Get ready for adventure with Royal Caribbean (syringes not included)

The ads for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines crack me up every time I see them. For those of you who don't pay quite such close attention to cruise line ads as I do, these are the ones telling you all about all the fun and exciting things you can do on a Royal Caribbean boat to the peppy backing of Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life."

So...do the people behind these ads not realize that it's a song about the lifestyle of a heroin addict, or are they just counting on the fact that probably 99% of the cruise-going audience they're aiming at doesn't have the slightest clue what the song is about and wouldn't know Iggy Pop if he bit them on the ass?

I would assume the latter. Funny, though, that the ad execs decided not to include lines like "Of course I've had it in the ear before" and "your skin starts itching once you buy the gimmick."

This is nearly as funny to me as...

...the time Ronald Reagan praised the "message of hope" in Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." I've looked pretty hard for the message of hope in that one and come up with nothing.

...the ill-advised Mercedes ad that used Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz," which is probably the funniest misuse of a song in any commercial ever.

...the simply bizarre and nonsensical use of the Prologue from the Who's "Tommy" to sell a prescription allergy pill a couple of years ago.

Of course, the use of "Lust for Life" is mostly just funny - it's not actively annoying like the constant use of "Salisbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel in pretty much every single teevee commercial and movie trailer in the last four or five years.

And in the end, there is no ad in the history of the medium nearly so unintentionally hilarious as the current one which begins with a voiceover declaring, "In the mood for a little excitement? How about a subscription to USA Today?" 'cuz if USA Today is anything, it's exciting.