Dr. Scholl's

Have you ever seen that commercial for the gel in-soles from Dr. Scholl's?

It begins with a car accident, one man hitting another from the rear. They both get out of their cars, two relatively youthful fellows. Both are amazingly relaxed. The one who struck the other says, "I'm sorry about that. It's entirely my fault." The second replies, "No, really, don't worry about it. I should have been more careful." Then the first states, "Well, at least nobody got hurt." The second agrees wholeheartedly. All dialogue happens with a really languid pace.

Then the first man says to the second, "You must be gellin'." To which, the first used to reply, "Like a felon!" Then an angry guy gets out of his car and yells at them, and they lazily remark, "look at him, yellin'."

Silly little commercial, but I always thought it was pretty good.

Until recently, that is. Now instead of saying "like a felon" the second guy claims he's "like Magellan." What the fuck? Why the change?

Consider the alteration: "I'm gellin' like a felon." Surprising rhyme, nice image, colloquial expression. "I'm gellin' like Magellan." Note that "gellin'" and "gellan" make the exact same sound. That's the equivalent of rhyming "time" with "thyme." As a rule of thumb, rhyming a sound with itself is never a good idea. Secondly, what on earth does Magellan have to do with gel?

A very decent commercial ruined by some sort of inscrutable squeamishness on the part of its makers.