My favourite of these games has to be the Bell Express Vu advert on TSN for their stop-action doo-hickey - the one with the beaver watching the skating.
Somehow, the idea of a big fat lazy beaver entranced by the figure skating makes me giggle each time I see it.
I haven’t watched a lot of these Olympics, but in the few hours I have watched it seems that it’s the same half-dozen or so commercials played endlessly. I therefore don’t have a favourite, since they all get on my nerves, but the very worst has to be the yogurt one with all the weird voices.
[Replying to myself]
Of course, that yogurt one isn’t Olympic themed, it just happens to play all the time during the Olympics. Another smarmy one that is Olympic themed is the McDonalds one where the dad draws a medal on a napkin that says “a gold medal for my champion” or somesuch for his sad hockey-playing kid. If I was that kid, I don’t think that would’ve cheered me up very much.
I like the one for Allstate Insurance that shows a drab middle-aged couple getting inspired, from watching Olympic figure skating on TV, to hitting the ice on an outdoor pond. He turns up the car radio; they take a few spins; then he slams into the side of a metal shed next to their car and after a classic comic pause, the shed’s ice build-up collapses onto their car.
It won’t sell me on their total auto-replacement policy, but it’s a cute ad.
There is a great one with some of the cast of The Office.
I like the Tim Horton’s commercial with the Asian guy berating his son for playing hockey instead of studying. The son is grown and is watching his own son play hockey. His father comes in and sees his grandson make a play. ‘That’s my grandson!’ The father is surprised, and the grandfather reveals that he watched him play. ‘What team did I play with, then?’ Grandfather pulls out an old photo and shows it to him. ‘Red Wings.’ Grandfather gives his son a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee. Then he says, ‘Give me my picture back.’
It’s a bit of a sappy commercial, but the last line makes me like it.
I don’t remember if this one was specific to the Olympics but it was sports-related for I think Nike. From several years ago. The setup is your typical monster movie, woman alone at night being chased by a psycho killer. Usually as we’ve seen in countless horror flicks the woman will trip and twist her ankle and lie there until the psycho polishes her off, but in the ad she never trips and thanks to a combination of her superior conditioning and her Nike shoes she leaves the winded killer eating her dust. The ad was pulled shortly after it debuted because some people complained that it somehow perpetuated or mocked violence against women. Proving once again that some people are goddamn rock stupid.
A little googling confirms that the runner was an Olympic athlete - Suzy Favor Hamilton - and that the commercial ran during the Sydney games. And I agree that the commercial was really funny in the way that it took the standard cliche from horror films, the helpless female, and stood it on its head.
There is only one criticism of the ad that I can see has any merit, IMHO. Some people complained that it was too intense and scary for young kids. If my memory of the ad is correct, they may have had a point (Suzy, in the FAQ on her web site, says she thought it was a bit too scary as well).
Agreed! I’m thinking about a personal mini-boycott of Yoplait because they’re so irritating.