I saw a commercial yesterday for Ford pick-ups. It had an ice breaker smashing through the Arctic Ocean while the narrator talked about how powerful the ship was. But then it gets stuck in the ice. So they lower a Ford truck over the side, hitch a cable to it, and the truck pulls the ship forward.
Now while this is going on, there is a fine print caption telling us this is a “Dramatization”. Well, thanks for explaining that! I’ve got a Ford pick-up myself and if I hadn’t been warned, I’d have embarassed myself by trying to start an ice breaker towing service with it.
So is this an example of ad agency irony or excessive legal butt coverage? I’d like to think irony, but I’m guessing some lawyer was worried about the potential customer who’d sue Ford motors after finding out his new truck was defective because it couldn’t tow an ship “just like the one I saw on TV”.
My favorite disclaimer is in the Uncle Al commercial, Dear Uncle Al has passed on, and been cremated. He wishes his ashes to be spread over some cliff, so his nephews drive their SUV up the mountain, spilling Uncle Al in the backseat. Beneath them driving is the disclaimer “Don’t drive like this or you will end up like Uncle Al”
No no no. The best one ever was for an allergy medicine commercial, which placed a “Dramatization” disclaimer over the simplistic animation of how their drug blocked histamines. Without that, I might have been misled into thinking my immune system was made up of two big blue circles, and that my allergies were caused by little red circles bouncing off of them.
There was that one of the car “crowd surfing”. There was some sort of amusing disclaimer on that one.
I take these to be intended humorously, as any reasonable person can realize that they are severe exaggerations. Of course the vast numbers of unreasonable people in the world complicates the issue a great deal. Witness the case of the guy who tried to get the fighter jet from a Pepsi promotion/contest “because it was in the commercial”, in spite of the fact it was obviously a joke.
There was a neat little commercial featuring six compacts zooming across a large parking lot and then fishtailing into six parking spaces.
The disclaimer was: “Professional drivers on closed course. Don’t even think about trying this yourself.”
Also amusing was that as the six drivers got out, presumably to start the workday, two of them said:
“Good morning, Sam.”
“Good morning, Ralph.”
The Smirnoff commercials on the other hand, are rather annoying with their tiny little [sub]please drink responsibly[/sub] tags while all the actors are partying and eventually, we assume, getting laid.
The disclaimer on the Tracker commercial Chevy was airing a few months ago was also amusing.
The commerical featured a Tracker (!) towing a semi that was broken down on the side of the highway. The driver of the Tracker even reminds the truck driver to disengage his parking brake. The fine-print disclaimer read something along the lines of “Can a Tracker really tow a semi? Of course not. See your owner’s manual for details.”
That commercial and its disclaimer would have been funny no matter what vehicle they used. The fact that it was a Tracker (a glorified Metro, in my not so humble opinion) made it even funnier.
There was a commercial for some SUV that showed two vehicles racing for the presumably sole parking space in the lot. The woman driving the SUV got there first by driving over median strips, up unpaved slopes, etc. There was a disclaimer at the end, “No parking space is worth driving like this.”
My alltime classic disclaimer story is from a 70s (?) TV show called “That’s Incredible”. They once ran a segment about some guy who had a collection of tanks, which ended with him supposedly attempting to jump a tank over a line of parked cars. As the tank lurched over the top of the ramp and began crushing the cars the following appeared at the bottom of the screen:
This all reminds me of David Letterman’s stunt, years ago, in which he put on a suit made of Alka-Seltzer, and had himself lowered into a huge tank of water.
Right before the crane lifted him up, he announced, “I’ve been told by our legal staff, we HAVE to say this: folks, do NOT do this at home. Oh sure- I KNOW you have a 20,000 gallon tank of water. I KNOW you have a crane. I KNOW you have a suit made of Alka-Seltzer. And yet, I must implore you, don’t try this at home.”
Well, I think that would have just confused people…“Ha! Ha! He’s about to get into a giant bowl of milk wearing a Rice Krispies suit! Huh? What’s he talking about Alka-Seltzer for?”
IIRC, another staff member had tried out the Alka-Seltzer suit before David Letterman did it on air, and nearly passed out from the gas released from the tablets.
Well, there’s always the one where a bunch of guys arrive at their campsite, only to find a group of very large bears rummaging through their food. The men shout, “Come on, let’s get 'em, guys!” and rush in and ATTACK the bears head on. (One of them says later, “You don’t mess with a man’s salad!”) Underneath is the caption, “Do Not Attempt.” YA THINK???
But my favorite has to be one of those “What Would You Do For A Klondike Bar?” commercials, where they ask Bill Elliott (an old fogey NASCAR driver) to ride around the track on a Big Wheel or some other kid’s toy. The next scene shows him, decked out in full racing gear, riding this tiny plastic tricycle around the race track, as regular race cars zoom by at speed. And, underneath is the caption, “Professional Driver on Closed Course.”
Saw another one the other day, this one for some brand of garbage bags (Glad, I think). It featured a parachute jumper who’s parachute fails to open. He pulls a garbage bag out of his pocket, holds it over his head and floats gently to the ground.
At the bottom? Disclaimer: Garbage Bag will not function as a parachute.
