# Extremely unappealing ads **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 23, 2004, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351 "2004-12-23T17:59:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2005, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/61 "2005-01-03T16:05:43Z")
The Splenda commercials, with the children dressed like rejects from a Gloria Stefani video and with the nasty yellow/green tint to everything. Hey, kids! Let’s all go eat plastic food and wear too much make-up. Yeah, that’s appetizing. And I do NOT need to see anthropomorphized bears shitting it the woods! Stop it! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/62 "2005-01-03T17:18:31Z")
> [@Cynical Optimist](#): > > Show: **Miss Cleo** > > IIRC she’s in jail for fraud now, but for those of you who don’t remember it, she was a staple of the post-Dionne Warwick 1-800 psychic lines. Worst. Accent. EVAH! _Ooh chile, you be calling me dis instant foh yo footchya_. The best part of those ads was listening to her accent go from Jamaican to Irish in .5 seconds. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/63 "2005-01-03T19:44:37Z")
> [@DeVena](#): > > the children dressed like rejects from a Gloria Stefani video Er, would that be the laboratory hybrid clone of Gloria Estefan and Gwen Stefani? ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2005, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/64 "2005-01-03T20:16:09Z")
As bad as the original Pepto-Bismal congo line was, they made it worse. There was a holiday version with midgets dressed as santas elves in a holiday display. Disgusting symptoms? Check. Symptoms graphicly pantomimed? Check. Disturbingly clown-like costumes? Check. Midgets? Check. All Right! let’s run the public appetite into the ground, people! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/65 "2005-01-04T23:28:56Z")
Has anyone noticed those disgusting, dishonest new Army recruiting ads? Where the young man or woman is talking to his or her parent or grandparent about this great new career where he or she will get a chance to “help people get a chance at a decent life.” It’s the **Army,** kids, not the fucking Peace Corps! You join up, your job will be to break things and kill people! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/66 "2005-01-05T00:09:14Z")
> [@sturmhauke](#): > > Er, would that be the laboratory hybrid clone of Gloria Estefan and Gwen Stefani? :smack: GWEN Stefani. Note to self: Don’t talk on the phone while posting. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/67 "2005-01-05T04:11:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Has anyone noticed those disgusting, dishonest new Army recruiting ads? Where the young man or woman is talking to his or her parent or grandparent about this great new career where he or she will get a chance to “help people get a chance at a decent life.” Not I but I do remember the old Air Force commercial where someone sings the first verse of the “wild blue yonder” song except that they switch to strictly instrumental at the penultimate line “live in fame or go down in flame” before switching back to vocals for the modern non-rhyming last line “nothing’ll stop the US Air Force”. ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/68 "2005-01-05T05:36:52Z")
UT-Austin has had some great whatever-you-call-the-promos-they-run-during-televised-sporting-events. The streak came to an end with the one I saw during the Rose Bowl. The opening shot running through Austin was awesome, but they completely lost it with the voiceover. It’s “What starts at Texas changes the world” but I can’t hear it without thinking “What starts at Texas _stays_ at Texas.” ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/69 "2005-01-05T07:56:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Has anyone noticed those disgusting, dishonest new Army recruiting ads? Where the young man or woman is talking to his or her parent or grandparent about this great new career where he or she will get a chance to “help people get a chance at a decent life.” It’s the **Army,** kids, not the fucking Peace Corps! You join up, your job will be to break things and kill people! :mad: Haven’t you heard? The US Army is defending freedom and democracy! You must be one of those people who hates freedom. And democracy. ---
**Author:** ![sleeepy2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@sleeepy2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeepy2)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/70 "2005-01-05T13:26:50Z")
Every time I turn a page in a comic book and find [this](http://www.thetruth.com/index.cfm?seek=posterEye) pic from [truth.com](http://truth.com) it makes me want to run out and buy a carton of Camels for middle schoolers. The _most_ annoying print ad, bar none. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/71 "2005-01-05T13:42:08Z")
Celebrity Cruises. Late-middle-aged faintly-obnoxious-customer types quietly nurturing fantasies of being Really Rich Royalty Or Something. “I was to be awakened at 6 for my morning walks.” “My butler knew exactly how I took my tea.” “I consider this a temporary exile.” Exile? Is this just me, or is there an ever-so-slight suggestion of a world war/iron curtain/refugee subtext about all this? ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/72 "2005-01-05T20:26:19Z")
> [@Amazon Floozy Goddess](#): > > An ad for Cottonelle toilet paper that shows a roll of toilet paper with a few sheets hanging off. The end of the paper has been photoshopped to look like a bath towel. Yes, I know bath towels are nice and soft and in turn they’re saying their toilet paper is nice and soft, too, but imagining wiping my butt with a towel just made my insides squirm. Have you ever used cottenelle toilet paper? Once i bought the ultra by mistake… it’s so quilted it felt like i was wiping with a bathtowel… i have never bought it since. ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351/73 "2005-01-05T23:03:57Z")
Hahaha… Enzyte Bob really pisses me off. You know… The old ironic fifties nostalgia bit wore off for me a long time ago. They certainly weren’t the first, but it just ain’t clever anymore. Plus he’s selling a stupid product. I just wanna slap that "shit-eating " grin right off his face. Also, I’ll second the toenail fungus commercial. I saw that one in Europe, so I’m not sure if they had it in the US but it shows this cartoonish fungus in front of a big toe that takes up about 75 percent of the screen. Then he lifts up the toenail like the hood of a car to reveal the red skin underneath the toenail and jumps in. Every time I saw this I cringed and had to look away or change the channel! That Geicko guy kind of pisses me off too. I’ll admit that him doing the robot is mildly amusing, but the one where he delivers the line “I didn’t know that WAS meatloaf” is really bad. I mean meatloaf jokes aren’t really that funny, and they are pretty much overused. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-unappealing-ads/281351.md?page=3)