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Samsung justifies its touchscreen fridge with talking chocolate syrup and maimed cupcakes

Samsung justifies its touchscreen fridge with talking chocolate syrup and maimed cupcakes

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"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could," Jeff Goldblum famously said in Jurassic Park, "that they didn't stop to think if they should." Yes, he was talking about cloned dinosaurs at the time, but the charge could also be leveled at the Samsung scientists who designed a fridge with a huge touchscreen in the front. Samsung showed off the device at CES earlier this year, but only now seems to be justifying why it exists — with talking bottles of chocolate syrup.

Pity poor Chocolate Syrup

The company's new ad stars real-life celebrity couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, showing them packing away their groceries in Samsung's Family Hub refrigerator. Things appear normal and wholesome, until Shepard closes the refrigerator door, at which point the new groceries are apparently imbued with some sort of eldritch energy, and come to life. A bottle of chocolate syrup — a new entrant to the Family Hub — becomes the viewer's cipher as we learn that a rudimentary society has sprung up around the concept of perfect pairings. Lemons link up with limes, peanut butter and jelly appear to be in a happy relationship, and ketchup and mustard ignore everyone but each other. Pity poor chocolate syrup, though, left to wander the shelves of the fridge alone after it's kicked out of what appears to be a vegetable-only yoga session.

Chocolate syrup is relegated to the bowels of the fridge, among old takeout boxes and shriveled onions, before it stumbles across a hideously deformed cupcake, much of its brain gnawed away by its cruel human owners. The cupcake is not a threat, choosing instead to plant a few hearty licks on chocolate syrup, but the walking bottle still appears doomed to a life of squalor — until Shepard and Bell remember they forgot to put the milk away. With the milk's reappearance in the Family Hub, chocolate syrup has its perfect partner, and it's allowed back into the light.

It's a very similar plot to that found in Seth Rogen movie 'Sausage Party'

You might recognize this story: Samsung's ad shares almost exactly the same premise as upcoming R-rated animation Sausage Party, albeit without the regular swearing and constant allusions to a horrific death. Think on the topic, though, and even with its perfect partner, chocolate syrup's situation is still less than ideal — trapped in a chilly prison, crushed for pleasure, its insides occasionally pulled out at the whims of its masters.

It's also pretty strange that neither Bell nor Shepard are at all concerned that their food is walking and talking, even though their expensive touchscreen fridge is ideally placed to show them the finer details of this unholy situation. Shepard even checks the contents of the device via smartphone on his way up the stairs, apparently content with the knowledge he buys, imprisons, and then eats things capable of thought, speech, and even love. I guess that's the life of a celebrity couple — they're different to you and me.