I’ve seen quite a few, but one that possibly tops them all, I just happend to see a week ago while flying to New York on JetBlue. I really like JetBlue because you get something like 24 channels of DirecTV for free, and everyone gets their own TV (nicely placed on the back of the headrest in front of you). Anyways… the commercial I saw started out with a lady standing in a field with a fence (something along the lines of a horse pasture). I thought it was going to be a regular old alergy commercial, but, strangely enough, it was entirely not what I thought. It was, in fact, a commercial… enticing people to become Alpaca farmers! :eek: . Yup, thats right. Alpaca farming is a great way to get away from city life and out into the country… to breed beautiful, friendly animals that will bring joy to your life. (At least thats what I got out of the commercial. It was really funny because when i saw it, I burst out laughing, on the full… quiet plane. Even the stewardess gave me funny looks when handing out the complimentary peanuts.
So have at it Dopers… whats the strangest (maybe even funniest?) TV commercial you’ve ever seen?
If you’ll let me count commercials from ABC’s “World’s Greatest Commercials” specials, then I’ll have to say it’s the egg commercial. For those who have forgotten it, or never saw it at all, this is the one where a guy is working in the kitchen, and he lets an egg roll off the counter and fall to the floor. The egg doesn’t break, but then the guy’s whole body starts to crack like an eggshell. I don’t actually remember what the commercial was for.
I think it was for the Yellow Pages. This old lady, withered and everything, is standing on the edge of a ship, holding a pretty expensive looking necklace, which she promptly jettisons into the water. Then she leaps into the sea with a splash, and we cut to a street, outside what appears to be a pawn shop. It’s more light hearted now, and the narrator says something about there being better ways to handle money problems…or something. It made little sense to me. I’m still not sure what they were suggesting I do, and it felt a bit…er, uncomfortable.
Also, there’s a surreal Coca-Cola ad, with this bride before her wedding, and these women are fussing over her, and she’s looking sort of lost and a bit nervous. All the while, dramatic music is playing in the background, and this goes on for about thirty seconds. Then this little girl (not Hallie Eisenberg!) hands her a coke, and she sips it. All is well. Hmmm. Coke- the cure-all. They brought back the not so secret ingredient, did they?
I guess you never saw “Titanic”. That commercial was a spoof on the movie. In the movie, the woman throws the necklace into the ocean, never to be seen again.
This was one of my favorites - anybody else remember this one? It was for a shipping company (Fed Ex, I think). They’re saying how their competitors will contract out overseas shipping to no-name companies, and they show this generic European guy with a completely over-the-top accent. He is delivering packages to make money for his band. The packages are in the back of his truck along with the band members, and the boxes are falling out the back doors into the road. Then the very large drummer sits on one of the boxes and crushes it. The guy says: “Yuri, don’t squeesh packages”. I always loved that one.
Oh, and “Kitty Salmon” - I think it was in the 80’s. A very strange, tongue-in-cheek style animated cat food commercial.
And funniest: The Volkswagen GTI ad done entirely as a Speed Racer cartoon.
Actually, I think she’s just hot. It’s a really hot day, and she’s very uncomfortable, trying not to get all mussed while they fuss around her, and the little girl is the only one who gets her something cold to drink. At least that’s how it seemed to me,
creepiest: When I was in fifth or sixth grade the teacher would sometimes get ahold of compilations of the Cleo awards on 16mm to show us instead of a lame movie. I remember a foreign one (from some country with no nudity hangups, like the USA) that showed a barechested teenage girl lying on her back in bed smoking a cigarette. After a few seconds this black, oily mass started to spread across her chest and breasts (oil being poured from above.) Don’t remember any of the voiceover/copy but the image alone was an extremely effective anti-smoking message.
weirdest: That “learn English” commercial that was making the rounds last year as a download. (The one where the parents are in the car bopping their heads to the song with the “I want to fuck you in the ass” lyrics, because they don’t understand what the guy is saying.) lol
I’m the last living person in the United States who hasn’t seen “Titanic” or didn’t you already know? I suppose it makes sense now. I still think the Coca-Cola ad was surreal.
Heh, I love the learn English commercial. Is it legit? I doubt it, but it’s still quite comical.
I’ve also seen that Alpaca commercial. Perhaps a dozen times. I’m sure it’s a DirectTV deal, since that’s what we subscribe to. The commercial wears out very fast. That and the Bowflex commercial.
My favorite is an apirin commercial. There’s a guy installing carpet in this big house. He finishes this one room, and takes a break to have a cig. He pats down all of his pockets, and can’t find the pack. Then he notices a bump under the carpet - and thinks it must be his lost cigarette pack. He goes over and stomps it flat, and just as he finishes, the woman of the house comes in and asks if he has seen the hamster - and just about then he spots his cigarette pack on the window sill. Scene change, and the guy is taking a couple of aspirin and the comentator is blabbering something about stress headaches. The look on the guy’s face as he realized he had just smashed the hamster was just absolutely priceless.
Tampon commercial: Mom asks a small boy what he wants for his birthday, boy replies “a box of tampons”. Mom is confused, and asks why. Boy says, “so I can go swimming, and horseback riding, and play tennis…”
Only the South African dopers will know this one but here goes… It’s an add for a brand of potato chips. The ad is emphasing the crinkle cut and some guy is pseudo breakdancing to a jingle in a barber shop. Everyone’s wearing new wave type clothes (it was the mind 80’s) and the guy gets they wierd wavy haircut. There are two customers waiting reading newspapers, so you can’t see their faces. The camera focuses on them and they lower the papers and the one customer has the head of a giant terrier! He then says “Well what do you think Norman” and Norman (played by a local DJ) goes “Tasty, very tasty”. It might not sound ludicrous but a giant terrier? For absolutely no reason either…
The Austrailan one with the nudist picnic, advertising turkey bacon that “splatters less.” The positioning of various props to cover body parts was a work of genius.
Mort Furd that is truely and “oldie-but-goodie”, haven’t seen that one in like what, 15 years?
While its not the funniest one I have seen, I like the Ford commercial where the woman drops her guy off at the airport. He asks her to marry him, and they part ways. She speeds off to a local field and drives around in very fast skids and circles, and we see him looking through the window at the word NO, carved into the field by her wheels haha!
Aro: Nescafe.
And the best Ad on UK television is for Pot Noodle. This guy is walking up to prostitutes asking them do they do “Pot Noodle” and all the women in sex shops are slapping him for suggestion. he finally finds one woman who does it.
Cut to a room where the too of them are sitting on a bed fully clothed, hastily eating a Pot Noodle.
The Man says “Its so wrong, yet it’s so right!”
The Tagline comes up:
Pot Noodle: the Slag of Snacks.
Best I’ve seen lately is a Michelin commercial. A man gets into his car and places one of those “bobbing-head” dolls on his dashboard. The doll looks like the Michelin tire man. As the man drives, he keeps looking at the doll, but the ride is so smooth (due to the Michelin tires, presumably) that the doll’s head won’t bounce. The man becomes infuriated, and when he comes to a stoplight he seizes the doll and shakes it violently. Of course its head bobs, and he grins sadistically.
As he does so, he glances at the car stopped next to him. The driver of the other car is a life-size Michelin tire man, looking at him with eyes full of horror and pity.
Maybe it doesn’t sound that funny in description, but it’s hilarious when you see it.
I don’t really know if “strange” is the right word or not but this one stuck with me when I saw it recently…
You start with a scene of some Xgames type event where this guy tries to jump his bike but messes up and crashes horribly onto the ground in slow motion. The scene cuts to the guy getting into his truck where, after a moment, he lifts his forearm off the armrest to reveal a gory road-rash type injury- you can kinda see the blood oozing from his arm to the armrest. Anyway, at this point the guy just sorta shrugs and drives off as you hear the announcer tout the truck’s “new blood-resistant interior”.
The Snapple commercials that are currently running are pretty surreal. In one, bottles of Snapple are lining up in front of a night club. Inside, your typical big-hair 80’s metal band (Snapple bottles with wigs and instruments) are playing to a big crowd of Snapples dancing. One bottle (with big hair - natch) climbs up on stage. He dives into the crowd to do some body-surfing, but the crowd parts and he falls flat on the floor.
There is an ad here in Matsuyama for the local keirin bicycle racing (google keirin if you want to know what its about).
Anyway, the ad shows the bum of a cyclist, clad in cycling shorts. He suddenly starts to clench and unclench his buttock muscles, and at the same time he says “Bururun, bururun, buru run run”.
That’s the commercial.
My kids think its hilarious. I think they have problems.
