I’ve been having mixed feelings about the new Office Depot commercial with the disembodied hand in a box. My first thought was that it’s just wrong to use this motif without a nod to Charles Addams. On further thought, I was willing to concede that maybe it’s a gutsy move.
The problem is, there is an even newer commercial in the latest round of anit-smoking ads - featuring various body parts protuding from garbage cans. So now when I see the Office Depot hand, I’m either thinking “Addams Family ripoff” or “gruesome visuals that would would be considered overdone on CSI.”
Have you seen th eone for PeptoMax witht he giant Japanese monsters and robots?
And a particularly pained-looking Paul Bunyan. Bleah…
The Office Depot hand - yeah, I thought of Thing right from the start.
Didn’t FedEx have a commercial with Thing several years ago, or was that just a hyper-blatant placement in an Addams Family movie?
All of those “Erectile Dysfunction” Drug adds crack me up! The dislaimer" See your doctor if erections last OVER 4 hours"-isn’t that the idea! They ought to show the guy trying to get an appointmemt:
-(Nurse) " “why do you want to see the doctor?”
-(Guy): “see, I tokk XXX, and…uh, I still have wood!”
-Nurse “we can fit you in next month!”
No one has mentioned the caveman? At first, it seemed kindof cute, but now its really annoying.
I don’t get it either. Was he unfrozen? If not, why can’t he shave or get a haircut to look less “cave-like”?
Are you talking about the Geico Caveman? I love those commercials, at least I did the first few times I saw them. The first one had a typical standing announcer saying, “Geico, so easy a caveman could do it.” Then the bom mike drops on his head, and the scene cuts to another camera, where a caveman crew member is shouting, “Not cool, man. Not cool.” The boom operator says, “I’m outta here,” and walks off. I thought the ads were very clever. Of course, just about anything is a drag once you’ve seen it 50 times.
There’s a second commercial to that campaign where the announcer takes the cavemen out to dinner to apologize.
“I’m really sorry. I had no idea you guys were still around.”
One caveman replies, “Well, next time maybe you should do a little research first.” The other caveman orders duck ala orange and the first looks at the announcer with steely contempt and says, “Nothing for me. I’ve lost my appetite.”
First, you turn off the power.
I thought that was the first one. Aired during a Super Bowl, didn’t it?
Thats actually the third one, the first one is the one were they are filming the commercial and one of the crew members walks off. I think the second one was of them hanging out at their apartment when the commercial comes on and one turns to the other and goes “that is SO condecending”. Then theres the one at the psychiatrist and the two at the airport.
The ones that stand out are the various moron-bait ads for work-at-home schemes, some gewgaw called the “Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet”, etc. They’re particularly incongruous in that they show up on the “egghead” cable channels (presumably because the knaves who promote them can’t afford outlets with larger audiences).
Just chiming in as another Caveman Supporter.
(That was certainly an elegant apartment. Or loft.)
I’ve only seen one at the airport. The one where he’s on the slidewalk and passes the caveman ad. It took me a while to realize the song was a watered down version of “Always something there to remind me.”
What’s the other airport one?
I agree with everything, but in addition…
I call bullshit on the whole thing. That tiny-ass teen might fit into the jeans, but even after eating Total 24/7, that mom doesn’t look like she could wear the same pants. Sure, she looks fine, but I’d stake a week’s pay that there were 2 different pair of pants used in that ad…
Joe
Why should a caveman betray his heritage by conforming to modern standards of attractiveness?
I don’t care at all for the VW commercials showing various car drivers and passengers getting into horrible accidents and then showing how they came out safe and alive afterwards. Not that I have a problem with people being a safe car, but the manufacturers seem bent on scaring us into buying said car. Fear-as-motivator does not sit well with me when it comes to advertisements.
I relalize there was nothing bad about this commercial, but it made me sick to my stomach.
I was very hungry the first time I saw this ad. It starts out with a steak cooking, being flipped and a fe spices being thrown on it. Now I love steak and this made me very hungry. Then there’s a shot of a guy who says “Wait, it’s not done” then you see A-1 being poured on it. As much as I love steak, I loath A-1. It took my hunger and turned it into revulsion.
We have what I’m guessing is a local chain store called Ivan Smith Furniture. Anyone who lives in the Longview, Tyler, and Shreveport areas can vouch at how terrible their one commercial is. It has one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard in a commercial. That’s not the half of it though. They have the lyrics at the bottom with a bouncing dot so you can sing along with it. Why the fuck would I want to sing along with an Ivan Smith Furniture commercial?! The first time I saw it, my cousin and I ridiculed it pretty badly. I wish I had a link.
Have you seen the one now where it’s basically two people debating the merits of the VW style commercials…and then they get into one?
I was waiting for it to be a spoof…but it’s another VW commercial.
Even funnier are the ads for the bald-grow-hair prescription drugs where one of the side effects is erectile dysfunction. Uh, isn’t that why you want the hair? To get laid?