I’m completely irritated with anything involving beeping car horns, bells, ringing phones, doorbells (that make my dog go insane), and especially cell phone or Nextel commercials where you have to hear an example of the phone ringinging over and over again. Because it’s not annoying enough that we’re forced to hear people’s annoying phones going off in restaurants, movie theaters, sports events, malls, etc., I have to hear it while I’m alone in my car, enjoying my tiny bit of solitude.
I thought they had to do this or something like it, legally speaking, if they tell you what its all about. Of course, you probably won’t have these side effects, but its always possible so they have to tell you.
Fuck you Baby Hilton! (HouDopers know what I mean).
I really hate the fake call-in answering machine ads. A particular one on the radio especially gets on my nerves. They have some really poor actors who are over-acting terribly and obviously reading from a script telling us how great some lotion/cream is. But it is topped off by having the background noise on each of the “calls” from some different place around the city. One caller sounds like he is at an exciting baseball game. Sure, its the bottom of the 9th, bases loaded, Sosa steps up to the plate… Now is great time to call Zim’s crack cream to tell them how great their product is. It is so fake it is insulting.
Along with one of my favorites:
“Save up to 50% off!”
The thing with the prescription drug commercials, though is that they’re legally obligated to be what they are. Government regulations require that if they tell you what the drug cures, they also have to tell you what it causes. So you either get ads with no information on what it does, or you get ads with side effect lists.
In the video store you’ll see the sleeves for the DVDs that show fabulous looking babes in short dresses. Watch the movie, not a single babe in a short dress to be seen.
Hey guys, drink this beer and all the voluptuous horny women will think you’re a real stud. Get real- most women really aren’t that much into beer.
How about the special TV offers that if you call in the next 10 minutes, they’ll DOUBLE the offer. Except that you’ve seen those same 10 minutes tick away 12 times a day for the last 3 months.
The ultimate punishable ad would be: v/o by - who’s that old guy - Wilfred Brimley, urging you to “think outside the box” by “asking your doctor” what those lovely people in the stock footage are doing, with the Romantics “What I Like About You” or Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” blasting. And maybe a closeup of an offensive, oozing cut and a worried mother’s face.
Another one I found very odd was Dylan Thomas’ pic in the Bass Ale ads a few years back that let us know that Bass “helps you get to to the bottom of things.” Um, okay.
Speaking of sirens, etc., in radio ads, there’s a great “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode about the AAMCO ads with the two horn honks.
There’s one scheme where you get a “bill” for a magazine you don’t even subscribe to. (It says “past due” and all that jive trying to get you to subscribe.) I can’t believe that’s even legal.
“If you’re more than 20 pounds overweight, there’s great news for you: dramatic weight loss can now be achieved without diet or exercise! Yes, that means YOU, lazy ass! And you know you can trust me, despite the fact that I look like your demented uncle Harley, because I’m wearing a white doctor’s coat!”
I have two that irritate the hell out of me. The first is that dweeby looking guy with the manson lamps that is pushing his ab workout video. Every pose is awkwardly staged so his six pack (on a far too skinny torso) is positioned precisely at a 3/4 shot so his shoulders look their widest while his stomach is nearly in profile. It’s a totally unnatural pose, and the commercial sends me lunging for the remote every time.
The other is the use of the sound of a needle scratching across a record. This is mostly on rock station ads where they’re trying to be edgy by indicating they just burst into the sound room and knocked the record player over. Seriously, now - how many people still have record players? This is an outdated sound effect, yet it’s all over every radio station I listen to (well, NPR has somehow resisted, but that’s about it.).
I got that once - I called the company to get them to stop (I’d gotten about four of them and was actually wondering if it was a mistake, that somebody actually thought I HAD ordered the magazine and not payed for it)
the representative I talked to said that it had been a “mistake” and that instead of people getting letters offering subscriptions, bills had been sent out…so, apparently, hundreds (or thousands) of “bills” got sent out without anybody noticing…yes, I beleive you…
Then she tried to sell me the magazine…
I also hate most commercials that quote things out of context - like that Cable in the Classroom commercial where the kids are quoting Shakespeare, “to be or not to be” - I wonder if the writers even realize that they’re asking kids to quote a speech about contemplating suicide? they’re faking intellect, quoting Shakespeare b/c it’s “high-brow”, but they don’t have any idea what they’re actually saying…
I hate the stupid “we’ll give you a minimum $3000 in trade for your old clunker, no matter what shape it’s in. so push it in, pull it in, tow it in…” car adverts
translation; “the factory is allowing us to discount the price of this piece of junk nobody in their right mind would buy by $3000, we’re not actually giving you anything for your car, we get a good used car out of the deal (pure profit) and you get screwed with car payments and a high interest rate”
i’ve always wanted to pull up to one of those sales with a flatbed tow truck with a crushed car on the flatbed (crushed into a cube) and ask “where’s my $3000 trade in value?” 
Listerine, at least, has the guts to laugh at itself. In fact, it uses the harsh chemical taste of its original flavor as a selling point in its commercials. In the commercial for its latest flavor, Mom comes home and says she bought some Listerine, which elicits grimaces and complaints from the rest of the family until she clarifies that she DIDN’T buy the original flavor.
One that gets way overused around here is something like:
“Small Obscure Plumbing Company Limited - Simply The Best” <snippet of Tina Turner Song>
Actually, anything that tries to bounce off the lyrics of a well-known song irks me:
<Snippet of ‘fly away’ by Lenny Kravitz> “When you see our prices, you’ll want to fly away with our fantastic range of family holidays, here at Fucking Tinpot Shabby Travel Agent You’ve Never Heard Of Limited”
I’m listed in the phone book under my dog’s name, which makes for some great telemarketing starts: “Hello, may I speak to Chester–” and I hang up. It’s also an interesting way to see where the phone company sells your name to. My dog gets mail from AAA, some local businesses, and best of all, a subscription to the LA Times that started appearing on my doorstep. When the bill came (!), I was more than happy to call the LAT and let them know that they had billed my dog.
Uh oh, you got me started. Some of your responses are cracking me up, though. My #1 pet peeve is radio commercials that start with a phone ringing. My other ones (some already mentioned):
“Hey, Denver …” or “Hey, Colorado …” That’s not my name and I don’t speak for the city or state.
Ads during baseball games that say, “so don’t strike out by missing this sale. Hit a home run with low, low prices.”
Anything called world class. From what I’ve seen most of the rest of the world looks like a toilet. World class doesn’t sound like much to aspire to.
“We’re here with …” or “We’re here talking to …” No you’re not. You’re in a studio making an annoying commercial, dumb ass.
Female spokespersons who sound like they need a throat lozenge.
Records? I have a whole filing cabinet full of records, but all I have to do is take them out and read them. I’ve never needed anything to play them with 
Heh heh. Seriously, though, I had a record of “The Fox and the Hound” that I listened to when I was really young. After that, I grew up with cassettes. Altho’ most kids these days have never even owned those.
Yes! That is a bad trend. I guess they are supposed to sound “sexy” but instead I picture the three witches from Macbeth.
Sampiro, the Robert Vaughn personal injury lawyer commercials are syndicated and bought by local firms around the country, then altered in voice-dub to include the name of the firm. If you look very closely at Bob’s lips, you’ll see they don’t QUITE match up to the firm name. And unless you live in Altoona, Pennsylvania, I’ve seen him touting a different firm than you.
Florence Henderson does a similar commercial for carpet retailers. Around here, it’s Carpet One that uses it. Don’t know who uses it elsewhere, but I’m fairly certain that a fairly obscure regional carpet dealer didn’t hire Florence Henderson to do their commercials exclusively.
I haven’t seem on recently, but I despise any commercial that uses the “talking baby” with the cheap CGI. Usually now used for local ‘home-improvement’ commercials. I think the trend started when some low-cost ISP started advertising a few years ago (Juno?).
The absolute WORST part was when CBS made a sitcom based on that concept.
:shudder:
It was bad. Two and a Half Men bad.