Ah, the good old days, when commercials were just annoying. The “gotta go gotta go gotta go right now” jingle that advertised a medicine for overactive bladder. The commercial showing people walking out of a canyon, showing a glorious defeat against acid reflex, as if they had just achieved permanent peace in the Middle East. And let’s not forget the Bounty commercial with the sloppy eating kid, or the “zoom zoom zoom” kids.
From what I’ve seen, these commercials have come and gone to the land of wind and ghosts (If you still see these commercials sometimes, we aren’t watching the same channels. Also, I pity you.)
Now these commercials have been replaced with a whole new breed of commercials. There are five in paticular that I speak of. In ascending order of their weirdness, here they are:
Space Bags. This commercial comes on BBC America. The obnoxious hairy guy who advertises a gadget to get dents out of cars (a task that can also be done with a plunger) advertises what are essentially giant Ziploc bags that you store clothes in, then drain the air out with a hose. Okay, fine. The commercial is mildy annoying. Then, it shows an obviously fake plastic shark, about six inches long in an aquarium. This is done to show it’s watertight. Then the guy says “and it can’t get spiders or moths either” and holds up a fake spider and a fake moth, probably made with the Creepy Crawlie oven. At this point me and my dad are commenting on the low-bugdetness of this commercial. Fine. Not the worst of them out there.
Next up, is a commercial on TVLand, that ALWAYS plays on the first commercial break during the first of two back-to-back Batman episodes. It’s essentially a blend of the theme songs from shows that come on from 8 to 11 PM on TVLand. Okay, fine. But then they have to show some kid from the Munsters putting his head against his hand. Several times in a row. Sorry, but I have a burning hatred of showing a clip several times. Especially if it’s some kid who looks like a vampire putting his head to his hand. After that, they play a part from The Beverely Hillbillies theme song. Usually, by then, I have been able to get the remote and hit the Mute button, though the Mute button isn’t very good on commercials that are also visually unpleasant. This commercial is an example of how ad agencies have apparently forgotten the number one purpose of commercials: To make you want to buy the product, or in this case, watch the shows. Instead, I will be doing something more important and constructive. Hey, those toilets don’t clean themselves.
Back to BBC America. Another odd commercial is for a cleaning product called, get ready, “KABOOM”. Yes, Kaboom. A product named after the sound explosions make. The only way this could be an appropriate name for a cleaning agent is if it contains a large amount of nitroglycerin. So the guy (who, by the way, is the same moron from the Space Bags commercial. At this point I’m feeling more hatred for him than I ever did for Osama bin Laden) starts demonstrating it on a bathtub. However, this bathtub has seemingly not been cleaned for at least two years. This is the kind of shape a bathroom would be in if the goatse.cx guy had a diarreha attack in your bathroom, or if a division of the Mexican Army stayed in your bathtub overnight and ate nothing but Burrito Supremes, or if the entire al Queda network stayed in your bathroom with all of their “love goats”. Seriously, this bathroom is in horrible shape. I will give credit where it’s due though, Kaboom did get rid of it easily. Having a decent product counts for a lot when you show a commercial. KABOOM!
Then there’s the commercial which keeps me from muting the TV during the commercial breaks on BBC America in hope that I will see it, as this commercial is a blessing from Cthulhu himself. It’s for a product which helps you fold clothes. It’s a plastic flat sheet that folds in thirds length wise, and in the center part, the bottom half folds up. You place the piece of clothing on the folder (sorry, I don’t recall what the thing is called, I was laughing too hard), then flip the left third, the right third, and the center bottom half, and waw-law. You clothes are folded. Would be a normal commercial except: 1)They call using this thing “not only easy, but fun!”. Yeah, folding clothes is fun all right. Why, next time the Ohio State Fair comes here, I’m going to put up a booth where visitors can fold clothes with this gagdet themselves. Screw the rides! I wanna fold clothes! People will start riots over who gets to fold clothes! Anyway, back to reality, or at least this commercial. 2) They show a “competing” product and the shirt does not fold! Why, you ask? Because of our "patented, state-of-the-art holes! Yes, holes. Holes that make this thing look like Swiss cheese. Don’t be fooled by our competitor’s product that has no holes! Only our product has the special holes. Seriously, this is the only company I know of that has a patent on nothing. 3) The final statement, “Happy folding!”. At this point my amusement turned into sheer awe, awe that this commercial wasn’t a joke, awe that no outline of a cockroach ever appeared, awe that they even made this commercial, awe that the actors in this commercial could say those things and keep a straight face (I suspect the director yelled “CUT” many a time due to someone bursting in laughter), awe that money was spent to make this, and awe that BBC ever agreed to let their channel be broadcast here in the colonies knowing commercials like this would appear on it. When I told my mom about it, she said that what this commercial didn’t show you was how you had to smooth out the wrinkles, and place it perfectly on the folder so it would do a perfect job. She said it would be both easier and quicker to just fold the damn things yourself.
And now sadly, we leave England (or at least, a channel from England), to go to WSYX, a network based in Columbus, Ohio. This is where I get my local 6 o’clock news. Also, they play commercials based in Ohio here. This commercial, which tops even the folding one, is just so weird and so bizarre that words cannot accurately describe it (although that won’t stop me from trying). You simply have to see it for yourself. If you want to see it, go to Columbus, Ohio, and turn the channel onto ABC and watch the 6 o’clock news. Your jaw will literally drop upon seeing this commercial. It is worth the drive/flight/whatever from wherever you live and the hotel fees just so you can see this commercial and bask in it’s sheer awfulness. This commercial, unlike the others, has no one moment that clearly shows it’s bizarreness, just the whole thing. Like being in a car wreck that kills your entire family and leaves you paralyzed from the neck down, you will never, ever forget this commercial. Okay, enough hyperbole. Time for my attempt at describing it: It starts with a scene of someone riding a horse with the camera set to “Sepia” picture effect. Then they show the people on the horse. One is talking (about what, I don’t know, I’ve never seen this commercial unmuted), and then pulls out a gun. But this is no ordinary gun. This gun is obviously a fake plastic gun, mainly because it’s about the size of the “Cricket Killer” gun that Will Smith was first given in the first Men In Black movie. Then, they cut to the other person (the sepia picture, along with the fact that this commercial always gets muted, makes the genders of these people rather vague), who starts talking, and pulls out another gun, about the same size as the first. Now you get an idea of the guns they are using. Most cap guns (toy guns that fire caps, making smoke as to cheesily duplicate the effect of a real gun) have an orange piece at the tip of the barrel as to indicate that it’s a cap gun. The orange tip is rather clear in this commercial, even with the sepia. Then, he/she/it pulls out a second gun. The first gun it pulled out made you think it was a cap gun. The second, removes all doubt. Then, you cut to the final scene, which shows some truth in advertising. The scene shows the back ends of both horses. In other words, a couple of horses’ asses. See what I mean about truth in advertising? Also, as if that wasn’t weird enough, the last scene is shot in time lapse, so the horses tails are waving around as if they just drank espresso laced with speed. It also shows some text which reveals that the commercial is advertising used cars of all things.The whole commercial is just so bizarre and irrational that I simply could not believe I was watching it. Using horses to advertise cars is like using candles to advertise light bulbs.
And those are the Big Five which drive me closer to insanity. And I thought “zoom zoom zoom” was bad.
