We Fear Change.

I'm currently up to my eyes in trademark law (right now, it's "secondary meaning"). In fact, I've been in full-on exam mode for the past week-plus, which explains the lack of activity here. Obviously, it's not too important. I have time to do this, drink protein shakes, pet the dog, watch television, and obsess over who the Cardinals non-tendered this week (Aaron Miles, Randy Flores, Tyler Johnson, because I know you all care). And, for the record, Sam Bradford can take his Heisman and, well, you know the rest.

So anyway, here's how it went down. I'm sitting in the living room with Pam, various animals, and THE Ricardo Williams. We're flipping through the channels shortly after Saturday Night Live when lo, a familiar mise en scene. A darkened room. On the wall, a strange device of some sort. Clap, clap! The lights come on, as if by magic, and the logo for the magnificently so-last-century Walgreen's gift-aisle staple The Clapper appears. Excitement wells up inside me. I love that song. Clap on! Clap off! You know the one:



Awesome. So the Clapper commercial re-enters my life for a fleeting moment, right? And I change the channel happy that I've relived a small but precious part of the collective consciousness of trash culture, right? Wrong. No. They changed the song. You can't believe it, can you? That snappy military-style melody that jerks you to attention, even in the stupor of late night channel-surfing? Don't tell me you haven't clapped along, because you have. That is not what I heard after the lights came on in the ad. Is it an *entirely* new song? No, it's one of those, gasp, "re-imaginings," the worst kind! The Nipples-On-Batsuit kind. They took an established property. Check. Realized that what they had was gold, so they kept the wonderfully cadenced rhythmic structure. Check. But alas, they're boneheads. And what do you do if you're an bonehead and you have a jingle that works? You f*&% with the melody. Never again will I pass through the aisle with the Clappers, Chia Heads, and fondue pots on my way to the pharmacy counter without feeling at least a little scandalized. This is the abomination I witnessed:



I know, right? I acknowledge that it's not at, like, Greedo-shoots-first levels of innocence-raping, but it's at least as bad as when they discontinued the Chilito. And it totally set me back on my Trademarks outline.

Speaking of trademarks, though, this whole episode did make me wonder: could the Clapper people have been sued by the army or some jingle writer or something, and had to change the melody? If so, I would feel bad if the new Clapper song didn't suck so hard. Discuss.