What is the best TV commercial of all time? Of right now?
There’s a pretty good one on here for Molson Canadian beer. About a Canadian guy who starts swinging at an American, hockey style, after hearing one too many “snow”, “eh” amd “aboot” jokes. Just curious. (I even searched the archive, although this has probably come up before).
The forum IMHO has plenty of threads like this, best commercial, funniest commercial, dumbest commercial, etc.
Look there.
::: waiting for manhattan to start “moved threads VII” :::
The best commercial of all time is the one that pays to let you watch – for free – a show you really, really like.
The website http://www.adcritic.com has a fair number of recent commercials, ranked (by whom I don’t know) in some sort of order of preference.
I’d say that ‘1984’, the commercial that announced the launch of the Apple Macintosh computer (directed by Ridley Scott and produced, I believe, by Chiat-Day (who’ve done other stuff for Apple)) is the most famous commercial, possibly one of the most successful as well (but that’s pretty tough to measure).
Aawon Buuh is one of my favorites, another one I’ve seen that won a Clio(sp?) was a British(?) one for tennis balls where they throw people off a building. The German one with the family singing in the car (“Learn English”) is very funny, especially considering the popularity of that “Alice” song a few years ago in Germany.
The very best SNL cartoons are “Big Red” and “Happy Fun Ball”.
My favorite recent one is the Oregon Lottery’s “Who wants to spend 30 days in a trailer with Mr. T”?
The recent Snicker’s commercial, man in voting booth, with a little donkey and elephant on each shoulder was hilarious. Summed up the election quite nicely. Voter indecision still in the booth. Some of the priceless lines; Elephant: Sometimes I where my dad’s pants. Donkey: I invented pants.
Best Ad I saw is a very new one in the UK. Lynx have brought out a shaving system.
This guy, a bit of a smooth operator uses this razor, then puts a match in his mouth. As he enters this seedy underground nightclub, a gorgeous babe notices him and blows out a candle on her table. The smooth dude sits down, then tries to strike the match, not realising how smooth the shave was. He looks embarrassed as he can’t do his cool thing, but never mind, the girl has an idea.
She takes the match, raises her arm and… her armpit lights the match!!!
EXCELLENT!
I’ll not give my opinion, as that would not be consistent with this forum, however I will reiterate what panamajack said. Most advertising experts tend to point to Ridley Scott’s 1984 as the best of the best. I believe that it’s won more awards than any other comercial, to-date.
It’s interesting to note that this commercial was only aired one time on television. You can see it on-line at:
http://www.tbwachiat.com/product/historical_work/tv/1984/1984.html
I’m glad someone else has already espoused the greatness of adcritic.com. Saves me some space.
By far the best commercial on that site is the Cam Exam, a breast exam PDA. I urge everyone to check it out. VERY funny.
Any of you old enough to remember Ann Miller’s “Great American Soups” Busby Berkeley-like commercial?
“Guide your feet down the soupy road to romance—let’s face the chicken gumbo and dance!”
Eve:
I loved the Ann Miller commercial. IIRC, that was done by Stan Freberg, who also did another of my favorites – the Lone Ranger commercial for Jeno’s Pizza Rolls (“Show us your Jeno’s Pizza Rolls”, in parody of the Lark cigarette commercial).
IIRC, we’ve already done a thread on this. And, as in that thread, my vote for best commercial goes to the ORIGINAL “Joe Isuzu” commercial, in which he says “You can buy it with your pocket change”, while a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen reads “If you have $9,500 in quarters and nickels”. He says “It’ll run forever on a tankful of gas”, with a disclaimer reading “Your Mileage May Vary.”
One odf my favorites never aired (as far as I know). It was a film student project, intended for a drive-in between feature ad for the snack bar. It featured a group of hooded, chanting figures at what seems to be a Black Mass. They light Black Candles and gather in a circle around … something. A wicked, curved dagger is raised and brought down in a killing stroke. Hands reach in and cram red gobs of stuff into chewing mouths. The camera cranes up over the top of this eating orgy to reveal … a massacred pizza! “Why not visit the Snack Bar?”
I’ll tell you what apparently is the worst commercial ever. The forum descriptions. I mean, we’ve been running them since we opened this board, and still some people do not read them.
Off to IMHO.
Tabasco hot sauce. Evening on the porch of a shack in the swamps. Sloppy individual demolishing a pizza: before each bite puts a few drops of Tabasco on slice using the new novelty small bottles. A mosquito buzzes in- closeup of the mosquito getting a meal from his forearm and flying off. The mosquito makes it to the edge of the yard before it explodes in a yellow fireball. The slob barely breaks stride looking up then back to the pizza. No dialog. I saw this commercial one time during the superbowl a couple years ago. That stuff’s hot!
manny is such a good sport :).
My personal fave is the original “Be Like Mike” ad.
Well, Ridley Scott’s 1984 for Apple is the best “real” commercial ever, but what about parody commercials?
My vote goes to the SNL car commercial (Buick?) where the ride is so smooth, the moyel can perform a bris in the back seat while driving on a country road.
Laughed my ASS off, and did again just thinking about it.
My current favourite is one that I saw for the first time the other night. It’s the new Levi’s Courderoy (?sp) commercial with the (I think it’s a) badger.
I laughed for about 5 minutes when I saw it the first time, and I continue to giggle every time I see it again.
Apparently the sound the pants make (you know the sound) is the same sound of the badger’s mating call.
Classic Alka Seltzer ads from 30 years ago: “Mama Mia, thats-a spicy meatball,” “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” and the lesser-remembered but no less meritorious “Q: What’s Beef-o-rancho? A:Tuesday’s hash with Wednesday’s gravy” and the 30’s prison riot “Alka Seltzer! Alka Seltzer!”
Some ad campaigns like those are enjoyable for the entire run - remeber the Wendy’s ads from the mid-80’s (“Where’s the beef?” and the Eastern Bloc fashion show - not the ones with Dave Thomas)? Others, like the Mentos ads, won’t be fond memories 30 years from now.
“Do you have to make such a production out of EVERYTHING?”
Or something like that. It’s been a few decades.
The one where they market Robot Insurance to seniors was a classic. The way they build up the potential of injury by rampaging robots would WORK!
I just saw one of the latest Bud commercials. A couple is in an apartment bedroom. The woman’s in the bathroom, and the man is trying to open a stuck door on a wardrobe. He jerks it back and forth and grunts in his frustration, and it bangs rhythmically on the wall.
Cut to the guy next door (he’s the same actor who teases the chimp with a moon pie in the milk commercial – another winner). You can tell by the expression on his face that he thinks that his next door neighbors are having some truely awesome hot sex. Funny!