Is anyone else irritated by the current Charmin commercials?

The first commercial that bugs me is the one that states Charmin “doesn’t leave pieces behind”. The first time I heard it, I was in the kitchen chopping vegetables and not watching the TV. I thought “pieces” meant pieces of shit. I practically chopped off my finger – “What did they just say?!!” It took an actual viewing of the commercial to understand what they meant – but still, do you really need to sell TP by telling consumers your product won’t stick to their ass?

I also hate the “kids always take too much” commercial. First, if kids ALWAYS take too much, then it doesn’t matter if Charmin is more absorbent and you need less – because kids ALWAYS, regardless of absorbency, take too much. Also, the premise that kids always take too much is a sweeping generalization. I’m sure there are plenty of parents out there that taught their children how much toilet paper to use to get the job done – I know my mom did. Can I also talk about stereotyping for a minute? First, you have the kids ALWAYS taking too much demonstrated by the child bear scooping too much ice cream on her cone, then you have the hovering, over-protective mother bear who “always knows best” saving the child bear from an imminent ice cream mishap only to have silly poppa bear taking too much as well – proving once again that mom is the only practical, sensible, adult in the household.

What marketing genius comes up with these things – and, better yet, which P&G executive thinks they’re a good idea?

OK….if I’m perfectly honest, it also scares me a little bit that I’m writing a post about toilet paper commercials.