Saw a commercial for Burger King last night. Wasn’t really paying attention, all I saw and heard was “cheap acupuncture” and saw a guy leap onto a giant cactus! Had my son and me rolling on the floor laughing for 5 minutes. I guess the worst of current commercials is the Gap kids one. Disregarding local ones in Houston (Suitmart [2-fer!]and some furniture commercial where the guy takes a
chainsaw and cuts up a bed.) Anybody care to throw in their picks/pans?
Saw a pretty tacky one the other night. It was a toilet paper ad featuring a bear in the woods.
I like the life insurance commercial that asks, how are you going to support your family after you die? The commercial shows a woman propping up her dead husband at his desk in different poses each night with a fan pointing at him - rare example of black humor in TV ads, and I liked it.
One of the best ones that I can remember is from a few years ago where the little old lady went into a burger place (Wendy’s?) and said “Hey, where’s the beef?” Every time I would see those commercials, I would laugh like a school kid. But then again, it doesn’t take much to amuse me. :D:D
The worst ones? Anything that has to do with "feminen (SP?) hygiene. Also, those rediculous psychic readers and tarot card things. They must thing that most people just got off of the pickle boat or are at least one sandwich shy of a picnic. Geez.
I now present you with: the best underwear ad ever.
I’m a big fan of the Jack in the Box spoof of N’Sync. “TC, EJ, TK, JP, and the other TC head back into the studio.” They proceed to ineptly record the jingle for whatever pile of grease JitB is try to hawk this week. Their producer blithely smiles encouragement durning their offkey wailings, then whispers to the sound controls guy, “Can we fix that?”
That’s hilarious!
One of the best commericals I ever saw was one that I don’t believe actually aired except on some “Best of” commercials specials.
It was one where a mom was listening in on her son talking with a friend. The little boy was saying how he wanted some brand or other of tampon. The mother of course starts listening more closely and the boy goes on to say that he saw an ad for them on television and if you have them you get to go to the beach and horseback riding and hiking…you know…all the usual rubbish you see on feminine hygene commercials.
The commercials I hate the most:
The car commercials that offer to sell me a car at x dollars over dealer invoice and then inform me at the end via a speedtalker that “dealer invoice may not reflect actual dealer cost.” Translation: “This entire promotion is bullshit but we hope you are stupid enough to pay what we print on a meaningless piece of paper.”
The worst commercials are the low-budget do-it-yourself ones that the business owners put together on a shoestring budget. I have to give them credit for trying, but the results are often hilariously awful. They often run late at night on the local stations, since that’s where it’s cheap.
I remember an ad in the NYC area that was done in the style of “I Dream of Jeannie”. I suspect it was a husband-and-wife team. The acting was AWFUL (“Yes, mas-ter!”)
When I lived out in Salt Lake City there was a big discount store hat did its own commercials. The guy was always terrible. His nadir was the one where he did the World’s Worst Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof.
On the other hand, local commercials can be Great. I highly recommend the Jordan’s Furniture comercials here in the Boston area. Bsides original commercials, they do extremely funny parodies of national ads.
There is a hilarious commercial from Austraila
about turkey bacon. It features a picnic with
a bunch of nudists moving around, talking about
how they like the bacon because there’s less
splatter. The best shot is a guy who moves from
behind a chair to the side just as a woman opens
a picnic basket and then sits down as she holds
a thermos bottle in front of him. Very good
camera work.
There’s also a commercial for the Bust Stop, which
sells custom made bras. It features all sorts of
fruits and vegetables in two-by-twos, because
breasts come in all sizes. And why do you need
a custom bra. So you don’t end up with two hanging
bananas.
I enjoy those ads (although I haven’t a clue as to what or who it’s for) showing various people engaged in various activities (putting on make-up, eating cereal, playing with the dog, etc.) as the camera pulls back and shows the person behind the wheel of their car.
…oh, and any commercial advertising for pantyhose, bath oils, Victoria’s Secret, etc.
There’s a series of commercials here in Central Florida that you either love or hate. It’s the Family Auto Mart. It’s basically this 300 pound guy, his brother, and they’re crew hawking cars for 20-30 minutes on what looks like a public access show around midnight. He wears a coconut bra and hula skirt in one skit. In another, he’s a samurai. Did I mention that he RHYMES :eek: when he sells the cars.
Example:
I’m not thin/
I’m not skinny/
But you can drive away/
In this classy mini/
Vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.
-Family Man
Then HIS show has commercials from OTHER weird companies that HE stars in.
One is for Hubcap City, in Sanford. It’s two guys in various locations (a pile of hubcaps, on top of the roof, etc.) saying…
“Hubcap City, Sanford. Hubcap City, Sanford. Hubcap City, Sanford.” (Over and over, for about 30 seconds.)
Anyone from Central FL wanna give me their take on this?
Any body from Florida who can remember the hilarious one from “TIRE KINGDOM”? - about th epitch man who was telling everybody that he was going to die unless he sold 10 million tires this week?
In the Boston, MA area, a local grocery chain (Star Market) has a good one, with an NSYCH look-alike group doing a “fruits of summer” song-they are pretty good! (better than N’Stink!)
EGKelly:
I can’t STAND the Star Market commercial. Mrs. Cal always hits the “Mute” button when that one comes on.
By the way, if you look in the corner at the start of that commercial, they credit it to the group “N’Season”, a joke for the quick of sight.
Those Carl’s JR. commercials are freakin’ disgusting. All that slurping and chomping and munching. They certainly don’t make me hungry, just queasy.
Those new Gap ads, with the one song, “Girl/you really got me now/you got me so I don’t know what I’m doing/” sung really slowly, by some 9 year old kid, off key, and that other one, by the 9 year old girl that they are trying to portray as sexual. God, those make me want to murder my family.
–Tim
There is this local window commercial in which the guy opens the door to see the gas company man. He complained “You were here just last week. Wait a minute…” He shuts the door, then opened it again, this time holding a double handful of dollar bills. He threw it at the gas man, yelling, “Here, take all of my money.” One of the best starts of a commercial yet.
Then there is that Crazy Eddie guy, “The prices are…in-sane.”
There is also the commercial for a dragster strip featuring the modulated voice heard in “Don’t Stop the Music” and “Jam on It”: “Oh ho ho ho ho ho, Raceway High!!”
One of the funniest ads currently on NZ commercials is for an energy drink called Red Bull, their catchphrase “Red Bull gives you wings!!!” It’s one of a series of animated commercials in which one of the characters drinks Red Bull and literally sprouts a pair of wings.
Top of the bunch features a suited gent walking along the street. A bird flies overhead and casually craps on his jacket. The man calmly wipes the guano off with a handkerchief, and proceeds to drink a can of RB. He grows wings and takes off, flying over the bird. He undoes his belt - the ad cuts to shot of bird looking up and going “RARRK!!!”
The most bizarre commercials are for feminine hygiene and associated products.
One advert had an insert with car racing to “keep the guys entertained” while the girls talk about thrush.
Another has a female office worker looking in her desk for tampons. The one she finds promptly turns into Fran Drescher (or her tamponic equivalent).
Far and away, the most bizarre commercial, and more than a little disturbing, is an ad for tampons/dress shields or some other thing guys have little or no idea about.
It involves a woman clad in rather tight fitting clothing shouting “Dinnertime, Fido!!!” outside her house. She goes inside and shuts the door. Two dogs come barreling down the road, one a Jack Russell terrier, the other a Boxer or similarly-large breed. The Jack Russell dives quickly and easily through a doggy-door, and leaps into the woman’s arms, tail wagging furiously. The larger dog barges in through the doggy-door, startling the woman, and gets stuck halfway through. Cut to shot of its rear end trying vigorously to push its way through.
All this is going on to the tune of some sort techno-doggy-leghump music.
Every time I see it, I feel… uncomfortable…
I like those Discovery Channel commercials. You know the one “hey mosquito,” “buzz, buzz.” And the asteroid one too–hehe. Those commercials are so lame, cute and funny.
I also like the insurance company commercial where the guy is in the recliner looking at his car insurance bill and his dog is ROFL! Love it!
I saw one the other night that made me giggle. It was for a new drain cleaner. The powers-that-be decided that a really good name for this product would be the “Foaming Pipe Snake.” Maybe it’s just the 14 year old boy in me, (admit it, we all have one) but I found this to be highly amusing.