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WE LOVE THEM. AND HATE THEM. WHATEVER THEY ARE: They've become the second-most-talked-about breakout of the Super Bowl. And some people probably wish the FCC could do something about them, too.
They're the singing - or maybe it's more like bleating - rodentlike creatures Quiznos Subs debuted in its latest round of quirky TV ads. The buzz was immediate and definitive: People either love them or hate them.
"We've had a couple people say they can't eat here again," Sideshow was told by Karen Zehnder, who with her husband, Skip, has a Quiznos in downtown Clearwater and will be opening stores in Feather Sound in St. Petersburg and the Indian Rocks area.
"I got a call from a guy the other day. He said, "I've seen the commercials. What are those things? I have never eaten in Quiznos before, but because of that, I'm going to come in."'
The Nancy and Mike morning show on WMTX-FM 100.7 tapped into a well of repulsion when it first brought up the subject last week. Generally, the repulsed are being described as not young and the lovers young, which means the ads are going according to the marketing plan: appeal to the biggest fast-food eaters, teens and 20-somethings.
The ads' creatures are called SpongMonkeys pronounced SPUNG-monkeys, and they come from the mind of British animator Jason Veitch. They first appeared on his Web site, www.rathergood.com Quiznos bought the rights to the SpongMonkeys from Veitch, who told the BBC last year he couldn't say exactly what a SpongMonkey is. The Zehnders said customers wonder if they're rats, mice or gerbils, or some mutant version of them.
"One customer asked where we got the Chernobyl rats," Skip Zehnder said.
IT COULD BE WORSE. AND IT WAS: As freaked out as people get about the SpongMonkeys, Skip Zehnder said, the reaction isn't nearly as negative as it was for Quiznos' previous ad campaign, which had the "man raised by wolves" and included a scene of the man suckling his "mother wolf's" teat.
The SpongMonkeys have gotten "more attention but more positive reaction," Skip said. "The wolves (reaction) was just pretty much negative.
"This is not quite as weird as the wolves."
FROM THE "NO FURTHER COMMENT REQUIRED' DEPARTMENT: Mel Gibson's production company has licensed product tie-ins to The Passion of the Christ, and one of the most popular items is a pendant of a pewter nail attached to a leather strap. It represents the nails used in the film to fasten Christ to the cross.
"It's the new symbol of the Christian," said Bob Siemon, who came up with the idea and design for his Christian products company after seeing a Passion preview.
"It's just a way of identifying and perhaps starting a conversation with someone," he said in an Associated Press report.