The fastest way to turn me into a blubbering mess.

This Dawn soap commercial.



First off, the song just kills me (and for all of you other geeks out there, it was also featured in a first season episode of Lost). And second, the image of any animal covered in oil gives me instant flashbacks to the Saved by the Bell where Zach and the gang take care of water animals for some class or other (in this episode their high school magically has a plentiful aquatic ecosystem behind it), and then there's an oil spill (because the high school also magically has a giant, untapped oil reserve on its grounds) and this evil oil company (okay seriously who came up with these plots?) wants to drill there, and Zach's duck gets covered in oil and dies, even though Zach tries to save her by washing her off, and see, I'm CRYING now. And every time this commercial comes on, it's instant Saved by the Bell flashback tears. And I mean, even if that Saved by the Bell never happened what is sadder than adorable animals covered in oil? And what is more inspirational than those same animals being cleaned off by SOAP? Dawn soap. And for every bottle you buy they give money to save these same poor animals, so that there can be more inspirational soap baths given to poor, oil covered otters and I'm just going to go buy 500 bottles of Dawn soap.

And that's why those advertising geniuses are so good at what they do. Outright emotional manipulation.

Update: Oh God, when I wrote this I didn't even think about the fact that there is an honest to God oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico right now, and this is just so incredibly depressing, and lets all go to the grocery store and fill our carts up with only DAWN SOAP.