EVIL SPIRIT? A Dewar's spot

Not the spectral kind. We're talking about Dewar's, the "sophisticated whisky that's honeyed and spicy, yet light and smoky," as Bacardi, the Bermuda-based liquor behemoth that owns the Dewar's brand, puts it.

According to several avid TV viewers, no fewer than four of whom work at Radar, the new ads for Dewar's, which feature inane quotes—"Dewarisms"—from a fake dead guy named Tommy Dewar set to indie-rock tunes, have been rendered unskippable on Time Warner DVRs. When our correspondents have attempted to fast-forward through the spots while watching previously recorded episodes of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, their DVRs mysteriously freeze up, forcing them to sit through them. Only the Dewar's spots seem to make the DVRs uncooperative—they speed through all the other commercials just as they were designed to.

Of course, unskippable ads would be the Holy Grail to DVR-weary advertisers and television networks, which made us curious. And we're not alone: "[O]ur DVR stops and refuses to fast forward through the Dewar's commercials," wrote Lianne Habinek, a New York blogger, in September. "Suspicious? I believe so. Every other commercial it zips through just fine. But Dewar's? Not so much. We had to watch half a dozen Dewarisms. HALF A DOZEN, people. How many more will it take before we realize what's going on here?"

Joaquin Bacardi, the senior global brand director for Dewar's, pleaded ignorance, as did everyone else Radar contacted. "Yes, it's something that people here are aware of," Bacardi says. "But we don't understand why it's happening. It's not pre-arranged. It's awkward—we don't have an explanation for it."

"We've heard that too," says Steve Albani, a spokesman for Comedy Central. "It's really bizarre. We don't know where it's coming from or how it's happening."

Likewise, Justin Venech, a rep for Time Warner Cable, says he'd be shocked—shocked—if it turns out that cable companies and advertisers are conspiring to force Stephen Colbert's fans to sit through a commercial for scotch. "Nobody is aware of anything we could do to make that happen," he says. "We have some people looking into this, but it's not an advertising test or anything like that."

Bacardi, who says his staff has heard about the problem, speculates that "something within the visual content of the ads" may be aggravating Time Warner's machines.

Blogger Habinek says the hiccup has also occured "once or twice" during Amp'd Mobile commercials, and that only "one glorious time" has she been able to fast-forward successfully through a Dewar's spot. "My current theory is that it's a campaign by some competing whiskey, like Glenfiddich or Jim Beam," she says. "Because while I am left with a distinct whiskey craving, I can't say I'd be inclined to run out and buy a bottle of Dewar's."

Bacardi says he sympathizes: "If people don't want to get into the ad," they should be able to skip it, he says. "It's an invasion."

A spokeswoman for Universal McCann, the ad agency that bought the spots on behalf of Bacardi, declined to comment, preferring, perhaps, to fan the flames.