# Logic in TV Ads **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 20, 1999, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139 "1999-08-20T14:34:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrKnowItAll](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrknowitall/32/87_2.png) [@MrKnowItAll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrKnowItAll)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 1999, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/21 "1999-08-22T03:09:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Does “carpe hoc” mean “seize what”? Actually, I intended “Seize this!” Of course, I know almost nothing about Latin, so I hope someone will correct me if that is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Persephone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@Persephone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Persephone)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 1999, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/22 "1999-08-22T13:53:00Z")
Saw another [ecampus.com](http://ecampus.com) ad last night, that I think may be a television first. Two guys in a dorm room, one skinny & giggling, the other big & beefy, mowing a can of beans. Of course, you know what they’re planning. The big guy suddenly stops, hold out his hand, and the skinny guy slaps a lighter into it. Cut to outside, and a huge fireball blowing out the windows of the dormroom. The wild part is, you actually HEAR the fart before you see the fireball. Outside of cartoons like Beavis & Butthead and South Park, I thought TV was, as George Carlin put it, a “fart-free zone.” ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 1999, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/23 "1999-08-22T14:26:00Z")
I heard a radio ad yesterday that just did NOT come out the way they planned it. Their slogan was: Lots of banks will cash your checks, now here is one that will actually _shrink_ them! Err…? Yeah I’ll shrink your check too…sign it over to me and I’ll hand you a $5 bill, deal? * * * **\>^,^\<** “Cluemobile? You’ve got a pickup…” OpalCat’s site: [http://fathom.org/opalcat](http://fathom.org/opalcat) The Teeming Millions Homepage: [fathom.org/teemingmillions](http://fathom.org/teemingmillions) ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 1999, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/24 "1999-08-22T15:18:00Z")
We have a local jewelry store that advertises, “You can’t buy a higher quality diamond at a lower price, anywhere.” Well, gosh, that’s great. But to me it leaves the implication that you **can** find the _same_ quality diamond at a lower price elsewhere! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/25 "1999-08-23T05:49:00Z")
Any commercial for any member of the Ricard Auto organization. Um, I think any auto dealership in any area is going to have pretty bad commercials. I think of them as “vanity commercials”. They don’t want to shell out for professional talent, so it’s either the dealer, the dealer and some family member, or the woman the dealer is sleeping with. Oh, and when the dealer finds out about ‘chroma key’ the ads only get worse!! * * * **R** anger **J** eff \*The Idol of American Youth \* ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 1999, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/26 "1999-08-22T20:48:00Z")
> [@](#): > > DrJ, you have my vote on that Campbell’s Soup ad. I never quite understood the logic behind it. Maybe it’s because you have to actually DO something to soup, like add milk & stir it, that makes the whole thing more worthwhile. – Cristi Cristi, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. If DrJ had ever read _Wasp, Where Is Thy Sting_ by the wildly funny Florence King, he would better understand this commercial. According to Miss King: “[The Wasp woman] is the foremost exponent of the glop-it-up school, a cuisine that has been thrust upon America by that Waspy outfit, Campbell’s soups. Adding a can of cream of mushroom soup to a can of tuna and calling it Tuna Surprise, which it certainly is, makes her feel like one of those women whom service magazines call “menu planners.” … Her children are so used to Campbell’s soup that they will even add a can of water to their Coca-Cola…” See, a frozen pizza is convenient but a bowl of Campbell’s soup is good old-fashioned Wasp home-cooking… Well, it really IS a stupid commercial, I guess! But I like it anyway because it reminds me of Flo and one of my favorite books! * * * ``` Jess ``` Full of 'satiable curtiosity ---
**Author:** ![Persephone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@Persephone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Persephone)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/27 "1999-08-23T00:32:00Z")
Oh my, I must read that book! Sounds positively hysterical! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrKnowItAll](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrknowitall/32/87_2.png) [@MrKnowItAll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrKnowItAll)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/28 "1999-08-23T03:47:00Z")
Reading about the local car commercials reminded me of the “spokesman” for a local one here. I won’t tell you their name, but their initials are “Ron Miller Chevrolet” ;). ## They had a character named “Tokyo Joe” (I think) that would tell people not to be Japanese cars. The problem, as you may have guessed, is the charicaturistic way he was presented. Probably every oriental ethnic slur in the book was used. The switching of "r"s and "l"s in the speech. The drawing of him as a shortish, rounded headed guy with extremely squinty eyes and glasses. I’m not oriental, but I was _very_ offended. Everyone I know was, too. Even though the ads have stopped, I’ll never, ever buy a car from that asshole, as long as I live. Carpe hoc! ---
**Author:** ![MrKnowItAll](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrknowitall/32/87_2.png) [@MrKnowItAll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrKnowItAll)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/29 "1999-08-23T03:50:00Z")
Sorry, I have a tendency to make typos when I’m ranting. That should be “not to _buy_ Japanese cars,” not “be”. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/30 "1999-08-23T06:08:00Z")
Flora – I don’t remember that 1-800-DENTIST commercial, but a real life equivilent would be when I was working at my theater and a woman snatched up one of the 777-FILM cards from a display and joyfully blurted out “Oh good! I’m ALWAYS forgetting this number!” I kid you not! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/31 "1999-08-23T06:53:00Z")
This is just off the top of my head; I’m sure once I watch more TV, I’ll think of even more: Those nicotene gum (or was it a patch? I can’t remember) commercials where the woman says that her doctor said that it’s safer than smoking. That’s **realllly** reassuring. Those disinfectant that promise to kill 99.9% of the germs. Thanks, I’m really conforted knowing that instead of billions of germs, there are now only a few million. Those Tide commercials, in which someone recounts their entire life story, in which some article of clothing figures prominently, and is of course kept clean by Tide. * * * -Ryan " ‘Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter.’ " -Kurt Vonnegut, \* Breakfast of Champions \* ---
**Author:** ![Kakkerlak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bb73d2/32.png) [@Kakkerlak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kakkerlak)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/32 "1999-08-23T08:42:00Z")
This isn’t specific to TV ads, in fact it’s more often heard on radio. My irk is car dealers’ ads which rattle off a bunch of promotional terms (low financing, zero down, the usual temptations)… and then comes the one I don’t understand: “And before we make a deal, we’ll show you the actual factory invoice !” Often, there’s an excited voice in the background which adds: “Actual Invoice !” What’s that mean? I have an image of the sales manager teasingly holding up a piece of pink triplicate just out of reach - “This is the invoice, you can’t read it, nyah, nyah, a-boo, boo” Do they mean they’ll let me quickly calculate the exact profit they’re making on the car? How could that possibly matter to me? Do they want me to envy their profit? To feel like a chiseler because I negotiated? I wouldn’t tell my own grandmother how much I paid for a car I was selling. It’s like a caricature of the vendor in a bazaar “Oh, you insult me with your offer, my children will starve…”. Anybody on the MPSIMS work for a dealer or ever get to see the magic invoice? Another mystery of marketing. ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/33 "1999-08-23T14:01:00Z")
Thought of another one. The new candy “Milkfuls” (or something like that) – a hard caramel-like candy with a milky center. The commercial features a woman who talks about how she used to go to spend summers with her aunt, and her aunt would give her these. Now that she’s grown, she knows her daughter will enjoy going to see the aunt as well. Only problem is that, as I said, Milkfuls are a **new** candy! (No, I’m not confusing it with the ads for Werther’s Originals – I know they are similar ads, but I think Milkfuls was just copying them.) ---
**Author:** ![StStella](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@StStella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StStella)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/34 "1999-08-23T14:26:00Z")
I’m really bothered by commercials for food- specifically some kind of meat product- that use the actual animal the meat comes from in the add. I like meat, I wish I didn’t, but I most certainly don’t like to be reminded what it is. Look at the cute chicken, cow, pig in this add and then it ends up being an add for Beef, it’s what’s for dinner…YUCK. On a lighter note, how about that M&M’s crispys where the M&M says to the guy eating the bowl of candy, “put yourself in my place, what if that was a bowl full of your relatives and I was eating them…” and the guy replies by popping more candy in his mouth and saying, “here goes your sister, and here’s your cousin…” ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/35 "1999-08-23T14:45:00Z")
StStella, sometimes those ads bother me on some level as well. I think Subway is running one now for their Buffalo chicken sub, which features a singing buffalo and a chorus of singing chickens – and the chickens are essentially singing about how you should come out and, well, eat them! ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 1999, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/36 "1999-08-23T15:26:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Those disinfectant that promise to kill 99.9% of the germs. Thanks, I’m really conforted knowing that instead of billions of germs, there are now only a few million. Yeah, and those million or so germs that are left are immune to Tide with Bleach or Mop N’ Glo or whatever you used to kill most of them, and they’re going to end up breeding new, improved super disinfectant-resistant germs. Joy! ---
**Author:** ![pmh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df705f/32.png) [@pmh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pmh)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 1999, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/37 "1999-08-24T05:49:00Z")
Roach, the dealer will let you read the “invoice”. Unfortunately the only connection this peice of paper has to the vehicle in question is the VIN (but you’re not supposed to know that). The idea is to make you think he is only making a couple hundred on this car when it is in reality closer to 2 or 3k. ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 1999, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/38 "1999-08-24T07:48:00Z")
My all-time favorite illogical commercial was during an informercial for some weight-loss body-sculpting crap. It has the testimonials of several happy consumers who used the product (I have no idea what it was, nor do I particularly care). One is a woman, who tells of her seven year old who came up to her while in a bathing suit in front of a full beach ran behind her, grabbed her butt ans said, “Mommy, look at all of this cellulite you have back here!” I know a lot of 1st graders who speak of “cellulite,” don’t you? * * * Brian O’Neill CMC International Records [rockuniverse.com/cmc/cmc.html](http://rockuniverse.com/cmc/cmc.html) ICQ 35294890 AIM Scrabble1 Yahoo Messenger Brian\_ONeill ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 1999, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/39 "1999-08-24T08:51:00Z")
The subject line belongs in the oxymorons thread. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 1999, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139/40 "1999-08-24T14:52:00Z")
There’s a new commercial out with this tape that you use to correct errors and write over it. In it, this seven-year-old girl is looking at her mother’s grocery list, crossing out all the icky stuff like brussels sprouts, and replacing them with “ice cream” and “a pony.” Later on they show her shopping with her dad and getting all the stuff on the list. Now, I don’t know many seven-year-olds, but I doubt many of them would be such accomplished forgers, considering they can barely print. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-in-tv-ads/7139.md?page=3)