Please enjoy the most disturbing advert of 2017, courtesy of Skittles

Right, so: to get Americans in the mood for Mother’s Day (which the US celebrates a few months after we do, presumably because they love their mums less), Skittles have released an advert that features a mum and her son sharing a bag of everyone’s favourite (legal) hyperactivity-inducing sweets on the sofa.

Just a mum and her son, bonded by their mutual love of multi-coloured, fruit-flavoured confectionery. Well, that and a fucking umbilical cord. 

You heard. It all starts pleasantly enough, but a few seconds into the ad the camera pans down to reveal that someone in the maternity unit all those years ago skipped a very important job. Not that it appears to bother these two; they’re having a right old time playing ‘guess the flavour’ with each Skittle that passes through the cord. 

And to add to the weirdness, the mum is definitely Mac’s mum from It’s Always Sunny, isn’t it? What is going on?

Watch, and then wonder why you did.

We probably don’t need to remind you that this isn’t the first time Skittles (or parent company Wrigley) has put out a weird-as-all-hell commercial. Remember this one, where a kid tells his friend he has “Skittles Pox”, so she does what any good pal would and proceeds to eat his skin, contracting the same condition in the process?

Or this, featuring a man who turns anything and everything he touches into Skittles?

Oh yeah, there was a semi-interactive Skittles ad where a man dressed as a cat appeared to lick your finger.

Who could forget the not-at-all disturbing human piñata delivering a bag of chocolate Skittles and informing an office of disappointed people that they weren’t actually allowed to whack him?

And we end with this. All the people are giant pigeons, because Skittles.

Why the company keeps churning out these ads is beyond me. I suggest the marketing department have a serious rethink. Hold that thought, though – just off to buy a bag of Skittles.