It was great until the dad from The Wonder Years showed up as one of the judges at the Father and Son cover contest. Then it was AWESOME!

Um, congrats on learning how to make awesome floating blimp-head special effects, Carly Fiorina’s campaign team. I mean, this looks really awesome, in a “hey, check out this kooky political ad” kind of way.

But I’m a little perplexed about where, exactly, this “ad” is intended to be shown. It’s almost eight minutes, which means it’s not going to run on broadcast TV. And no one on the internet watches 8 minutes videos (unless they star Lady Gaga and Beyonce dressed up in clown clothes).

So, where do you plan to air these? At the movies? Projected on the side of a building somewhere?

I mean, again, kudos on the top-notch CGI work here, but next time, maybe spend a couple minutes shoring up your distribution plan so your crazy-person fueled efforts actually get seen, OK?

The Internet is working against you, Gabe. It’s a conspiracy. Like The Firm.

These are all characters from a Christopher Guest movie, right? There is simply no way any of these people are actual, real-life human beings.

Are those our only choices: Lady Gaga or Nickelback? Really? Your iTunes library must be awesome!

Exactly! It’s like there’s an entire team of art directors and designers who *just* missed making the cut for season 19 of Project Runway sitting around trying to think up the crrrrrraziest things for her to wear.

Designer 1: “How about some old people sunglasses, like the kind that go over your regular glasses?”

Art Director: “Ha! Too pedestrian. This is Lady Gaga we’re talking about. What else do you got?”

Designer 2: “Um, what if we hot-glued a bunch of lit cigarettes to the old people sunglasses?”

Art Director: “Now you’re talking!”

I hate to admit it, but I watched this entire video earlier this morning. All 10 minutes of it. There were at least 10 times I nearly clicked away, but I was sure there would be something at the end that would make all of this noise and flash and manufactured strangeness worth my time.

There wasn’t.

Sure, Lady Gaga makes some really catch songs that are probably really popular in the dance clubs. There’s no denying that. But she’s only been in the broad public consciousness for about a year and a half and her act is already so, so tired. She is weird for weird’s sake. Everything — from the outfits, to the hair, to the herky-jerky dance moves, to the semi-creepy/semi-WTF videos — seem so contrived that it is almost painful to watch.

She may have more talent as a singer/performer than Ke$ha, but make no mistake, they are two peas in the same overly calculated, mass-marketed pod.

Nothing makes losing an Oscar to your ex-wife feel better. Except having all the money. Nothing else, though.