One of my recent favorites, although I haven’t seen it in a while, is for Petsmart. There’s a little dachshund running around with his favorite toy, a sort of long skinny plush dog thing. He takes it everywhere, bounces up stairs with it, and it gets more and more ragged. Finally, it’s so ratty that his owner gingerly takes it from him while he’s asleep and tosses it away. Next shot, owner and dog go into Petsmart, where a worker says hello familiarly and says, “Where’s Bobo?” They get a new, identical toy off the shelf, and the dog happily grabs it. (ultra-funny part) The checker then swipes the dachshund, still holding the toy for dear life, over the scanner. And owner, dog, and toy are all happy.
I still think the Sprite commercial with the mother and her two kids getting ready to enjoy their “Sun Fizz” soda is one of the funniest I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t seen it, you really should watch it.
There’s a car commercial where a little fairy goes around changing things, making them cute, but repeated attempts to make a car cute end in failure. At the end of the commercial, someone points to her and says “silly fairy” or words to that effect at which point she puts in him extremem yuppie clothes, complete with annoying yappy little dog. (It doesn’t hurt that the fairy is pretty darn hot, but I’d like the commercial anyway).
With shame I admit I LOVE the Jimmy Dean commercials with the “Sun’s” family – especially the little girl. They’re even getting a little stranger, like when thunder calls in sick. My favorite is the look the little girl gives him when he says he has to be up early to light and heat the earth. Priceless.
I miss the Barbarian commercials for Capital One – but I guess they pretty much played out.
OK, I admit it. I’m that guy. The guy who loes all those weird and creepy commercials.
I love:
The Quiznos Spongmonkeys
The Skittles-Beard
The Starburst “Mariache Band Eaten Alive”
and even…the Burger King King.
I know, I know. But I also love good commercials, too!
Like the Honda Rube Goldberg and Driving Choir
The Sony Bouncy Ball TV
The Geico Cavemen
The “sticking it to yourself”
And I’ll add a new one not yet mentioned.
It’s fairly new (I’ve ony seen it twice and only from less than a week ago.) It’s for Alltel, some cell company I haven’t heard of, and they are saying that yuou can include anyone in your “circle” of free calling, no matter what carrier they use. And in addition to the alltell spokesperson, they have a guy in a grey zip up sweatshirt and black hornrim glasses, a tall guy in a trenchcoat, a hot, curvy, dark haired woman, and a small orange splatter that kind of looks like a person.
Since I got my video capture card for my computer I’ve been recording all the commercials I see that are interesting enough to save. I watched them back to back the other day, and it was surprisingly entertaining. So far I’ve got:
Tetris DS - A real life re-enactment of Tetris made with skydivers. I’m pretty sure it was done without computer graphics, too.
Toyota Yaris - The car squashes a giant spider made of gas nozzles.
Axe - The Order of the Serpentine: “Let the order of the Serpentine help you scrub away your shame.” Weird confusing commercial with a muscular woman, a desert oasis and some extremely hypnotic brainwashing. It’s so confusing it’s funny.
Bacardi Limon - Underwater beer bottle submarine
Exxon Mobil - Some commercial they were running for a brief period a while ago that starts off with a slow motion ball of flame and then turns into a 3D medical scan of someone’s brain as it zooms out, then it says something about lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
Heineken Premium Light - That commercial they always run these days with the bottle of heineken surrounded by flashing lights, mirrors and lasers. It’s cooler than it sounds.
Wendy’s - That commercial with the hamburgers moving to the beat of Benny Benassi’s “Satisfaction.”
There were a few commercials that I always wanted to get when I saw them, but never managed to record. Specifically,
I always liked that one, but never managed to get it, and I can’t find it online. I don’t think they’re playing it anymore.
I’ve wanted to record this one too. I found it online, at least.
Boss: “We need to config new laptops.”
IT Guy: “By when?”
B: “Tuesday.”
IT: (crushed and in shock) Tuesday!!..Oh Rudy!..What are you doing to me?..You can’t mean…sob
B: (taken aback) I can give you more time…
IT: (dropping the act) Naa, Tuesday’s fine. I’ll call CDW, they’ll have 'em here in no time.
[CDW tag line goes here]
IT: (passing Boss in hallway) Thanks for caring, man.
The latest Sonic ad where the husband and wife are sitting in the car. The husband revels in the brilliance that is the combination of flavorings he ordered for his soft drink (cherry-vanilla-blah-blah-blah-sprite-or-whatever) saying that his complicated “recipe” reflects some sort of maturity on his part.
His wife oohs and ahhs over her raspberry iced tea. He asks her what her choice of beverage says about her, to which she replies, “That I’m an adult?”
The ad - I’m not sure of the product - in the rainforest with the baby elephant dancing to “Singin’ in the Rain”.
The aforementioned pet shop/multiplying rabbits ad.
It’s a radio ad, but it’s the one with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols calling really wealthy people to tell them about Virgin Airways. “Hewwo, Luv, it’s Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols for <name escapes me - NetFlix head dude>”. NetFlix head dude: “But what about my air miles?” Steve Jones: “What do you care about air miles? You’re bleedin’ loaded!” <click as phone hangs up>. lol
The Sonic commercials with the two guys and the “dumb” guy talks about how with certain words is pronounces the “w” as in “wuhrap” for “wrap”. When the other guy corrects him he says, “I think you’re wuh-rong”.
And I’m not sure the maker of the commercial, but it’s a recent one with a bunch of different pop culture robots/computers like W.O.P.R. from “WarGames” and the Jetson’s robot.
I’m a sucker for silly beer commercials. Miller Lite has a new series of commercials with Burt Reynolds, Jerome Bettis, Triple H and others (including that mountain climber guy who cut off his own hand) making up “Man-Laws” For example, “Garage fridge is for BEER ONLY!” They are cracking me up!!
I also enjoyed that series of Nike ads with “The Lebrons” where LeBron James played different versions of himself. Old man, kid, goofball, etc. They were really funny.
My current favorite is hard to describe…it’s the ones with all the Jamaican people trying to get into the club…“Can I get into de club?” “No! You cannot get into de club” “No shortsleeved suits!” It just cracks me up…I think the ads are for Malibu rum or something like that.
Another recent favorite commercial (can’t believe I forgot this one before) is for Sierra Mist–the one with the guy trying to get through airport security while the female guard (who reminds me of Roseanne’s TV sister Jackie) keeps moving her wand over his bottle of Sierra Mist and making obviously fake “weep!” noises (like it’s going off). The guy’s so confused, and the guard’s deadpan delivery is perfect.
I have no idea why that one makes me chuckle every time I see it, but it does.
Years ago, some unbelievably stupid company had a commercial with a man saying “When a woman sweats, it just isn’t sexy.”. I still can’t understand who came up with that, or how it ever got approved.
Red Zone has an ad featuring a woman in black vinyl pants dancing in a crowded club. As she dances, the music pounds, and we explore her anatomy from different angles. Interspersed here and there is a brief flash of text. It all adds up to
“When she sweats, it’s sexy. When you sweat-- you stink.”
The same commercial has been re-edited with different text
“There’s no such thing as a hot, sweaty, sexy—dude.”
Re Geico
The ad I like is no longer on the air. It’s night. In a little boys room, two action figures are fighting. The robot says “Gorlock, I will disintegrate you with my laser ray!”. A lizard man answers “You ray is no match for my-”. A tiny Geico statuette steps off his base and says “Excuse me, did you know that Geico can save as much as 15% on your car insurance?”. The lizard man’s jaw drops. The robot stands stunned. We cut to a brief screen of logo and legalese. Then back to the room where the Geico gecko says “And Geico can get to work immediately on your claim, even in the middle of the night.” The robot and lizard man are now sitting next to the gecko and listening spellbound. The lizardman says “Very impressive green one”
Unknown Training Thingy
This is an ad you see only late at night, or during the middle of the day. I can’t remember which organization it’s for. It starts with a man, who despite barely moving is dancing, standing there wearing a t-shirt. The camera zooms on the shirt. As music plays, the man removes shirt after shirt. Each has a word or two of the message. When the message is over the camera zooms back out. The man does some more minimalist dancing and makes a comical face for the camera. I don’t know who this guy is, but I expect this commercial to be his big break.
