Here’s an ad for a product called Mr Beams Indoor Outdoor Solar Eclipse Lighting for Solar Eclipses. It’s a pretty obvious parody of the bad ads used to sell unnecessary products.
So why is it perhaps the greatest commercial ever made? Because Mr Beams is an actual company that sells real lighting. They made a parody ad of their own product.
Stan Freberg’s Gino’s Pizza Rolls has never been topped. It’s a bit dated, but anyone at the time got all the references (notably to a commercial for Lark Cigarettes where people asked to show their pack of cigarettes and which used the same music).
I agree with the Honda commercial above for non-humorous.
I"ve always enjoyed this Dutch commercial for an English language school. I’m spoilering it because it contains some naughty language and is NSFW if you have the audio on.
Damn, that was hard to watch. My parents have been in assisted living for some time; they can’t drive, and my mom uses a wheelchair, so it’s extremely difficult to take them anywhere (except for special occasions when we rent a wheelchair van). They feel “trapped,” and sneakers ain’t gonna help.
For the record, my intent wasn’t for this just to be a listing of commercials that were weird and/or funny. I was talking more about the meta-nature of the Mr Beams ad and how it parodied its own genre of commercials.
But having said that, everyone feel free to post links to commercials they like for whatever reason.