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Race-car beds are the best part of being a kid, so it was smart of Kia to use one for this "Sweet Dreams" Optima ad from David&Goliath, which debuted in theaters this weekend. Dream sequences in ads usually don't live up to their initial promise, but this one does, mostly by not overstaying its welcome and using a tunnel as an effective visual bridge between childhood dreams and adult reality. Although to be technical, the line at the end ("No one ever dreamed of driving a mid-sized sedan. Until now") still isn't true, because the guy was dreaming about a race car, not a sensible car with good mileage. The latter would be a lame dream. But quibbles aside, this ad is way better than Kia's rapping-hamster stuff [2]. Rapping hamsters went out with Geocities Web pages and Looney Toons basketball shirts. Moving forward, Kia should realize its ads have a lot more soul when they don't try so hard for it.