The Kellogg’s Fruit & Something or Other cereal commercial with the '70-style porno music in the background where the carton of milk leaks a Cowpers Drop (thats “precum” for those of you just exiting our fine school system for the summer) from its spout.
Ironic, since cold cereal was invented as an antiaphrodesiac. But annoyng, because most mainstream advertising stresses an strongly implied theme of mandatory commercialism and middle class culture, and, even though I enjoy stupid sex humor as much as anyone, in the contex of a TV ad, it’s just corporate culture’s attempt to be “what our focus groups agreed was ‘daring, but not too offensive’ and our target demographic will veiw as ‘naughty,’ but anyone who might be offended should be too ignorant to get the double entendre.”
Kind of like the Aflac ads. Indented to be “funny, but not too funny, if you know what we mean.”
In this advert is a tiny little black man, with a great big afro, hangin’ with his normal-sized black brothers. Being small, and black, he talks like some mutant Chris Rock on helium and crystal meth. He talks and talks, the jive-talkin’ equivalent of human high-grit sandpaper on the psyche.
I didn’t grow up in Oklahoma (although I spent a year there when I was a wee lad and I had no choice), but I did date two women who had. And in both families they celebrated the soon-to-arrive holiday season by gathering around a television set to see and hear the dumbest commercial over which I’ve ever seen anyone fawn.
Yuck.
It’s banal, it’s insipidly boring and, without a doubt, shows that people dig deeper and deeper in their quest to avoid doing something fun. Like picking one’s nose. That has something going for it, at least. I mean, you get a pay-off at the end (plus, your nose feels better).
For some reason this jingle is considered a favorite tradition for many in Oklahoma–and I don’t know why. I’ll probably never be able to figure out why; not without LSD, I mean. Ultimately, the conflict between their love and my dislike of that jingle meant that the relationships were doomed. So, I married a Kansan.
Reminds me of those Trix and Fruity Pebbles commercials where the Trix Rabbit and Barney Rubble go to extreme lengths to steal cereal from others. Of course Fred Flinstone gets irritated----he legally paid for his cereal. Go buy your own, Barney! The same with you, Trix Rabbit.
“Silly rabbit, Trix is for people who paid money.”
Then again, when you go to the lengths of trying to get cereal like these characters, it’s clear that you might have a problem. The same goes for live action commercials as well.
There’s something insidious about that commerical. During Christmas, it’s so ubiquitous that it latches into the “Christmas” and “Oklahoma” parts of your brain like a leech and never, ever lets go. I haven’t lived in Oklahoma for 8 years now, but now I’m going to have that insipid jingle in my head for days now.
I nominate the Lamasil commercial, with the hideous little fungus moster that lives under your toenail, and the wretchedly inflamed, cracked, and painful terrain there.
In a weird way I kind of like the Gotta Go spots, only because the wildly urgent music they use seems so appropriate. I notice they only show women; doesn’t it also happen to men?
…only because at the end of the commercial, the guy says it may take up to a year to get results. The site above sells this product for $249.99…gets you 30 pills. That’s 3 grand for a years supply!
:eek:
Better you should just keep your socks on when you have company over.
All those car commercials. Like when they show an image of the car spinning around, and then all of a sudden it spins really, really, fast, then it spins slow, then it spins fast, then it spins slow… I swear I’m gonna puke watching that. And why do ALL the car companies have to do it like that? Or if you show the car driving down a road, just freaking show it. You don’t have to change camera angles 50 times per second. Are they afraid their car looks so crappy that they don’t want you to get a good look at it? I swear these guys must all have studied at the “because we can” school of editing.
Also, any ad for allergy medicine with people sneezing, coughing, and blowing their nose really loudly. We really don’t need to see or hear that.
Which brings up a more general point. The more advertisers try to grab our attention with flashing lights, motion, and loud noise, the better we get at tuning them out, so the harder they try to grab our attention, with more flashing lights, more motion, and more noise. It’s a vicious cycle.
There’s another addy out there about plastic wrap. I can’t remember if it’s Handy Wrap or whatever the hell; but in it a woman tries, several times, without success, to properly dispense one sheet of wrap from a box of “Brand X”. You’d think she was trying to crack a safe or something. It balls up. It rips unevenly. She smacks herself in the face while pulling and tearing, inadvertantly wrapping half her head instead of the salad. And so on.
Then, enter two archtypcial lumpy mom-types with bouffant caps in some kind of weird cross between a kitchen and a laboratory, showing the oppressed homemakers of the world the handy-dandy new zipper doohickey that slices off a perfect sheet of plastic wrap every time. No muss, fuss, or wrinkles. Wow. This is better than sliced cheese.
So, I guess A) Women are still the muffinheads they were circa 1952, B) Only women use plastic wrap, and are hence the only ones qualified to be shilling it, and C) Small Plastic Contraptions ™ affixed to boxes of disposable wrapper will Change Your Life (whilst adding tons of new unbiodegradables to the landfills, of course).
By far the worst for me in recent memory (other than the local woman who does furniture commercials) is the one for toilet paper that shows people’s asses and talks about how important it is to “be clean where it really counts”. Jesup wept.
Personally, I prefer to walk around with my shorts full of dung balls.
So, what would you prefer–a red liquid, say? Ick–no thanks!
Everyone’s been mentioning the Pepto dancers, but I don’t think that’s nearly as bad as the Imodium commercials. One chick is dancing at a CD listening station, then turns all cross-eyed and bolts for the bathroom because…Diarrhea Attacked! What’s even worse is the one where this guy is about to get it on with two hot ladies in a hot tub when…Diarrhea Attacks! If I knew that was the reason he was leaving the hot tub in such a hurry, I’d be right behind him. Blech!
Aha, I get this one. The little guy is Thirst. It’s only mentioned very early on in the ad, and always rushed as in “Yo Thirst what you been doing?” so you don’t really know what they’re saying. This guy is some personification of your natural urge to not be thirsty, so he get impressed when he sees Sprite since it’s apparently as refreshing as a spearmint enema. If they changed the voice it wouldn’t be as irritating. Show dem mah mah toe.
What’s currently bothering me is a “Got Milk” ad with a little kid trying to carry two glasses of milk and a bag of Oreos down some stairs. Milk is cascading down the steps, the kid’s shirt is covered in milk, and somehow the glasses are always brimming so more sloshes out all over the place with every step he takes. It’s all meant to project an “Isn’t this sooooo cuuute?” vibe, and it sickens me. Perhaps somebody should bring a single square of Brawney to soak it all up.
