I recently saw a new commercial that featured everyday baseball players singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” in several languages. Each one was singing his native language. The last singer was Mark McGuire.
Then the Nike logo showed. It was great. I actually want to see it again.
I have up until now despised Nike commercials, but I LOVE that one. It’s humorous and gives me a warm fuzzy everytime. It will probably go into temporary retirement now, I hope they bring it back. FWIW, they are all Major Leaguers, but it really doesn’t matter (hope that doesn’t make you think less of it, AnnieXmas).
Besides, it’s time to sing “Take Me Out . . .” again, gollydarnit. I used it as an opportunity to sing it all during the World Series, even in Espanol.
By “everyday,” I meant not-professional-singers. I knew they were professional ball players. Some of whom can’t even really sing. That makes it better.
Being a fan of musical theatre, and collecting showtunes in different languages, this commercial packs a double whammy for me.
My apologies, Annie. No bad feelings, I hope?
The “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” one is terrific. My son totally digs it. I liked the dribbling-rhythm ones, too, with the pro basketball players.
The Alice Cooper one eyewearlimementioned is hilarious. I think a different commercial featuring Alice Cooper has him skipping rope with a couple of little girls - sublime.
I have to go along with the AFLAC duck. Man I love that duck. But I also love the Coca-Cola Polar Bear commercials they do around Christmas.
I don’t know what this ad is for, but I don’t think it has anything to do with clothing.
Two men stand in the middle of an arid wasteland, their only clothing being a large, thorny, tumbleweed-like bush wrapped around their waists. A third guy walks up wearing very crude, but serviceable, pants.
Bush Guy #1 says, “Oy, mate! Ye’ve got goat skin growin’ on yer legs!” (Yes they speak in bad Australian accents.)
Pants Guy says, “Nay, these are a new invention of mine, I call them ‘pants’. No more thorny bushes!”
Bush Guy #1 says, “I’m tired of bushes, I would like to wear pants.”
Bush Guy #2, a skiddish fellow, cowers and says, “I fear change, and I shall keep my bushes.” And he runs away.
Cut to the ad guy, who says, “We’re like the first guy who wore pants instead of bushes!” Not that I remember exactly what product or business he was referring to.
But that “I fear change” line kills me. In fact, I think I’ll add it to my sig.
JET
The “I fear change, and I shall keep my bushes” ad is for Quizno’s. They also have a guy who invents a fork and is made the chief, a guy who comes up with a pointy stick instead of a rock, and the guy who thought of running. I just love that they have British accents. Reminds me of Monty Python.
I’ve only seen this ad once, but I thought it was really cool. It’s just a shot of the UT Tower with clouds moving past it fast. An announcer says something along the lines of “We haven’t ended war. We haven’t ended world hunger. We haven’t saved the environment. We haven’t ended poverty. Yet.”
For some reason, I also like the Coke commercial, where a woman has been watching her neighbor across the street in the shower, cooking dinner and playing his guitar, singing “I Want You to Want Me.” It’s cute, though I realize it would be creepy if the roles were reversed and it was a man obsessively watching a female neighbor.
Boxcar, I love that one, too! Although, my ultra-favorite Dale Jarrett/UPS commercial is when he’s eating some (presumably) McDonald’s with his dad. His dad says he wouldn’t mind of Dale raced the big brown truck, Dale says he’s not going to do it. His dad pauses with a little smile on his face, and then says, “How 'bout some pie?” Cracks me up every time.
Another one I like is for (I think) Dayquil. Guy with a bad cold at work, clearly too under the weather to function. My favorite scene is of him slowly pushing himself along in his chair to the restroom, especially the shot where all you can see is his head, tilted all the way back, asn he scoots past a desk.
Someone mentioned them earlier and provided links, so everyone go see the Outpost.com commercials, especially the tatoo one.
Thermasilk comercials are some of my favorites that run today, especially “The Dance” where Medusa and some guy on fire are dancing the tango at a big ball full of all these Greek mythological creatures. The commercials all just look incredibly well done. The one with the Daggers is probably my favorite.
Geiko does good stuff, but I hate the Gecko ones.
My favorite is a German commercial, which you can find on the internet if you look, but I just got it from friends. It starts off with a shot through the windshield of a car, and you watch a family consisting of a mother, father, and two young girls get into the car. They’re all quiet, put on their seat belts, settle in, and then the dad turns on the car, which starts up the radio. The only spoken words in the commercial are from the song that comes on, the Out There Brothers’ classic, “I Wanna Fuck You in the Ass.”. The father looks at the mother, the mother looks at the father, the kids look at each other, and then they all start dancing. As the car pulls away, the words “English Liren” appear on the screen, which are misspelled I’m sure, but translate to “Want to learn English?” It’s an ad for a school that teaches foriegn languages. Ahhhh, those wacky Germans.
I like the Visa (check card?) commercial where the Steelers stadium guy can’t buy “Who Let the Dogs Out?” because the music store clerk won’t let him write a check, so they end up playing “Loving You” instead. “Cat Herders” is a favourite also, though I don’t really care for their running of the squirrels spot. Also I like the Poweraide commercial with the surfer riding a huge wave in a storm.
I remember one for an online investment company (I don’t remember which one now) that started out as an ad for a new drug. It started listing all these horrid side effects (“a condition known as ‘hot dog fingers,’ children born with the heads of golden retrievers,” and so on). It started out fairly normally until it got to those bizzare side effects and then started in on the investment company promotion. I laughed till I hurt!
Yes! I love this one too. I’m tempted to start taping the US news channels I get, in order to get this one on tape.
Some other favorites:
The Sapporo Ichiban noodles commercial imported from Asia where a girl cries out “Sapporo Ichiban” causing the fat farmer guy to fall off the fence. They then start singing the Sapporo Ichiban song while making noodles, IIRC. (Sapporo, Sapporo, Sapporo Ichiban, Sapporo…Sapporrrrooo Ichiiiiban!)
The Simpsons cartoon commercials. Particularly the one where they put the Pentium chip in Homer’s brain.
These were Canadian Wildlife Service public service fillers, but I loved Hinterland Who’s Who. I still remember the “do-doo-do-do-de–doo, doo dee doo doo dooo” flute theme. They’d be silent footage of an animal doing its thing in the woods with nature sounds dubbed in, and an announcer with the most monotoney voice in the world saying things like “The mountain woodchuck builds dams on the lake and feeds its young by…” as you’d see the mountain woodchuck gathering leaves, etc. Very cool. If any Dopers work for the service, tell them to put out a video of all the Hinterland Who’s Who commercials! I’d buy it!
I liked the old Kraft commercials describing cool recipes you could make with Kraft stiff as you saw two disembodied hands making the recipe by stirring the Velveeta, etc. SCTV did a funny parody of these once.
A local radio station has a funny TV ad. They took an old scratchy Hong Kong Kung Fu movie, and dubbed in dialogue talking about they cool music they played, etc. Funny.
Here’s a link so you can see Hinterland Who’s Who for yourselves, off the CWS website:
I loved the Snickers election ad from last year where they had “Gore” saying he invented pants. Cracks me up every time!
I love the one with the lady learning sign language as well.
One of my all time favorites is the CarFax add where you think the farmer is talking to his wife driving the car, but instead you find out it’s his dog driving. “No ducks! Bad dog! Bad dog!!” Too funny!! 
I also get a kick out of the one for some credit card where where’s this guy getting a tattoo of his girlfriend’s name on his arm. About halfway through he realizes he doesn’t have enough money to pay for it so the tattoo guy stops the tattoo where it was. The tattoo ends up being “I Love Don” and his girlfriend runs away crying. They had been playing the song “Oh Donna” in the background, but changes to “Oh Don” as the guy runs out the door after his girlfriend saying “I’ll get it fixed Donna!” Then the character hears the song and turns to the camera and says “Very funny”.
I even managed to get them on tape and created electronic files so I can watch them whenever I want!
It isn’t out yet, but was covered as a news story yesterday. You have a bunch of famous people reaching their “New York dream.” Barbara Walters is auditioning for 42nd Street (she can’t sing very well), Woody Allen as a master iceskater at Rockefeller Center, two guys in the Macy’s Day Parade (I think one was Billy Crystal), and Henry Kissenger playing major league baseball all by himself, sliding into home.
Then Rudy comes on with “Come to New York and your New York Dream may come true.” Or something like that.
Very cool; very effective. It’s being shown for the first time during the Macy’s Day Parade.
Far and away, the best commercials were ones that DHL had out in the mid-90s or so. The basic point of their commericials was that while other package carriers use local delivery methods for European deliveries, DHL used their own carriers.
One of the commercials was a French guy, who instead of delievering packages was sitting in a cafe sipping coffee and musing “I am bored today” to himself. The BEST one though showed a Russian delievery company named “Sputink Delivery” where the driver yells at this friend in the back of the van, “Hey Yuri, don’t smoosh package! What, are you kidding me??” That one always cracked me up.
I forget what car was being sold, but I used to love the one where the guy woke up in the middle of the night and took his dog for a drive. Only the guy was hypnotized or something and the dog was driving, picking up all his doggie friends. They booted the human out to make room for one last dog. War’s “Low Rider” was playing in the background.
There’s one playing now for some stain-resistant carpet where a dog, cat and mouse rearrange the furniture and wait for the human to trip over the hassock and spill his lunch.
Nyquil cough medicine has a cute one where a woman wakes up with a loud harsh cough, scaring her sleeping cat into jumping straight in the air.
It’s not shown anymore, but the Spring commercial where the guy is speaking nonsense (“Scooter my daisyhead”) had me laughing out loud all the time. Wish they still showed that one.
I enjoy a lot of commercials. I’m even one of those geeks who watches commercial compilationg shows. Um, anyone else?
Sheri
Compilation, dammit.
Sheri
To first add some Me Too’s
The Nike “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” ad is FANTASTIC. One of the best commercials I’ve seen in a long time. I love the Quizno’s ads. “We’re like that guy who used a fork for the first time…” The Visa commercial with the Steelers… great.
To add a few–
I know these are local, and it’s a shame but for those of you in the Seattle area. The Seattle Seahawks had these awesome ads with Eugene Levy as the devil. Oh my GOD they were funny… they might be on adcritic. I’m at work, so I can’t look right now.
OK… dammit… I knew this would happen. I had one or two in mind and now that I’m responding nothing… good god. Can I please get a new brain please. <grumbling> gonna have to write this stuff down