them, or maybe he was holding a Sprite in his hand... it was nearly midnight by this point. Either way all these little Snapdragons began seductively turning their white heads with blood red lips toward the guy with the hose. It looked like they were talking to him - whispering actually - though again, with the volume turned down I couldn't tell for sure. Eventually this guy was surrounded by these little whispering flowers. The look on his face was probably intended to express a sentiment like, "Hey why are all these flowers turning toward me?" But what I saw at 11:50 at night was, "Oh my god, these things are going to eat me!"

Again, I don't know what the context of the commercial was. Maybe, had I turned the volume up, I'd have heard silly music in the background and realized that the flowers were actually singing a Weird Al song to the dude with the hose. But with the volume down, I filled in my own soundtrack, supplied by Pink Floyd from their album "The Wall." There is a scene in that movie based on the album where two animated flowers sprout and then begin moving seductively towards each other, much the same way the Snapdragons appeared to be moving toward the Sprite guy. Well in the scene in "The Wall", one of the flowers ends up raping the other flower. Then the vagina on the victim-flower turns into a dragon, bites the head off the rapist-flower and then flies off across a barren desert wasteland with the dead thing in its mouth... yeah, it's a trippy, f---ed up movie if you've never seen it.

So as this image and soundtrack is going through my head, the thought occurs to me, Why would Sprite put a commercial like this on TV at this time of night? And during the Colbert Report no less! They must know that a good portion of their audience at this point is going to be high on marijuana or some other illicit substance that ends up screwing with your perception and paranoias. After all, who else besides out-of-work stoners, college kids and college kid stoners (and, of course, completely sober husbands waiting for their midwife wives to return from the hospital) are up until midnight? Somebody high on Mary Jane is going to watch this commercial and flip right the hell out that this poor greenhouse worker is about to be devoured by thousands of little Audrey II's. You think he's going to feel very thirsty for a Sprite after that?

But what to do I know? Again, maybe it was a Weezer song in the background and the Snapdragon's voice was John Ratzenberger, the guy who played Cliff Claven on Cheers.