In contrast to this thread, I offer current commercials I could live without:
The HP commercial with the red-headed kid whistling. Sorry, kid, but you are seriously creeping me out.
Welch’s grape juice. I have always hated these commercials. They always seem to be able to find the most annoying children for these ads. This time it’s a little girl with a slight speech impediment and long 70s-issue ponytails. Does Welch grow these children on a mutant farm?
TomTom GPS device. You see some idiot asking his front seat passenger, “Do I turn here, ScottScott? Where’s the nearest restaurant, ScottScott? Do you a shortcut, ScottScott?”. Hey, TomTom, you SuckSuck.
all of them
I think that about sums it up. I won’t go into detail as to why here (that’s a subject best left to the Pit); suffice it to say that I think they’re all inherently dishonest and self-serving.
Not to hijack too much, but they do serve a purpose. Namely, keeping cable televisnio from being $500/month. I take them as a neccesary evil, and every now and then one makes me laugh, so it’s all good.
I also can’t stand the cell phone commericals starring Joan Cusak. Who decided that this scarecrow conveys charm? She’s odd and annoying and looks at the people in the commerical like some sort of pod person who’s about to eat their faces.
I remember reading how Gary Larson felt pangs of guilt when he included situations like polar bears and penguins interacting or cavemen and dinosaurs interacting.
I really hate the pain-reliever commercials where very serious, condescending women talk directly to the camera in extreme close-up. The worst is for Excedrin Migraine; if I ignore her words, it feels like she’s breaking up with me or something.
The Nokia phone commercial where the woman talks about getting rid of evidence of a guy she broke up up. She says the last thing she does is delete his number from her cell phone.
“I don’t even know who he is. David who?” and then she laughs like a horse.
Gee, I wonder why David broke up with you? Oh yeah, you’re obnoxious!
This may be only in Canada, but there’s a series of Microsoft commercials about XP. They show all the wonderful things one can do with pictures and movies using XP. The commercials themselves aren’t bad, but it’s the target audience that gets me. I picture an older person new to computers picking one up with XP installed, then getting someone like myself to come over and explain how to achieve all the wonderful things seen in those commercials. That the aspect of those commercials I don’t like.
They are true, one can do great things with XP, but that also involves good programs and lots of training, experience, and knowledge.
I have an absolutely irrational hatred for one particular ad that’s been running for a few months now. It’s for some sort of carpet sweeper or something - oh, wait, they call it a “broom-vac”. It features a group of twenty-something ethnically diverse beautiful people who have gotten together for some party or something who all inexplicably break into a coreographed dance routine featuring this stupid cleaning thing. I don’t know why, but that one just pisses me the hell off.
I take them as a neccesary evil, and every now and then one makes me laugh, so it’s all good.