Santa riding on the electric razor. I think I first saw this on the Ed Sullivan show.
I talked to a guy who used to work IT for their (inbound) telemarketing company.
When you called, if you signed up they mailed the “medicine” out to you every month. They also debited your credit card automatically. Every month.
If you called to cancel, the main number gave you another number.
The other number put you on hold for a long time, then gave you ANOTHER number to call.
This third number was a 900#. And it took several minutes to cancel your automatic billing. On a line you were being charged for being on.
That’s not the funny part, that’s just the tragic part.
The funny part is, they will run their ads for 60 days, then not pay their inbound telemarketing people. Then the telemarketing people stop taking new calls.
The company pulls their ads from TV for a few weeks, finds a new telemarketing firm, then rishes, washes, and repeats.
The idea that these guys are simultaneously screwing vast numbers of consumers as well as telemarketing firms just blows my mind.
Yes Yes Yes! We have a “Grandpa I love my Hyundai/Suzuki/Kia” commercial down here. There’s thinking your kid is cute and then there’s needing to prove it to the rest of the world.
Usually about once or twice a year I go to a high-end place with my wife. Last place we went was Les Nomades here in Chicago. I don’t think I’d want to go more often than that (money non-withstanding). It is partly a magnificent treat for ourselves food-wise, but also the of the impeccable service, staff knowledge and atmosphere.
A few others have been Le Francais, Spring, Trio (before they re-vamped).
I also enjoy having a few Old Styles in the backyard - way more often though.
Whoah - wrong thread. My apologies everyone. Mods, please feel free to delete.
[Pointless trivia]Those are called Direct Response ads. Generally, they’re sold at a lower rate and are the first to get pre-empted in an oversell situation[/pointless trivia]
I hate those Pepto Bismol commericals where they’re doing some sort of Macarena dance to Hearburn/Indigestion/Upset Stomach/Diarrhea while grabbing the corresponding part of their body that suffers from that symptom. Ick ick ick. I don’t need to see people grabbing their asses on network tv.
Once again I am confirmed in my belief that cancelling my cable-TV service (and not getting satellite, etc) was a good thing. I have images of many of those ads in my head, and I don’t know why! It can’t all be from glimpses of TV at my friends’ places, can it?
Jared needs to get a new job. I haven’t been to Subway in ages because I’m so sick of him.
And the Cadillac Led Zeppelin “Rock and Roll” commercials. Enough.
First post! Woo Hoo! 
The Oscar Mayer Weiner commericial with the off-key, shrieking children has got to go. Ugh!
What I find funny is that the car is the Subaru Tribeca. Instead of naming the SUV after something Western and vaguely macho like the “Montana” or the “Tahoe”, they name it after a Manhattan neighborhood. It’s actually honest, in that most SUVs are purchased by urbanites for use in and around the city and never actually climb mountains as depicted in the typical SUV commercial.
They obviously aren’t effective enough, you forgot nausea!
I totally forgot about Jared. He’s about a good an actor as his own cardboard cutouts. In fact, maybe they would save money if they just used his cutouts to do the commercials.
The fact that a restaurant chain can repackage the ridiculously common-sense idea of “eat fewer calories, exercise more = lose weight” is, well, sickening.
As an aside, the funniest part about the campaign was that I used to work at a Subway restaurant, and all the time obese people would come in and get their double-meat, footlong, on cheese bread, with extra cheese, no veggies, and mayo, and then turn to their partners and say (in all seriousness) “I’m so glad that I started the Subway died, did you see that guy and how much weight he lost?” As if eating any sub in any caloric combination would unequivocally result in immediate and drastic weight loss.
-foxy
“Died”. Heheh…seems appropriate though.
-foxy
The Betty Crocker cake pan ads where the kid has to toss his head back like a horse in order to eat.
The Vehix.com commercial with woman who climbs in the van and hops up and down while looking at the interior of the van.
I mostly watch television for entertainment or to learn something. I am not entertained by any commercial which mentions jock itch, tampons, feminine deodorant, foot fungus, or nasty gastrointestinal problems; and I definitely don’t want to learn anything from them.
If I see another “can you hear me now” cellphone commercial, I’m going to have to drag their marketing guy out to my house and say, “NO! I CAN’T HEAR YOU HERE. Nor can I hear you throughout a ten-mile corridor west of here that I drive on the way to work. Nor can I hear you for a five-mile stretch of road between here and the next town north. In fact, a girl drowned in a river in a major town near here while people on the riverbanks were trying to get service on their cellphones to call 911.”
And I agree on Snuggles the bear. I don’t want to see him in another commercial unless it’s selling shotguns.
Actually, Re the discussion we were having about the American Express commercial…I just saw it again, and the guy (oops) who works for AE says “His fiance told him to call American Express.” Which is even worse than the implication that I’d thought was the case before.
-foxy
I’m pretty sure Watson’s is only in Nashville. I saw her once on a locally produced late-night TV show. There’s also a local motorcycle dealer that runs an ad claiming “our girls are way hotter than that Watson’s chick!”
And yes, I’ll vote for retiring any car dealership ads starring the owner’s kid. But worse is the guy who hawks air conditioners by using his wife and mother-in-law (I’m guessing) in the ads. “The Ladies of Donelson?” Gag.
(you might have to click past an ad to see the video)
Any car commercial in which a car zooms past and scatteris autumn leaves in its path.
A very specialized commercial, seen only during NASCAR races, is for…damn, I can’t even recall what they are trying to sell, but it involves some dingleberry winning the use of a “luxury RV” at some NASCAR race. The twerp is showing three of his friends around his luxury land yacht, showing the hot tub, the barbecue grill and the AAWWWSOME SOUND SYSTEM!! I find myself hoping a car will go out of control at top speed, slide off the racetrack and give this clown an AAWWWSOME STOCKCAR SUPPOSITORY!!
The damn commercial has been around for at least three years, too.
On the other hand, the commercials involving Darrell Waltrip are pretty cool.
There’s a local ad for a car dealer that has the following characters: Delois Price, Peso Little, and Seymour Trucks. They recently added another character Les Cash, who is supposed to be Johnny Cash I guess. They’ve been running these characters into the ground for three or four years now. If I never saw them again it would be too soon for me.
I still can’t believe that the Snuggle bear folks won the lawsuit against those ads.