I think we all must agree that the Pepsi girl has people reaching for remotes at lightning quick speed.
Favorite local commercial–if you live in central New York (I go to school in Syracuse), chances are you’ve seen Jim “The Hammer” Shapiro’s commercials. I have a couple of them saved on my computer even. The guy is the single scummiest personal injury lawyer I have ever heard of. His commercials invariably use explosions, car chase footage, etc. along with a laundry list of injuries that he will sue on your behalf for, and they get quite grotesque.
Favorite one I have yet to see on TV–this website called epinions.com has a great one I’ve only seen on adcritic. It shows a computer store clerk firing a clip into an iMac at a shooting range. He says something like “Since I work for a big store, I’m not allowed to tell you that the iMac is a useless, although pretty, piece of crap. But at epinions, I can let you know exactly how I feel about the lack of a floppy drive, that stupid hockey puck mouse, and all the other bad stuff.”
PS Who are you guys more sick of–the 7UP guy, or the Whassup? guys?
Jim “The Hammer” Shapiro’s fame has spread north of the border. I’ve seen commercials for this guy in Winnipeg (one of the channels comes from Rochester). Shapiro’s my hero - he’s just so…American.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Radically Canadian ads. They are a Canadian company (who’d a thunk it, huh?) who sold CFL related items and had probably had one of the best taglines ever: Our Balls are Bigger (in reference to the fact that the CFL uses a bigger sized ball than in the NFL, for all of you who don’t follow the CFL). It never failed to crack me up (what can I say? Simple things for simple folks.)
Also, for anybody who has lived in the Vancouver/Lower Mainland area and watched any late night TV has to be familiar with The Captain. These are the most low budget commercial imaginable (he simple uses a camcorder and not much else) and I have to admit, I loved every single one of them though . The were just soooo corny.
Couple of favorites, first the ads for discovery.com, goofy, off beat, just like those old bad Japanese horror flicks. Also like the commercial for A&W Rootbeer. The one with the interviewee using the word dumbass constantly in place of the interviers name, come to find out it is Dumas, funny cuz I didn’t expect it from A&W.
Monster.com and 1.800.flowers (I think) that uses the song Hero’s are pretty decent.
Scene… Guy sitting on porch, eating pizza, sprinkling tabasco sauce on it. Mosquito lands on him, takes a slug, and flies off. Guy just watches bug. Guy watches bug fly off… then BOOM bug explodes in fireball. Shot of Tabasco sauce bottle.
I’ve had all I can stand of that guy in the monotone voice pimping for Dish Network systems. It’s only on the radio.
The worst commercial ever, and perhaps David B and Flypsyde remember it, was a local (Springfield, IL) commercial that aired on the radio. It was for Tiskus (sp?) furniture, and they had an obnoxious little girl shilling for her family’s company. This girl had the enthusiasm of a cheerleader and a lisp to make Cindy Brady sound like an elocution teacher. And she had horrible difficulty pronouncing “r” sounds, as many children do (example, “Friday” comes out “Fwiday”).
This commercial irritated so many people so much that radio stations were getting bomb threats if they kept palying that commercial. One local talk-show host had people calling him, asking where this girl went to school so they could go slap her. I mean, this commercial got this town pretty riled up, and things got pretty ugly for a few weeks.
Megan Tithkuth, assuming no one shot her, would be in her middle 20’s now, and Tithkuth Fuwnitwuh has since gone out of business.
Althought the Pepsi girl(Hallie Eisenberg) is annoying, I like the Einstein ad because the soundtrack features a snippet from “Einstein On The Beach” and I dig Philip Glass.
I also like the Reeboks ad series that’s been running on Survivor, particularly the snakebite one where one guy kneels and sucks on the leg wound, but to the runner passing by, it looks like an intimate moment between two men.
I hate the white boys rapping Taco Bell ad (go David, it’s your birthday) and the 7Up ads were cute at first, but now they’re really annoying.
When I lived in Binghamton, N.Y. there was a VERY short radio show called “The Adventures of the Tooth Fairy” These were really an excuse for commercials, of course, but the serial about The Tooth Fairy was HILAROUS. The Tooth Fairy was a Joe-Friday-voiced guy. I imagine he looked like that Tooth fairy guy in the TV ads they’re running now. The show would open with him ringin a doorbell:
Tooth Fairy: (ding dong)
(Door opens)
Woman: (You can HEAR the curlers in her hair) Yeah?
TF:Hello, I am the Tooth Fairy, and I doth come…
(Door slams shut)
