Which commercial makes you leap for the remote? Not because you’ve seen it 500 times already, but because it makes you mad, makes you ill, or insults your intelligence.
For me, it’s one for a car… I think – I so adamantly refuse to watch it that I’ve forgotten what product they’re selling. It’s set in a bullring and features a bull with ropes of saliva spewing from its mouth. Grosses me out.
Those Jamie Lee Curtis cell-phone ads. Like fingernails on a blackboard.
Anything that shows a close-up of an eye…
eeeuuuwwwiweeeee!<shudder>
My latest hate object is a local ad for a big time car dealer in Portland.
I also hate political ads. We’re getting one in particular now calling our governor a tax-and-spend liberal in a very smarmy, condescending voice. Well he is a liberal, and I disagree with him a lot, but I think he’s doing what he thinks is best for the state. I just happen to think he’s wrong. Anyway, I think the ad trys to portray him as this evil, machiavellian, madman, and that pisses me off.
I also hate all ads with singing or loud discordant music.
And** anything** to do with telephone numbers.
National:
The Pepsi girl.
Local:
Family Auto Mart
Appliance Direct (the really annoying daughter - ::shudder::
Bob Dance Dodge (“Where Everybody Rides!” and Buster the wonder Dog - now computer generated (badly!) and/or with the grandkids!)
I loathe commercials in general, and will generally change the channel when any commercial comes on, but these are the ones that I really detest:
[li] Any car commercial featuring drivers and passengers dancing in their seats. Sick and tired of it.[/li]
[li] Any ad that uses a popular tune with new lyrics. I absolutely hate it when they do that - the new lyrics evict the original ones from my brain. Pure evil.[/li]
[li] Tiger woods (Buick) ads. I feel dirty just knowing who he works for…[/li]
[li] Radio shack ads with Howie Long and whazzername. Enough said.[/li]
[li] Fast food commercials obviously aimed at members of a particular race or ethnicity. One chain is particularly infamous for this.[/li]
But Carpet World commercials take the cake.
I don’t know if CW is a national chain or not. I don’t think so because they usually buy time here in LA during the local news programs. Their commercials used to be just shots of custom closets and cabinets with a cheesy, cheap-ass animated man-figure doing this stupid little 15-frame dance loop that makes the Hamster Dance look well choreographed.
This was bad enough. But lately they’ve hired actors and actresses to inhabit the closet scenes, AND INSTRUCTED THEM TO IMITATE THE STUPID DANCE! And they do. And it looks even cheesier than before. It’s so maddeningly inane, I just want to VOMIT!
And yet, I still know their telephone number by heart. I feel defiled.
Hi! 
I’m Paul from the Diamond Cen<click>
My current peeve is John Edwards. I hate the fact that my beloved Babylon 5 episodes are regularly defiled by ads for this wretched vomitous mass of a conman. He’s not competent enough to work the grift for real, so he gets a freakin’ TV show.
I’m very glad I have a TiVo, if only because it gives me the wonderful option of fast-forwarding past commercials–I deliberately start watching things about 10-15 minutes late, so I usually catch up with the program right at the end.
I think the product is chocolate milk, but the ad is so disgusting, I tune out. Shows some skater-wasted dude gargling in front of a store. Later we see that this dumb ass pours some milk into his mouth, then a squirt of chocolate syrup, then gargling again. Hey brain dead - mix before ingesting! sheeesh
Cleo the Tarot Lady.
I know there have only been 8 posts but I still can’t believe I’m the first to mention her.
That Dodge truck ad with the electric guitar opening for the psuedo-rap Mitch Miller men’s chorus.
Makes me dive on the remote like a live gernade in a trench full of buddies.
I remember when I was around 10 years old I lived in Colorado, and I used to hear/see this commercial for a really annoying denver car dealer who wore this loud cowboy get up and had some really obnoxious slogan, which thankfully I’ve forgotten.
I was in Alaska last year, most of which recieves Denver’s network channels (Can anyone from AK tell my why this is?) And I was quite disturbed to find that this car dealer was still on the air, with the same slogan, cheesy music, and cowboy costume!
I would litterally scamble to get the remote and change the channel whenever I saw a commercial that used the Baja Men song, (Shudders and fights back urge to off himself) “Who Let the Dogs Out”.
I HATE that song!
I HATE that song!
I HATE that song!
Any commercial with THAT song would have me changing the channel so fast, I’d be a blur to the casual observer.
BTW, did I mention I HATE that song?
Baha Men have nothin’ on the Bellerin’ Brats of the “Time-Life 101 Greatest Kids Songs” or the Tone-Deaf Tepid Twerps of whatever that Christian song collection is. Bleh.
Buffalo
Pat Gambino Ford. There’s nothing more grating on the ears than a Buffalo accent, and everyone in Pat Gambino commercials hsa the “flat a.” Vaugely reminiscent of The Sopranos.
Denver
Dealin’ Doug (a number of auto dealerships). Typical scumbag auto dealer, who wears a ring on every finger. You just can’t help but think that Douggie is boffing a 19 year old big haired trophy blonde on a regular basis.
Just about every radio commercial on the city’s AM stations. Gawd, Denver has a collective love for smooth jazz like no other city I’ve seen, and you hear it in the background of just about every radio commercial. I hit “scan” every time I heard one.
Orlando
Family Auto Mart. Radio and TV commercials are done almost entirely in Mr. Hanky voices.
Appliance Direct. The worst of the lot, in my opinion. Samantha, a 10 year old girl, always screams “IF YOU DIDN’T BUY DIRECT, YOU PAID TOO MUCH!” at some point. They have excruiating infomercials, too.
El Paso
Any restaurant commercal. They’re all the same in that city – show the outside of the restaurant; pan the empty interior; pan across some typical dishes; show a family of four eating, and then simulataneously looking up, smiling and nodding at each other; show the exterior again; and pan to the 60’ tall sign that practically all restaurants in El Paso have.
I remember a restaurant commercial on one of the X-stations across the border that followed the El Paso restaurant commercial formula, only there was a live talking donkey in every scene, including one showing the cooks working in the kitchen.
Ugh. I do the same thing (there’s that new commercial out with the guy on an airplane with a notebook computer! I thought the commercials were over last year!). It turns out that my dog recognises that song from the very first note, and he hates it as well. He runs to the TV as fast as he can, barking, and jumps up to bite the actors’ heads off. <Sigh>
I hated the Blimpie’s ads that were on last summer with the six-year-old kid dressed up like Tony Conza, the owner.
That Eva Save-a-lot lady.
Girls Gone Wild videos.
I’m sure that after watching a few hours of TV, I’ll be back to share more.
Ooooh, I haaaate Eva Save-a-Lot! Is she supposed to be “famous?” I mean, some starlet everyone’s heard of but me? I keep hoping someone will clout her on the head with the phone receiver.
And who is—I think this is his name?—Terry Bradshaw? Some big, dumb, balding guy who seems to think WAY too much of his acting talents. Is he some washed-up sports person or something? He is on WAY too many commercials.
Terry Bradshaw - Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback in the 1970’s with four Super Bowl rings. He was (is?) also a sports commentator. Sometimes I like him, sometimes he irritates. Like just about anyone, I suppose.
Eva Save-a-Lot… I’m drawing a blank. Rings a bell, but what is the commercial exactly?
Exa Savealot(for one of those dialaround numbers) is played by Alyssa Milano, of Who’s the boss and several movies where she appeared unhampered by textiles. Delightfully so.
One of the worst offenders is the Carls’ Jr. commercials with the dripping, and the eating and the sucking…
Maybe they should have Alyssa Milano do some dripping, eating and sucking instead of trying to act. THAT I’d watch.
Hell, I’d tape it.
“It’s Cal Worthington and his dog Spot!”
I recently visited LA and I can’t believe that they’re STILL using those lame ads. But I can survive Cal. I can’t deal with:
I could go on and on. But I’ve tried (mostly successfully) to push these offensive ads out of my mind.
FYI, the MUTE button is your best ally in defending yourself against ads. Subliminal advertising experts say that the bulk of the ad’s programming content is in the audio, if you hit MUTE then most of the ad’s power is lost.