A Modest Proposal for the Future of Television Advertising

The BBQ Pit
#1

OK, here’s an idea…

Music. In Commercials.

It should be no more.

Why? Because one of two things happens:

(1) Bumfuck Wireless gets a 30-second spot for the Super Bowl, during which they play one of your favorite songs. The problem is that they cut the song to fill 30 seconds, plus it’s a shitty cover of the original, plus they tweak the words a little, because it’s a freaking cell phone company and they believe that nothing is sacred.

Bumfuck Wireless (now with 5 million anytime minutes! and the ability to create your OWN annoying cell phone ringer tunes!) then plays the LIVING FUCK out of this stupid commercial for the next three months, to the point that whenever it comes on you turn off the TV, hide under your covers, and then remember wistfully a time when there was a Louis Armstrong song you could listen to that hadn’t been raped and pillaged yet in the name of capitalism.

(2) Tide laundry detergent hires a new advertising firm to come up with a brand new campaign aimed at the powerful 18-25 laundry-doing demographic. The pathetic twerps toss around some ideas, but end up running a line of commercials featuring one or several of the most annoying songs ever created by man or beast. (“Hey, Tide detergent is like WALKING ON SUNSHINE, right? Fuck, I bet we could get that song for cheap! Katrina and the Waves are PISS BROKE!”)

These commercials manage to take the most annoying parts of crappy hits of one-hit wonders (which usually would be the CHORUS) and then play ONLY THOSE PARTS.

I’M WALKING ON SUNSHINE
WHOOOOOAAAAAOOOAAA
AND IT’S TIME TO FEEL GOOD!

(NEW tide laundry detergent! With a special new cleaning formula that really, really, REALLY gets your clothes clean! Seriously!)

I’M WALKING ON SUNSHINE
WHOOOOOAAAAAOOOAAA
AND IT’S TIME TO FEEL GOOD!

(Compared to the leading brand of laundry detergent, Tide kicks ass! Seriously, look at this picture! The stain on the right is the side washed WITHOUT Tide! That’s AMAZING! haHA!)

I’M WALKING ON SUNSHINE
WHOOOOOAAAAAOOOAAA
AND IT’S TIME TO FEEL GOOD!

(Tide detergent will send you into the most rewarding orgasms you’ve ever had! Regardless of gender or sexual orientation! Seriously! We will send religious-quality peyote to your house FREE OF CHARGE!)

I’M WALKING ON SUNSHINE
WHOOOOOAAAAAOOOAAA
AND IT’S TIME TO FEEL GOOD!

(repeat ad infinitum)

These damned commercials. They fuck up the songs we love and fuck us up the ass with the ones we hate.

I want someone to do some impromptu surgery on my ears that involves a Q-tip, my eustachian tubes, and a lot of brute force and anger.

I mean, really. Fuck.

#2

The worst is “Getting Better” being used for Philips. That’s just evil.

#3

No, that’s not the worst.

They’re selling cellular to the tune of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Now that is just wrong on ao many levels.

#4

Hear, Hear!

It’s driving me mad! Some songs I don’t even care about, but I just feel it’s wrong to use them in commercials. Let them make their own music.

I mean, ‘I’m coming out’ to sell belly shirts?

Or that song ‘Do you think you’re better off alone’ turned into 'Do you think you really want a clone"? It’s so bad that it hurts every musical fiber in my body. And the original wasn’t even a favourite of mine!

And don’t even get me started on the GAP ads!

You’ve touched a very valid point here, Andrew!

#5

The Windows XP commercials really piss me off. Mind you, I’m not a big fan of Micro$oft, but that’s not what ticks me off. First they make a big show of the new Play-Skool look they’ve given XP (Now in 47 eye catching colors!!!), then they’ve got people flying around free because XP has suddenly transformed their life :rolleyes:, all done to Madonna’s “Ray of Light” which sounds enough like a Mike Oldfield song to me that if I were him, I’d seriously consider a copywrite infringement lawsuit. Personally, I’d like to see those floating, flying fuckwads in the XP commercials pass over a skeet range! Now that would be a great commercial!

#6

A couple of years ago Metamucil was using “City of New Orleans” in their ad.

“Good Morning America, how are ya’?”
(Just that part) Implying that if you take Metamucil, you’ll have a nice, healthy dump in the morning worth singing about.

Fuck you, Metamucil. Thanks for ruining a great song (that my husband performs live, and I can never, ever hear it without thinking of your cursed ads!)

Zette

#7

Bravo Andrew! Bitching about advertisements is always good for a few laughs, and I haven’t laughed so hard at anything since I first discovered Dysfunctional Family Circus. What a great original post.

There’s no music in the current George Foreman Griller ad, but it looks enough like a post-9-11 sympathy spot that I’ll curse it here anyway. Curse you George and your firefighters and policemen and families eating hot dogs to patriotic-esque music spot. Curse you all night long.

-Myron

#8

How about that Wrangle jeans ad that uses the first two lines of Fortunate Son? “Some folks are born made to wave the flag / they’re red, white and blue”. It reverses the meaning of the song to end it there. It’s a protest song, dammit! He doesn’t like those red white and blue flag-waving people!

#9

Make that Wrangler. Again I assert that preview is merely a crutch for weak-minded people.

#10

My current ‘music in ads’ pet peeve is Toyota’s use of “Saved By Zero” by The Fixx. The first time we saw it, my husband and I just looked at each other in disgust. You can tell Gen Xers are coming up with these ideas. It just seems odd to hear that song in a commercial. It doesn’t seem very commercialey, ya know?

#11

As a Philips employee I whole heartedly agree. They had that mess as the on hold music on the corporate phone system. Made me want to barf.

But then I just pointed out to my co workers that they seemed to conveniently leave out the second line of the reprise.

Ya, it can’t get much worse.

#12

I applaud you, you have hit the nail on the… hammer… sickle…
head.

#13

there is one comercial that did true justice (or at least made me laugh my ass off) to a song.
a few years ago there was an aiwa (sp?) car stereo add when a young guy and an old guy get in a car and the young guys singing and kinda dancing around as they go down the road while people keep slowing down to stare and laugh,

they were driving a hearse at the head of a funeral proccession,
the song? Queen, another one bites the dust.

#14

I don’t remember who it was (Honda?) but some car manufacturer nearly gave me a heart attack when I heard “Thick as a Brick” (by Jethro Tull, for the ignorant) selling SUVs.

And Ian Anderson’s still alive! Gah!

#15

Another bad thing about these commercials - children will hear them and forever connect a good song with a crappy product!

It’s true! It’s happened to me - every time I hear the beginning to Sousa’s “Colonel Bogey March,” I find myself singing, “Winners…warm up with Malt-o-Meal!”

#16

Ha! I missed that one, myself, so I still get to think about Monty Python and Bill Clinton’s first inaugural. But I do still associate the beginning of “Stars and Stripes Forever” with Ralston Flakes (“There’s aPrize in Every Package!”).

#17

Fuck you guys.

What about the geggy tah song for the car commericals…

The car song, “you let me change lanes whle i was driving in my car… whoever you are…” lbah blah blah.

Damned good group with far to little exposure getting a shot a national wide tv coverage.

GOOD FOR THEM

Every nod and then somethingbbbs good comes from teh speutum blocked rectal cavities of copreates america, unfortuntalty far too rarely.

And yes, neightbor is having enthuasitic sex nextdoor adn trying to sllep thouhg it odesn’t sound fun. otherwasise I’d be alseepd