I apparently am still watching way too much tv lately, but I am starting to notice commercials more, and how really really really dumb and annoying some of them are. I can only think of one off the top of my head.
There is a commercial about potty training pull up pants. I hate this commercial because they are using like 5 year olds to demonstrate the product. I am not sure if the commercial is supposed to show that older kids need pull ups, or if the older kids are supposed to be potraying kids that are still at a potty training age. Either way it just looks weird.
Commercials on the radio that use sirens or car horns. When I’m driving, I’m especially alert to these sounds. When a commercial comes on the radio that uses one of these sound effects, they instantly get my attention (which, of course, is their intention).
I’ve thought about contacting the FCC and seeing if they can be outlawed.
Too many to list, but my wife swears I’m gonna have a siezure when I watch too much TV. The stupid commercials come on and I start to yell at the TV as to how stupid they are. I have blocked them from my memory and can’t recall any specifics right now, thankfully, or I would probably start yelling now.
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
There’s a commercial showing that has the standard issue yuppie boy preparing a romantic meal for his standard issue yuppie wife. They show him cutting scallops professionally, opening wine bottle, etc.
There’s no logical reason for it, but I absolutely loathe this commercial. I want to smack the couple, and kill the people who came up with this ad. I don’t even know what the ad is for.
Commercials for prescription drugs. They’re on radio & TV. Medicine should not be advertised like a toy. Antidepressant ads that show crayon drawings.
The voice that they use to announce prescription drugs: rattling on and on so they can get through the boring stuff. I heard one announcement coming from a GIRL who was doing the rattle-off on pierced ears or something.
All commercials everywhere. Except for the few I wrote a thread on, that were unusual in the fact that I LIKED them.
TV itself.
It’s not the violence. It’s that you’re looking at something from far away, and not learning about your own back yards (or the people next door to you.) You believe in TV. Not your experience.
I can’t stand those commercials where they say that their cell phones are for young people but it’s more fun showing old people. Demeaning to old people and insulting to the young.
I hate those stupid radio commercials with the honking horns too! I was sitting in a car at a gas station one time when one of those came on and I almost jumped out of the car! It sounded like an 18-wheeler was coming right at the car!
As far as TV, I hate the Orkin commercials. You know, the one where the roach runs across the TV while a fake commercial plays in the background! UGH!!!
The add (Geiko, maybe) where a more or less realistic-looking news anchor announces a breaking story and cuts to a reporter on the scene of an erupting volcano. The first time I saw it, I thought the newscast was real – for about .1 of a second.
Almost all commercials are annoying, but some insult your intelligence so much they make you remember the stupidity.
The one that I’ve seen recently is this :
A live hen is shown walking around with a black (censored-type) bar roughly across her breast.
Voice-over : “Most states prohibit the showing of large breasts on television.”
Dead, cooked hen breast is shown on a sandwich. (VO : “…unless they’re on a sandwich.” )
Now, I could be wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure that television is regulated federally, by the FCC. I’m not sure the states could prohibit anything on TV even if they wanted to. Moreover, I don’t know if the FCC actually prohibits anything being shown on television. It always seemed more complicated than that.
But that’s a minor (and maybe mistaken) point. The obvious one is that no one except a complete nutjob would consider large breasts indecent. This is what annoys me. All they had to do was say “large, naked breasts” and the commercial nearly makes sense, while still reinforcing the idea they’re trying to sell. (“Our chicken sandwich has a very large piece of chicken breast meat that will make you think of a woman and want to have sex with it.”)
I have always been creeped out by animals that are dissapointed they are not being eaten. Charley the Tuna is one example, and I think there are some chickens and others as well.
It reminds me of the cows at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, except it’s not funny.
Oh, and every single ad for Herbal Essences (it’s an organic experience!)
The highly annoying Sears air conditioning ad that has been running for what seems like decades now.
You know the one…the stereotypical “nagging wife” reminding the equally stereotypical “lazy husband” to call Sears to either fix or install air conditioning. “You said you’d call them today!” “I’ll call them tomorrow!” “You’ll call them NOW!” “I’ll call them NOW!” And then, the annoying exchange at the end about how tomorrow is going to be another scorcher, but that’s “Cool!”
The one I see most often has a caucasian couple, but I think there are similar ones with African-American and hispanic couples as well. Also, it seems like there is at least one that airs during the winter, with the furnace rather than the air conditioning as the problem.
I agree some of the Geico commercials bug me. One that comes to mind is where the prisoner meets with his attorney who turns to his client and says, “I have great news!” The prisoner, with a hopeful tone in his voice says, “I’m outta here?” The attorney then says, “No, I just found out I could save 15% on my car insurance.” If I were that prisoner and was told this I’d probably end up doing something to that lawyer that would keep me in the clink even longer.
Another one is where all the other employees are talking about the gecko deserving the Employee of the Month award and how happy they all are. Realistically, I would think most of the employees would be pissed and jealous that a gecko is getting all the recognition! At the end of the commercial they show the gecko pulling into his parking space driving a miniature car. In the same shot is a woman walking along the sidewalk. She continues walking, paying no attention to the gecko and his mini-car. Something like this would cause most people to do a double take.
The one that pisses me off the most is the commercial that plays “Sometimes When We Touch.” As if that infernally sappy, syrupy song weren’t already irritating enough to get stuck in my head (love songs really suck when you’re not dating), now I also have stuck in my head images of the sexual activities that could take place between a male gecko and a female human.
Dammit, that wretched song’s playing in my mind right now! I need to put on my headphones.
You hit that nail on the head heygeno. That and the whole thing is so…so manipulative. I can certainly say its not aimed at my demographic and the gasp from the woman at the end just screams to me that this commercial is the lame-o’chick flick ’ of TV ads. You can almost hear the “Why don’t you do that for me?”
I’m usually a calm person, but that commercial almost gives me rage issues.
Those stupid Apple Ipod ads with people singing along to the songs they downloaded, but all we hear is their voices.
I expect the one with the kid rapping along with Eminem, makes sense for a kid that age to be listening to him, but I hate the song. There’s one with a girl but the song slips my mind luckily.
The one I loathe is the one with the ‘typical’ goofy white guy rapping along to “Baby Got Back”. Besides the facts that anyone sounds stupid trying to rap along to this song, it’s worse that the gag is already lame because it was used in an episode of Friends (I’m ashamed I know that).
Those stupid shoe store ads with Starr Jones. Right, Starr, not only are you one of the most irritating people on TV; who is grossly overpaid to chitchat on network TV and throw around the occasional legal opinion so you can remind people that you are a lawyer. You (or the producers) spend lots of money on your makeup, wigs, weaves, clothes, etc. in a vain effort to make you look like something other than a reject from a remake of The Wiz, you expect people to believe that a clotheshorse like yourself, who drools over designer labels, buys cheapass shoes at Payless? Too bad they don’t sell masks!
Ah, I hate the Honda ads where they have stupid people driving around talking about stupid things and the tag line is “When you drive a car you don’t have to think about, what do you think about?”.
I got a %$#&ing idea! How about DRIVING? Is that so hard? Maybe use your turn signal? Hang up the phone? Get your sorry-40mph-goin’-ass out of the fast lane and outta my way! Pay attention to the road, maybe! You’re piloting a damn weapon, fer crimminy sake!
All worked up for nothing.
Why do the artists that bitch the loudest about free downloading get so much radio airplay?
I hate most of the commercials out there, too. I often bitch back at the TV, asking whomever will listen, “DO these advertisers REALLY think we’re that f*cking stupid?!?!”
I don’t know why I get so irritated by it. But it’s fun topic.
HATE that Turning Leaf commercial. “Awwwww, he’s making a nice romantic dinner for his woman…awwwwww. PUKE!”
It makes me want to pick out my eyeballs and throw them at the TV (sorry, melodramatic pregnant woman here).
Hate the Honda commercials as well. I also dislike the Old Navy commercials. WTF?
OH, the “Can you hear me now” commercials. UGH! Stop. IT. NOW.
Time Warner Cable ads usually focus on the negatives of having a satellite dish. The most recent ad has people complaining about their satellite dish company’s customer service. It seems to me that many people switch to satellite because of the cable company’s crappy customer service. Can TWC be so out of touch that they don’t know this? Or, more likely, do they think we’re so stupid that we’ll believe whatever their ad says, rather than what we know to be true?
The “Sometimes When We Touch” GEICO ad creeps me out because I expect the gecko’s front legs to be pulled off while that woman is swinging him around.
I hate the Herbal Essence ads so much that I’ve actually considered switching to a different shampoo in protest.
