• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, September 24, 2024

What’s in a name?

Thanks, Bard. But it’s still a head-scratcher.

And lately, advertisers seem to be appropriating weird kid’s names to get attention in commercials focused on vacationing families.

“Hey, Pickle!” screams a bearded girl-dad in a Credit One Visa Wander commercial. He’s shown dragging a bag and towels as he trudges across the beach, landing in the shadow of  a Buckingham-Palace-sized sandcastle.

The turrets, numbering in the very high two figures, block the sun.

Apparently, this eye-popping work of sand art also comes with its own onsite superhero architect -- a gorgeous, golden Amazonian woman, crouching at its side. She’s building the castle with the mere mortal assistance of Pickle’s brother, who gets a high five for helping, but goes nameless.

As an appellation, Pickle is both an attention-getter and fantasy breaker. As Pickle appears in yonder window, Dad tells her the most mundane of things: “I have Mom’s glasses!" (still screaming.) “Great!” Pickle responds. “She’s in the ballroom—the big one!” she says, sustaining the magic.

The word “pickle” is funny, but mostly associated with old-fashioned things. In the 1950s and 60s, the joke was that pregnant women loved them. Pickles was also a name given to weird grown women in comedy then. It’s also a last name of distinction, as in Tommy Pickles, an adventurous baby who often broke out of his crib on the award-winning animated Nickelodeon kids’ series, "Rugrats."

 Excuse the pun that’s coming, but this family does not seem in a financial pickle. They can afford to build a palace-in-the-sand in vacationland, and most importantly, all get along swimmingly as they build it together.

“Vacations are better with the credit gods on your side,” the female voiceover says.

That’s a good line that ties up the joke and the concept.

In reality, of course, relying on the credit gods for anything can be dangerous. 

But leave it to the name Pickles to ground the fantasy and bring it back to that most humble of comestibles.

That’s all pretty deep for a credit card commercial. It works.

Whereas sassy Priceline spokesperson Kaley Cuoco (Penny on "Big Bang Theory," etc.) plays into the cringey energy of a semi-recent spot, also featuring a vacationing family, with admirable gusto.

Kelly tells a sunbathing couple that Priceline.com can “help them save up to 60% on family-friendly hotels.”

They don’t seem to find her abrupt, just-get-to-the-sell conversation-starter strange.  In fact, it seems to propel the wife to go off to her own fantasyland. “So many great trips,” she muses from under her stylish hat, “we might just leave here with another vacation baby.”

Meanwhile, their tween-ish daughter, sitting poolside, overhears this and emits the perfect response: ”Gross!”

The dad pipes up with “Take it easy, Paris.”

Now destination names like Paris have been popular for the past 20 years or so, with Paris leading London, Montana, and Brooklyn. So I didn’t process it as anything but a name.

That was until the dad adds, “And you, too, Fort Lauderdale.”  He’s speaking to his son, the little brother, groaning into his oversized tube in the pool.

The four-syllable name starting with Fort does not compute and breaks the spell.  And it leaves Kelly holding the groaner joke bag.

Like a Catskills-style performer, she ends the spot with “At least it wasn’t Toledo.”

Ba da bum!

But using Toledo seems gratuitous, just at a time when the Midwest is finally getting some well-deserved respect, via Tim Walz.

And punching down on Ohio is not a good look for a travel company.

Had the little bro been named “Toledo,” which conjures up a smile, the spot would have made more sense.

It also would have allowed our spokes-standup, Kelly,  to close with, “At least it’s not Fort Lauderdale!” which also works better. She would be using Fort Lauderdale as an even more bizarre name, and not disparaging the town in Florida.

Many fewer Ohioans would have been hurt.  And perhaps they would have been persuaded to go to their “happy price, Priceline.” 

Otherwise, making fun of kids’ names because it turns out they were “vacation babies” is dicey but clever. 

But for the sake of this story, there’s something more important in the order of things than in a name.

I wonder if Shakespeare would agree.