Quiznos' toasty oven love

I am comfortably ensconced in the 18-35 male demographic that so many companies are desperate to grab. And we are relatively easy. Give us something with closeups of food, perverted humor, boobies or LeBron James, and we will mindlessly buy your product.

So, I should be enjoying the new ad from Denver-based Quiznos: it's hilarious, perverted and food-based. Yet I feel uncomfortable watching it...alone.

The ad features an oven, a feeble worker named Scott, and the promotion of Quiznos' new Toasty Torpedo (analyzed in the Our Weekly Bread blog), a $4 response to Subway's $5 footlooooong (I have been brainwashed by that song). But then comes the realistic probability of a Quiznos employee making sweet, sweet love to a, uh, sandwich oven...

The commercial begins with the oven saying, "Scott, I want you to do something."

"I'm not doing that again, that burned," Scott replies, glancing downward.

"We both enjoyed that," the oven retorts.

Let's break that down, starting with the oven's voice. You know kids in movies who burn something to the ground and then say, "I just listened to the voice in my head"? Well, the Quiznos oven's voice is like that, but times 1,000.

Now, let's analyze the analyze the dialogue. One viewer might say the over simply wants Scott to make a Toasty Torpedo, but that Scott doesn't want to becuase he burned himself the last time. Another viewer (me, for instance), however, might surmise that Scott burned his own "toasty torpedo" during a tawdry encounter with the nubile oven. And that's just wrong.

We now get into the meat of the ad as the oven explains to Scott what he wants him to make and then says, "Put it in me, Scott."

I'll give you a second...

OK. This is where I became uncomfortable. Put it in me, Scott?!?!? How did this get past the FCC? Oven sex is all of a sudden acceptable? It's almost as if the commercial was made as an Quiznos office joke, but when the marketing director went out of town, a coulple of subordinates said, "What the hell, let's make this thing!"

Other variations of this commercial have been released as well, but all of them contain weird sexual chemistry between the young Scott and a device made to make sandwiches toasty. The Toasty Torpedo's website is even eerie, allowing you to press a button to hear some oven catchphrases: "Put it in me"; "We both enjoyed that"; "I want you to do something"; "I'm waiting for it"; and "Let's get toasty together."

Somehow it's working. I haven't been able to stop thinking about Quiznos -- albeit not their sandwiches -- since I saw the damn thing. And considering the company's affinity for weird commercials, the Quiznos people must know what they're doing.

And the next time I walk into a Quiznos, I won't be able to keep my eyes off the oven -- but at least I won't be alone.