Come to think of it, the Multi-Grain Cheerios commercial I hate so much is similar to an ad that pops up during tax time every year where the wise and sassy wife berates her husband for (gasp) buying tax-preparation software instead of going to H&R Block or whatever. She, too, tells him to consult the box and tell her what it says.
Makes my skin crawl.
Generally, gender roles in commercials for certain products are just fucked up. Women become smug harpies and men doddering neanderthals. Blargh.
Antidote to the dumb husband ads: the cellphone commercial where the wife answers her phone: “Oh, it’s your butt - hi Butt . . .” and so on, and tells the husband to buy a new flip phone to end butt-dialing. And he bounces his butt on the couch and says, “My butt just hung up on you.” At least there, it’s two people ribbing each other, not the smart wife berating the dumb husband.
Moronic Hubby (shakes sleeping wife): “Barbara, you up?” (shakes harder) "Barbara, you up?"
Barbara: “I’m up now!”
MH: “I don’t think I can sleep with this cold. My throat’s kind of sore!”
Babs (sighs and climbs out of bed): “I’ll get the aspirin and Sucrets!”
Even at 8 years old I wanted to punch this asshole in the face.
Currently, the one I can’t stand is for some internet provider demonstating how fast their service is: “A rabbit… bred with a leopard… on ice… shaved… strapped to a jet engine…” and so on… It just creeps me out for some reason.
Oh, hells, yes! I remember this one! There are times in our marriage that my husband or I have been sick enough to wake one another up in the middle of the night (with me, it’s kidney stones; if I wake him up at 3AM and say “get me drugs”, he knows exactly what I mean!), but believe me, neither of us would wake the other up for a freakin’ cold. I think if he woke me up and said “I don’t think I can sleep with this cold”, I’d have to say “Well, fine, but why don’t you go lay on the sofa so you don’t keep me awake”. That would work both ways, too.
Not all ads feature the smart woman/dumb guy style. I don’t watch TV, but there’s a site called flash-game.net that plays ads between levels, and they have a couple of ads featuring a condescending male ‘expert’ showing women how to get stuff clean. There’s a “Bleach Accidents Support Group” and a visit to the laundromat, and it might be the same guy telling his wife how to get the carpet clean before her mother comes to visit.
There’s also a woman with her daughter in a filthy washroom who is really offensive.
I haven’t seen these, but certainly have no reason to question you!
But whatever the case may be, can’t we just, y’know, end sexism, in any direction, once and for all?
Please?
PS: I’m not asking you, personally, rjk, I’m sure you’re fine. But really, Word to all the marketing ‘geniuses’ out there: dude, your prejudice is showing.
All the damned “Cash for gold” commercials; was just one company but now there’s more. What I really don’t understand is who would put their “unwanted” gold in an envelope and send it to a company and completely trust their appraisal.
Another “amen, enough already” to anything GEICO. If they’d quit paying so much for airtime then maybe they really would be able to save you money, though I’ve not known anybody who called them (myself included) who found their policy was less by a significant enough amount to switch for and usually it was the same as or higher. (Trivia: Kelsey Grammer was meant to be the voice of the lizard, but it was filmed during a SAG strike [or writer’s strike] so they went with an English actor who wasn’t in a union.)
Actually, Kelsey Grammer was the voice in the earliest commercial. Then it switched a distinguished-sounding British guy. Then it switched to its current Cockney version.
I’m fine with the gecko and the googly-eyed pile of money, but the cavemen wore their welcome out a long long time ago. I was surprised to see brand new terrible cavemen commercials still coming out in recent weeks.
A friend of mine did this, which may help some of the Geico-haters, particularly if you also watched the World Cup or any other soccer on television in 2006.
I hate that gecko’s stupid Cockney accent. Kelsey Grammer was much more pleasant to listen to.
I’m glad there are others out there who hate the Verizon ice cream sprinkles commercial as much as I do. I think the what enrages me most about this commercial is the pussified reaction of the stoned-looking guy behind the counter after the douchenozzle dad dumps the container of sprinkles all over the counter. WTF?? I worked in an ice cream store in high school, and I would have gone insane if some customer pulled that shit with me.
And some of the higher-ups at Verizon must think this commercial is oh-so-clever because I see it all the time! IT’S NOT FUNNY :mad:
I don’t know that I hate this commercial, but it does disturb me.
It’s the Emerald Nuts commercial where the guy is drowsy and accidentally opens the emergency door on the airplane when he tries to go to the bathroom.
It’s supposed to be funny, but all I can think about is that the guy and the poor stewardess who also gets sucked out of the plane are falling to their deaths while some douche offers them Emerald Nuts on the way down.
I freakin HATE that ass hat in the E-Harmony (I believe) commercial where he is talking to his girlfriend at some bar and says “I promise not to take myself to seriously”. Oh my freakin god… I can’t count the levels that douche-ness that is that statement.
Oh, and any commercial where they tout “secret programs that credit card companies dont want you to know about!” WTF? The only secret is that your an idiot if you believe that. FTR, there is nothing, NOTHING, any debt company can do for you that you cant do for yourself. And I just know the people buying into this crap are people who have already proven they ain’t good with their money! Its such a shame…
I saw a new caveman commercial just this morning…and smiled, fondly remembering the one where the Geico rep takes the cavemen out to dinner. One caveman orders the duck with the mango salsa, the other caveman acts like a giant prick. That’s one of my favorite commercials ever, but apparently they’re not going to rise to that level again.
The pile of money thing was never any good, but I get hooked by the absolute freakiness of the people in them. Especially, “Musta been following you for miles. Looks tired.” Brrrr. My skin crawls, but I watch.