The FunnyCrave Toilet Paper Challenge

It’s a well established fact that nothing in the world of marketing is more bizarre than toilet paper advertising.  It’s a product designed specifically for use in a dirty ass.  No other product has this distinction.  Nothing else stands proud as a product meant to be dragged through your stanky crevasse totally on purpose.  This isn’t like boxers which may accidentally sop up the odd fart start, or even grandma’s slender vibe which will occasionally probe too deep and unleash the sluice gates of hell.  Those products only get munchy by mistake.  No, only TP is meant to gouge into the recesses of your crack when it’s not even sanitized.  It’s actually meant to do the sanitizing.  Stop and consider how fucked that is and how unique a product toilet paper truly is.  And how perplexing.

The problem with marketing in our society is that, by and large, we’re all polite.  We do not discuss ass.  With friends you’ll point out a hot ass.  Or a fat ass.  Or a weird ass that looks like it has a third buttock and you can barely comprehend what’s going on back that.  But you never sit down with buddies and converse about whether you prefer to fold or wad your paper and which method offers the best coverage.  So how the hell do you sell such a product?

The answer was given to some savvy marketer in a blinding flash of inspiration that may or may not have been retarded.  Liken toilet paper to something soft, fluffy or alive.  Never answer questions as to why you’re doing this.  The result is years of toilet paper being sold to us by clouds, angels, bears, kittens and puppies.  The implication being that anything ranging from a young mammal to one of the warriors of God almighty will suffice when it comes to cleaning your shit hole.

And now we arrive at the heart of the FunnyCrave Toilet Paper Challenge.  Do any of these advertising methods hold water?  The only option available is a hands-on experiment.  We assure you before we begin that no animals were harmed or soiled in an irreparable fashion in the course of researching this article.

Charmin

Back in the day Charmin was sold by a nerdy old pharmacist named Mr. Whipple who would flip his bi-polar switch and lose his shit if you squeezed the Charmin.  Why?  Who the hell knows, he was probably living with the corpses of family members.

Later, Charmin replaced Mr. Whipple with the natural evolution of toilet paper advertising techniques – bears.  Was this inspired by the “does a bear shit in the woods” jokes?  Almost assuredly yes.  And forever more Charmin would be linked to large, cartoonish beasts of the wild.  So what does it mean to wipe your ass with a bear, exactly?

Sight Test – At first glance, Charmin appears to be made from a thin-weave t shirt.  That’s not too bad at all.  It’s white and fluffy looking.  This isn’t the sort of bear that eats your arm off, this is like Pooh Bear.  Oh man, see what we did there?

Tactile Test – Charmin feels like a well worn shirt as well, this is most favorable.  Who hasn’t had the desire at some point to wipe their ass on their own clothing?  Anyone?  We assumed not.

Road Test – True to its word, Charmin is ultra soft.  If this is what wiping your ass on a bear feels like, we understand why so many scantily clad warrior maidens ride polar bears on fantasy art websites.  Bears are God’s gift to backsides.  This is stunning.

Comparison Test – So far so good, but how does it stack up to a bear?  And for that matter, where do they keep ass-wiper bears these days?  A trip to the zoo was in order.

$10 for parking and $26 for admission later and a lady named Zookeeper Jones informs us that not only can we not enter the bear enclosure, the very idea of wiping our ass on the bear is ridiculous.  We’re told to leave.  $36 and a one hour drive with an unwiped ass later, we have no results.  On to plan B.

A quick stop at Wal Mart and we’ve discovered discount Christmas teddy bears.  The softest of the lot is a polar bear wearing an elf hat.  Time to retreat to the Wal Mart washroom and become men.

Verdict – Charmin does not feel quite the same as a synthetic-fiber Christmas-themed teddy bear in your ass.  Also of note, you cannot flush a as a synthetic-fiber Christmas-themed teddy bear down a Wal Mart toilet.

Cottenelle

Cottonelle promises that you can feel the cottony softness.  Or it used to.  Now it uses what appear to be golden retriever puppies as shills.  God knows if you had to wipe your ass on a dog, a golden retriever would be the most adorable one with which to do it.  But would it be worth it?  To the stall!

Sight Test – We’re falling a little short of Charmin here.  There’s some kind of pattern thing going on, but it’s still pretty obviously a shit ticket.  If this is a golden retriever, it has mange.

Tactile Test – Definitely mange.  Could be worse though.  Remember in grade school when they were kind enough to buy those industrial roles of off-white paper that seemed to have been formed from old newspaper pulp and white glue?

Road Test – It’s not abrasive or anything but honestly, wiping your ass on a dog has to be more satisfying than this.  This is a let down.  It’d be like wiping your ass on a dog, only to realize at the last minute that you’re adopted. Those things don’t relate but you try to think of a way to end that sentence.

Comparison Test – Unfortunately no one has a puppy on staff, however we do have access to a 4 year old, 2.3lb Chihuahua named Mojo.  No, he was not named after the dog in Transformers.  Michael Bay stole that shit.

After plying Mojo into the bathroom with the promise of some roast beef, he stared dejectedly at his surroundings, perhaps realizing something was afoot.  First attempt at the test failed as Mojo’s tiny monkey-like claws jerked and scratched as he resisted the reach around maneuver.  The same result on try two and three.  Attempt four, which involved squatting and having the dog run between the legs also proved fruitless.  Attempt five, the call for volunteer assistance, went unheeded.  In the end, we opted to not wipe ass on Mojo and instead focused on petting his back and imagining what it would feel like in the crack.  Mojo is a bit wiry and boney, plus he twitches a lot.

Verdict – Cottonelle does not feel like a shaky Chihuahua up your ass.  Anyone who works in marketing over there can feel free to take that line and use it in a commercial.

Angel Soft

Arguably this brand, more than any other, failed before it began.  In a one-two punch of madness that indicates everyone in marketing abuses solvents, Angel Soft features a baby on the packaging and is called Angel Soft.  So your choice is heavenly beings or infants, which would you prefer to soil with feces?

Sight Test – For a second it almost looked like the Virgin Mary was visible in the texture on the paper, but it turned out just to be a shadow.  Pretty much this is paper.

Tactile Test – FunnyCrave employees haven’t had much experience touching babies or angels, but Editor Adam Brown swears he once got a lap dance from a stripper named Angel and she gave him her phone number, but he lost it.  Incidentally, this stuff still feels like toilet paper.

Road Test – Every time a bell rings an angel gets it wings.  Every time you wipe your ass with this stuff, the guy who invented it gets hit by lightning.  If this is what heaven feels like, all you good people are in for a long, unremarkable eternity that will leave you with one or two phantom itches a few minutes after you get there.  Worse is that you’re not sure if it’s safe to scratch them.

Comparison Test – The toughest yet.  Somber prayer was left unanswered by the Lord and no angels presented themselves so it was on to the backup plan – find a baby.  No one on staff has children of that age, but one of our interns has a two year old nephew and that was close enough.

Families love unexpected visitors and this was no exception.  With the entire FunnyCrave staff on hand, we presented the scenario to the child’s mother (our intern’s sister).  20 minutes later we were back in the office having escaped the verbally abusive tirade of a mother who doesn’t understand comedy.

Suddenly inspiration struck and, after a thorough session of hand moisturizing with ultra-intensive lotion that promised to leave your skin baby soft, it was back to the washroom.

Verdict – Don’t wipe your ass with your bare hand.

White Cloud

This seems pretty straight forward – clouds are fluffy and white, right?  Why not put one in your ass?  I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow, it’s cloud’s illusions I recall, I really have never had a cloud up my ass.  That was a little song for you.

Sight Test – It doesn’t seem as airy-fairy as a cloud, and it’s a bit more dry than you’d imagine most atmospheric phenomenon to be. But that’s a good thing.

Tactile Test – It’s soft, but is it cloud soft?  Or small mammal soft?  It’s not sand paper, at any rate.

Road Test – Having tested several brands, the tester’s own mind begins to twist and turn on itself and the experiment needs to be ended soon.  Is this the culmination of toilet paper technology?  Is it a victory so long as your ass doesn’t bleed and/or you don’t need to break into a second roll?  Is quilting ever necessary?

Hard to say if this brand is akin to hanging your turd cutter out the door of a plane or not.

Comparison Test – Turns out, for insurance reasons, no one is willing to let us hang the turd cutter out the door of a plane.  We need more earthbound clouds and no one here is even bordering on being physically capable of climbing a mountain.  The very thought actually causes several staffers to start sweating.

Once again we must resort to plan B – produce your own clouds.  Science tells us clouds are either made from water vapor, or the wishes of unicorns.  Our unicorn is being tight-lipped about wishes lately, so we’ll go the science route.  Once the kettle is on the stove we wait for it to boil.

Verdict – White Cloud feels better than a second degree steam burn on your asshole, of that there’s no doubt.  However, it needs to be said that at the proper distance and with some limited assistance from paper afterwards, a steam cleaning is remarkably thorough.