This reminds of the cell phone commercials where the father is furious his kids are wasting cell phone minutes (and raising the bill).
In the first half of the commercial, his teenage daughter calls to tell him she got an A in Advanced Physics. He yells at her for wasting peak time minutes.
In the second half, his son drives the car through the garage door and the father yells at him… for making ten calls on his cell phone that month in one day.
Hey dumbass! If your teenage daughter is pulling down an A in Advanced Physics, she’s likely a super genius, and will no doubt go on to a hugely successful career that makes big bucks. And your idiot son just drove through the garage door, that will obviously cost more than 1,000 call in a single day on his cell phone.
Well, I mean, that’s kind of the point with those commercials. As in, that’s the joke. The commercials are illustrating how concern for minutes has turned this dad into a dumbass. The idea of the commercial is “Buy our product, and you won’t be like this poor schmuck.”
But in the Art Ed ad, there is no such joke. I am expected to be entirely sympathetic with the dad in that ad. Stupid commercial. :mad:
But that’s a really fucking stupid joke as cell phone companies are practically giving minutes away. To worry about them like that shows this guy was a schmuck long before he got a family cell phone plan and I hate commercials based around schmucks.
I hate commercials that make the father look like a complete dumbass when it comes to technology too, but that’s a slightly separate rant.
I’m not going ot go all “Gee, this may inspire others to do that” or anything, but yes, this commercial, for some reason, makes me angry every time I see it.
For my own contribution, I’ll nominate one most of you haven’t seen since it’s on the Armed Forces Network. It’s a commercial that basically informs everyone that rape is a crime and you can go to jail for it!!! Maybe it’s because last year they showed it a few dozen times a day.
It’s a good message, but…uh…I kinda already knew that fact when I was in grade school, I think. If the Dept. of Defense feels it has to repeatedly tellt his to folk who run around carrying arutomatic weapons, I seriously wonder about the Dept. of Defense. (Not the soldiers, thank the Lord, I know they are smarter than that ).
There is an M&Ms commercial that parodies Indiana Jones in an amusing way.
As for awful commercials, I hate the one for the “peticure” gizmo for trimming dogs’ nails. And there’s a long commercial for a towel called the “shamwow” that’s annoying (so I usually fast-forward throught it), although the pitchman reminds me of Johnny Knoxville. It’s described in this Slate magazine article.
There’s a run of Ford “switch your ride” spots. The voice-over says, “We didn’t tell them we were from Ford, we said it was market research.”
Wait a minute! This is a company, and a commercial, I’m supposed to trust, and they’re lying to me already? Is that going to change if I buy a Foo-shun?
“Taaaayyke me out to the baawwwwl game.” I guess I’m going to see those awful karaoke spots until the All-Star Game. Aack. I fear I’m gonna chuck a beer mug at my television before then.
I like that commercial actually. I’m sort of in lust with the pitchman and I love his accent and delivery and I find the copy amusing. I wouldn’t want to see it every hour on the hour but it’s on my shows infrequently enough that I don’t mind sitting through it.
I guess they’ve switched to comething else but one cell phone carrier had the “dropped signal” line of commercials where one person is saying something really important which is misinterpreted because the other person loses the call, etc.
There was one where a daughter and her beau call her mother from Vegas and her mother jokes “you’re not getting married, are you?”. Silence. With her easy-chair reclining parter in matrimony behind her, she hisses into the phone to her daughter “Don’t make the same mistake I did!”
Haha! It’s funny because your mother is trapped in a loveless marriage! :rolleyes:
I’m also sick of Sarah McLachlan trying to guilt me into sending money to orphaned puppies. For one thing, they play her song “Angel” over it which, despite it being used in Brad Pitt films and played at proms, is a song about heroin addiction so my first thought is always a mocking “Are the puppies on smack?”. For the other thing, I don’t know which Amway vendor Ms. McLachlan buys her self-tanner from but she looks like an Oompa Loompa.
I’m in California, on satellite, and I watch the 10 pm DS here, so it is 1 am in God’s own timezone, and the Wendy’s ad is the best of the lot I get. I’ve ranted at the Wentworth ads already, so my new favorite is the “Diesel Secret .com” ad. “I’ve found that this is the safest solution yet.” Said by someone whose only qualifications seem to be having a scraggly beard, and unattractive wife and a kid. The other testimonials are just as convincing. I’m not even going into the obvious scamminess of it - the ad itself makes me puke.
And if that wasn’t enough, I offer for your consideration the new Girls Gone Wild just 18 ads, especially appropriate given that their founder is in the slammer for photographing underage girls. (IIRC.) There is a silver lining - run this ad long enough, and any jury in the country will give this guy life without parole if he’s lucky.
Great. Then you’ll have an excuse to go out and buy a new flatscreen LCD TV to replace it.
ETA: Oh, and I hate the ones for Cece’s Pizza, that make me think I can take my famiily out for an all-we-can-stomach pizza and pasta buffet at four bucks a head (or something ridiculously low like that). But I can only do it if I can drive out to Missouri, or something (we’re in California).
Oh, winner! I’ve never even watched the commercial because I love animals, and the few seconds I caught just about ruined my day. Whenever it comes on I flee in self-defense. If I had to actually see it, instead of sending them money I’d likely just slash my wrists.
It really sucks for us because we used to live near a Cece’s. I was really excited when they started advertising in CA, then pissed when I realized they hadn’t actually expanded out west.
Sonic advertises in the Chicago market despite their nearest store being some 300 miles away. Each time I see one, I’m left thinking “But… but… I’d like a peach iced-tea, too! Hey, sarcastic wife! Ditch your dopey husband and drive over here with some Sonic!”
I’ve been seeing Sonic adds here for years. Just last year we got one about an hour away in Ft. Pierce. One is scheduled to open in Jensen beach (about 15 minutes) this year. It’s about damn time! Now hurry up with the fucking Krystal Burger and I’ll be happy.
As far as adds…I can’t think of anything that pisses me off, but that damn “F.R.E.E. that spells FREE, credit report dot com baby*!” add is an earworm if there ever was one.
Speaking of earworms, there’s a radio add down here for a hair restoration clinic. The add has this damn song, “Hair noooow, Hair foreeeverrr! DOoooctor Shapiiiiirooooo…Hair Institute!” If I ever lose my hair, I know who to go to because of that fucking add.
One of the downfalls of being a DVR maven is that you never get to participate in the “commercials you love/hate” threads.
However, I still listen to radio quite a bit, and I now take the phrase “Code Blue” to mean “I’m a complete dipshit who doesn’t realize I can get a cold beer at any fucking time”.
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