TV viewers who can’t always fast-forward through commercial breaks have reason to smile this morning after the announcement that the long-running and ever-creepy E-Trade talking baby ads are finally coming to an end.

The online broker and bank declared and end to the CGI infant’s 7-year reign of TV terror during an ad that ran Thursday night during the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament (better known as the second-most important bracket of March).

Apparently it featured a singing cat that interrupted one of the shill-baby’s commercials and said it was going to fund the uber-creepy infant’s retirement — but who cares about details, it’s time to celebrate a world that has one less fake-talking baby on television! Call a parade! Ready the fireworks! Erect a statue (so long as it keeps its mouth shut)!

“The baby was a wonderful iconic expression of what we were,” E-Trade’s chief marketing officer told Reuters, presumably while popping champagne corks and feasting this great occasion in advertising history. “But we want something that better reflects our present and where we are going.”

Now if that singing cat would only give Progressive’s Flo enough cash to retire, we’d be heading in the right direction.

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