Beware of dog. And all other animals, too

Call it the Trading Places trend (after that movie’s screwball ending, where the bad guy gets caged with the lovesick ape). Coincidentally, two different agencies have radio commercials with what would once be considered forbiddingly ribald jokes: wild-animal rape of comical human interlopers. In Grey L.A.’s campaign for California energy conservation (“Flex your power”), a condor “scavenges” a spokesman, enticing him with a condor puppet, eliciting a menacing mating dance. In a concurrent spot by Cossette Post in New York for TD Waterhouse, explorers see shrunken heads and have a close encounter of the bestial kind.