Posted 3:03 PM by Gene

As I've said too often before, the ad departments will think of any and all excuses to sponsor anything and everything. This latest whopper comes from a spokespoop at Washington Mutual, which is flushing record-breaking money down the toilet at -- the Oscars®:

The Academy Awards® provide a more effective and more efficient demographic for us....It reaches a better cross-section of...Middle America, and that's our target audience.

Fine, but middle America doesn't go to the movies; it's mostly people on the coasts. Unless you can lure those dumb teenage boys into buying your insurance.

Here are some of the other wasters of mon -- sponsors of the Oscars®, all proud members of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers: American Express (flush), Anheuser-Busch (flush), General Motors (flusssshhhh), JCPenney (flush), Eastman Kodak (flush), PepsiCo (flusshhhhh), MasterCard International (flush), McDonald's (FFFFFFLLLLLLLLLLLLUSSSSSSSSSHHHHH), Procter & Gamble (flusssssshhhhhhhh), AIG (flush), AOL Time Warner (well, it's a movie company; they put their flushes on the screen), and Charles Schwab (flu$h).

How many of their execs will be in the Kodak Theater on the magic night savoring in Chevy Chase Syndrome?