Talk about playing to your audience, Cheetos seems to be lasering in on the junior high boys who love the cheese-flavored snack with its latest app. Just in time for Halloween, Project TP allows you to virtually toilet paper your domicile or most every other public venue available using Google Earth and Google Streetview (Cheetos wisely chooses not to include 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, perhaps out of fear of getting a call from the Department of Homeland Security).

In their promo video, a wisecracking English-accent-like cheetah leads a toilet paper strafing run to the tune of “The Ride of the Valkyries.” While the video copiously says one should not try this at home, you know damn well that millions of pimply-faced kids on October 31st will be donning shades and talking low like the spokesanimal as they lob Charmin at the houses of school officials. (One wonders if the Cheetos campaign can be held liable for the distress of having to clean up TP hung up in a tree after a rainstorm.)

Cheetos is declaring victory with its toilet paper campaign, claiming that 300,000 feet of virtual paper have been let loose in cyberspace. I guess it’s good to have ad campaigns that try and spice up Halloween. It is a time for tricks, as well as treats, after all, and we’ve been getting entirely too mild about a holiday dedicated to chasing away our demons in a night of debauchery.

posted by Howard Davidson