Has anyone seen those commercials for “EX” Beer? When I saw the first one I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Then I looked at the clock…after 9pm…that’s how they get away with it…
My favorite commercials are those cheesy ones advertising general household cleaners…don’t ask me why…
My two year old daughters is the swiffer commercial…like mother like daughter…
I like the one where the researchers are on the roof of a building and they’re dropping cat food to watch it crumble, but when they drop the good stuff, the cat keeps grabbing it. It’s stupid, but for some reason it makes me giggle.
My fave is a local one for a hot-dog place called Sam’s Corner.
It opens with three boys, about 7-10 years old, sitting on a railing outside the restaurant, looking bored. Pan over to the door, where three girls, the same age, walk out, holding weiners. One of them looks at the boy in the forefront, takes a biiig bite out of her hot dog, and winks.
Boy gets up, walks over, walks past her.
She says, “Where you goin’?”
He says (pointing at the hot dog) “To git me one of those!”
She looks at the camera, and makes a confused and/or disgusted expression.
Ahh, if only Freud could’ve seen it…
Damn, beat me to it! Anyway, I love this commerical too. Whenever it comes on, if there are people in the room with me, and they’re talking or being noisy or whatever, I’ll rudely tell them to shut up. The old guy sliding over the hood of the car… priceless!
My current favourites are both Clarica commercials.
In one, there’s this woman standing at a bus stop. This guy in the bus stop across the street looks up, then he starts yelling and screaming inaudibly, gesturing inarticulately. She has no idea what he’s talking about, until another woman at the bus stop opposite grabs a sheet of cardboard and draws a big UP arrow. The first woman looks up, and then dashes out of the way just in time as a piano comes crashing down.
In the other, a guy in a trendy restaurant goes downstairs to the washroom, but both of the doors are marked with incomprehensible Picasso paintings. He can’t figure out which bathroom is which. This isn’t helped when a completely androgynous person walks out of the bathroom, looks at him like he’s an idiot, and walks away.
The slogan for both is, “There’s a lot to be said for clarity.”
Of course, the alltime champion has to be the IBM commercial with the Czech nuns. (“Whoops… my beeper.”)
<duck>
AFLAC!
</duck>
Last night during the World Series, I saw a commercial that cracked me up like no other.
In the end, it was for E*Trade, but it started out as a “fake” commercial for allergy medicine. It was pretty subtle, but they started listing off the side effects as “itchy rash, full body hair loss, buldging eyeball, hot dog fingers, pregnancy resulting in the birth of a baby with a Golden Retrievers’ head…”. Then they showed a woman hopping around a meadow in a flowery dress and the words “women should not use” at the bottom of the screen.
Hilarious!
ARGH, SaxFace! I read the whole thread thinking great, nobody mentioned my favorite yet-- and then you went and ruined my day 
Seriously, I love that one-- if you listen close when they pull back and show the guy watching the commercial, the fake voice-over keeps going. Stuff like “may cause possession by the Prince of Darkness.” I think “giant head syndrome” is mentioned to.
I also get a kick out of the Snickers spot in the voting booth-- “Kiss me! I’m on TV!”
I love the ESPN commercials with the Knowledge. My best friend and I refer to them all the time when we start chattering about obscure racing factoids. (“My Knowledge is bigger than your Knowledge!”)
Also, the Snickers political commercial cracks me up.
A lot of the commercials they play during NASCAR races are amusing. My favorite racing commercial, though, is for the CART Target racing team, from when Brazilian Juan Montoya was a rookie.
[in the garage]
Crew member: Has anybody seen Juan?
Jimmy Vasser, Juan’s teammate: I think he’s outside.
[cut to outside]
Juan: Here, snipe snipe snipe… Heeeere, a-snipe a-snipe a-snipe…
I just thought it was funny. You probably have to be me and be there.
It may be just a regional commercial, but the Smart Beep commercial is the funniest thing I ever saw.
A guy picks a girl up for their first date. He opens the car door and she gets in. After he closes the door and starts walking to his side, she lifts a cheek and lets one fly. He gets in and says, “So, have you guys met?”, and there is another couple in the back seat! The girl in back, with an evil grin, says (cheerily), “We sure have!” The announcer says, “That was stupid. This is smart…”, and goes into the ad for beepers. Then the guy in front says, “There’s real chemistry here. Can you feel it?” The girl in back pipes up, “I felt it.”
I like Sela Ward in the Sprint commercials.
I like the FedEx one with the Crocodile Hunter guy. He gets bitten by a deadly poisonous snake and then dies because they didn’t send the antivenom via FedEx, thus it didn’t arrive on time for the show. I know a lot of people really want this to happen too…
IKEA -
Man: “(Insert woman’s name here), I feel so comfortable with you . . .”
Woman: smile
man moves on seat of leather chair, makes fart noise
woman’s smile fades
Voice over: “Wooden chairs, now at IKEA.”
Also the other one, where the Mom’s giving the kid an amateur haircut: “Need a bowl?” Their radio commercials are a hoot, too.
Snickers -
The Snickers donkey and elephant commercial cracks me up every time. The “Great Googly-moogly” and “I’m Batman!” ones are also classic.
FedEx -
I also like the FedEx ad with Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter. He has such a good sense of humor about himself.
Jack in the Box -
My favorite one that currently runs is the one where it ends with “I learned when you go to an Italian soccer game, you’d better root for Italy.” and it shows him running from a huge crowd wearing a giant foam finger that says “USA” on it. I think the ones where they show a change in his facial expressions are always my favorites. In my opinion, Jack in the Box has had the best run of ads ever. Even though their latest ones haven’t been as funny as some of their earlier ones, I think they have the most hits and the fewest misses overall.
Milk -
I like the one where the jerk-dancing kid pours the milk into the box of Cocoa Puffs, shakes it up, then pours the milk into a glass and puts the cereal back in the cupboard.
I would kill a kid that did that, but it is funny.
I liked the old football Snickers better. The one where the QB gets his bell rung, and they ask him questions: Where are you? (gives city) Who am I? (The Coach) Who are you? (I’m Batman!) Ok…Not going anywhere for a while…
There’s a Coca-Cola commercial running now, cracks me up every time. It’s the one where there are a group of teenagers/young adults dancing out in the woods in the dark. The part that cracks me up is the somewhat pudgy guy who is standing up by himself dancing. Typical “white man’s disease” type moves. That’s how I’d dance if I were in the commercial. I don’t think the commercial is intended to be funny, but it gets me laughing.
I third, or possibly fourth, the Snickers[sup]TM[/sup] political ad.
My absolute favorite is for Rice Krispies Treats[sup]TM[/sup], and I only saw it twice after 11pm.
An old guy is in the subway, standing and strap-hanging. The train jerks to a sudden stop. The guy loses his grip and tumbles to the floor, knocking into people along the way.
Same scene, but now the guy unwraps a Rice Krispies Treat[sup]TM[/sup]. He proceeds to put it, unwrapped, in his hand, which he then wraps, Treat[sup]TM[/sup] and all, around the same strap.
Train jerks to a stop. Old guy falls back in exactly the same manner, except this time his hand and the arm to which it is attached have detached at the shoulder and are hanging from the strap.
I was laughing for a good minute or two, once I picked my chin up off the floor.
It may or may not have been mentioned elsewhere, but http://www.adcritic.com has some of the best commercials (both real & parody), available in Quicktime for download.
The Snickers one is on the top 10 list right now, but the funniest I’ve seen is one I’ll likely only see there (it’s for the Oregon State Lottery):
Shot of a trailer rocking back and forth. Cut to inside, somewhat scared faces on several occupants, then we see the cause of the commotion : Mr. T jumping up and down! “Announcing a new game show : ‘Who can spend 30 days in a Trailer with Mr. T?’” Scenes of Mr. T wrestling with the inhabitants, shaving of heads, etc.
Tagline : “There’s a better way to win a million dollars.”
Ohh got milk, gotta love it.
I like the Bad Andy ones- its a cult thing for me.
Pets.com is cute.
There’s one freaky ass one with this guy wearing a lobster suit and trying to pick up these tiny dunkin donuts, its kind of creepy though.
Oh! And the one with the girl and her family in the kitchen. And the family’s being really sort of stiff towards her, and she’s like “I said I was sorry! I’ll pay for it out of my own allowance, okay?” And then we pull back to see the family car smashed into the living room. Good one.
For those of you who have any interest, this is the Volkswagen Pink Moon ad. If you’ve got patience or a lot of bandwidth to play with, check it out.
The ones that make me smile lately are the ones for Southwest Airlines talking about football season. There’s is a whole series of them and they are really short, so they usually show 2 or 3 at a time. Some samples:
People in line for at a movie theater ticket booth. !st guy in line drops his change and bends to pick it up. Woman in line behind him gets behind him like a quaterback and a center and yells “hut one! hut two!”
Inside a shoe store, shoe salesman is kneeling in front of a customer, sets shoe on ground but the shoe is standing up. Other customer comes up and kicks it like a field goal. Off camera you hear a low “ow!”
2 women walking down a hall in an office building discussing their pending business meeting. When they get to the door of the conference room one says “let’s land this account” then they head butt each other.