You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …

Time for some personal info. I am what’s known as a “90’s kid”. Born during the 1980’s, but by the time I was forming permanent memories, the 90’s had begun, and would thus encompass the bulk of my formative years. And there are many shared experiences that come with being a 90’s kid: learning American history via Oregon Trail, wondering why everyone cares so much about this O.J. Simpson guy, getting pumped about the “information superhighway” and frightened over the menace of “Y2K”.

And, of course, watching The Simpsons when you were really probably too young for it, but loving it to hell and back anyway. There are so many jokes from the classic years of The Simpsons that child me didn’t have the life experiences to understand – that I still found them enjoyed them is because, when you remove context from a context dependent joke, the result can still be hilariously absurd

Some of these jokes I’d understand as I got older and more worldly in general. (“Sorry, Mr. Burns, but I don’t go in for these backdoor shenanigans.”) Others, however, were based on references to specific pieces of media that I’d never seen as a kid. When the reference was to something like Citizen Kane or the Beatles, I’d eventually come to experience them myself in time and put the joke in context.

But when the reference is to a commercial? We as a society don’t make the same effort to educate people on classic commercials the same way we do for films or books or music. Commercial references become dated more thoroughly and more quickly than almost any other type of humor, with the original meaning of the joke becoming lost to time …

… until an enterprising YouTuber puts together a video showing what the bizarre “Egg Council creep” from The Simpsons episode “Homer the Great” was all about.

At last, a great mystery from my childhood has been solved.

Now if I could just figure out the meaning behind “I’m the first non-Brazilian person to travel backwards through time” …