BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?

Subject: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Pseudolus
Date: 08 May 01 - 09:42 AM

I almost posted this in another thread that had a side discussion about Brittney Spears in it but I decided this could be a fun thread so I'll roll it out there and see what happens. One of the funniest commercials out there (imho) is Brittney Spears' Pepsi commercial. The one where she is (surprise!) scantily clad and the last scene show Bob Dole watching the TV and telling his dog, "down Boy". I think it's so funny because of the OTHER Pepsi commercial where he talked about how his "little blue friend" had revitalized his life and that "little blue friend" turns out to be a Pepsi. Anyway, what are your favorites, commercials that REALLY made you laugh, or made you cry for whatever reason. AND what commercials did you hate? Maybe they offended, or maybe they were just so un-funny that they made you groan....whatever. Nominate away! I'll start.....I love the Southwest Airline commercials with the slogan "It must be Football Season". there's one where this guy bends over to pick something up that he dropped and the woman behind him throws down her purse, stands behind him with her hands under his butt and starts calling out signals.....pretty funny....

Let's nominate for these categories...If you have any other categories to add throw 'em out there....

Best Commercial

Worst Commercial

Best slogan

Worst slogan

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: MMario
Date: 08 May 01 - 09:44 AM

My favorite at the moment is the raccoons singing "All I want is a room somewhere" in the Lazyboy commercial.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Mooh
Date: 08 May 01 - 09:52 AM

I like the ones with Cujo (Curtis Joseph of the Toronto Maple Leafs) stopping the newspaper at his door, and waking up with the goalie net as a headboard. I can't tell you what they advertise though.

Go Leafs Go!

Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 May 01 - 10:25 AM

My fave advert on british TV at the mo is the Guiness ad. 'The dream club'. Realy bizzare. Crackes me up every time. There are a couple of folky ones that are up there. John West and Youngs I think.

Worst - Ronald McDonald singing about how much you should love your mum. Complete drivel.

Best slogan (made by me a certain canine member of this community a while ago). 'Holts's bitter gets you pissed' (UK meaning - not US) Dunno why the ad men never took it on???

Worst slogan. 1920's style advert I once saw. 'Eat more lard...' Yeauch!

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 08 May 01 - 10:37 AM

Most unfortunate slogan perhaps? Maybe anyone living in London about 15-16 years ago and travelling on the underground might remember it?

It was a recruitment poster for the London Metropolitan Police and there was a picture of a bobby (policeman) and policewoman standing next to one another, the policewoman naturally a little shorter than the bobby.

Then there was a question which asked:

"What's the main difference between a policeman and policewoman?"

The unfortunate answer supplied:

"Six inches"

mcmoo

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Lyndi-loo
Date: 08 May 01 - 10:41 AM

I love all the Tennents beer ones; brilliant. Most hated ones? -easy - ALL CAR ADS!!!! All totally meaningless and macho posturing (and those are just the ones aimed at the female market)

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 May 01 - 10:45 AM

I hate commercials so much...that I quit listening to commercial radio 30 years ago, and have never owned a TV, though I have gone through periods when I watched a certain amount of it at my parents' place or wherever. My last period of moderate TV watching was in the late 80's as I recall, and I now never watch it at all.

There were so many commercials I detested that I wouldn't know where to begin...

There were a few I kind of liked, but I'd have a hard time remembering them at this point.

I dream of a society that is utterly commercial free, at least in the auditory sense. Commercials in print I don't mind so much, because they do not steal very much of my time and they don't force me to wait until they're over to experience what I'm actually THERE FOR...which is not the stinking commercials!

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: GUEST,Karen
Date: 08 May 01 - 10:47 AM

There's a Target TV commercial I always liked. The father is literally dancing in the aisles with his shopping cart while his two teenage children trudge morosely behind him. It's the "Back to School Sale" at Target and the background music playing is "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Matt_R
Date: 08 May 01 - 10:51 AM

Actually, it's for Staples!!

I love the milk commercials! You know "I'll be around when you guys are, you know, denying your beverage problems" and "What goes with pie! Milk! Milk! What goes with beans?". Those are hilarious!

And I miss the sock puppet dog from the pets.com commercial, before they went under. "Hey hey Fido, you trying to give me a concussion? HAHAHA!"

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: radriano
Date: 08 May 01 - 11:07 AM

You people are watching way too much television.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Jeep man
Date: 08 May 01 - 11:17 AM

Current Favorites---THE BLUE MAN GROUP

Most disliked--MOST OF THE REST

Jeep

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Pseudolus
Date: 08 May 01 - 11:46 AM

Hey Matt,
How about the one where the guy (in the milk carton suit) is on the treadmill asking, "Ok, so how do you get off of this thing do you just stop walking.....OWW!!! Very funny.....

I also remember hating teh Budweiser frogs so much that when the anti-frogs, the lizards, came on the scene, I LOVED them.....one of them was named Frank but that's beside the point!!

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Matt_R
Date: 08 May 01 - 12:07 PM

Yep, Frank...that's the milk guy all right! "Hey, I think I found a quarter..."

Of course there's the one with Sally Jessy Raphael, Wink Martindale, Pat Morita and Little Richard. "There! I helped!" And the second one with Mr.T, George Hamilton, and Mary Lou Retton. Those crack me up!

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Justa Picker
Date: 08 May 01 - 12:58 PM

One of my all time favorite commericals would have to be the "Snicker's" commercials, where a hoard of elephants invade a newstand and make off with a trove of Snickers bars, and one vendor says to the other "He didn't pay" and the dead pan response from the other vendor "They never do."

As for the one I really hate, the one with the geek in the glasses and funny suit (can't remember his name) trying to sell you a book with info on where to get all sorts of government grants and free funding for projects, etc. Someone should open a trap door beneath him 1/3 of the way into the commercial.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 08 May 01 - 01:06 PM

Two guys standing under a tree, throwing things to knock something that's obviously gotten stuck in the branches just out of our sight. After a couple of tries, they shake it loose and a VW Golf GTi falls out. As they get back in, one says (very quiet & offhand), "Maybe a little easier on the clutch this time." "Okay", is the quiet reply. Laughed myself silly over that one, I did.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: DancingMom
Date: 08 May 01 - 01:17 PM

Hey, Pseudolus, speakin' of the little blue friend, I always thought that Viagra commercial set to Muddy Waters' song "I'm Ready" was kind of a cool thing (I'm all for being proactive). Well, we were traveling this weekend and I had Muddy Waters in the tape player, and that song came on. As usual my mind was elsewhere, until my 17-year-old daughter said, "oh, Jeez, it's the Viagra song!" SHE'S the one watching too much television.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: DancingMom
Date: 08 May 01 - 01:22 PM

I guess I shouldn't complain, huh? Least I know where she is.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 08 May 01 - 01:25 PM

I dislike every home products commercial which treats men like home-bound idiots. For example, the typical line goes:

Male: "Honey, I can't (find, wash, do, taste... - any action verb) the (soap, dog food, laxitive... - any household product)."

Female: "Why (Silly, Stupid, Dork... - any male bashing derogation) it's now (in the closet, in your underwear, New Blue... - any New! household product). Here, let me show you how to use (soap, dog food, underwear... - any product an Asian rock could figure out how to use)."

If ad agencies treated women like they do men, the boycotts would never end. Suppose they started a beer commercial like:

"Women anthropologists have claimed that cave men were "stupid and crude" for dragging their women around by the hair...

We at Blats Beer think that this may have been the first sign of innate male intelligence, as we have found through extensive testing, that if you drag a women around by her feet, she quickly fills up with sand, and is no damn good for anything.

Thank you, and enjoy your beer!"

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: IceWolf
Date: 08 May 01 - 01:26 PM

Most unfortunate product name: Windows Compact Edition - aka WinCE
I do wonder how that one got by Microsoft's Marketing team.

I rarely watch television any more, so I don't know what current commercials are like. I suspect they have reached new levels of absurdity. Time to go rent "Crazy People" again to restore my perspective.

IceWolf

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 08 May 01 - 02:13 PM

BEST-- Didn't anyone else see the 7 Up taste test commercial last night?????

Also, the Animal Planet promos!

And the one with the undertaker and the smiling dead guy. (Hardi watching it is even more best.)

WORST-- The NY lottery series featuring that annoying little man and his bullhorn or loudspeaker, running every five minutes.

And Sela Ward, who I HAD liked as an actress until she started those really stupid long-distance phone service commercials.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: SINSULL
Date: 08 May 01 - 02:38 PM

Sawne last night - a graveside service complete with weeping relatives. In the sky, a remote control plane which crashes directly into the grave. Have no idea what it was for but it has given me an additional request for my funeral. My plane will plow through a thousand black balloons.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: SINSULL
Date: 08 May 01 - 02:41 PM

Most hated - those moronic Jacoby and Meyers ads. Right - every major company immediately settles out of court whenever a franchise law firm represents a client. SIGH!

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Jeep man
Date: 08 May 01 - 02:45 PM

Another dislike: Eva Savalot.Such a waste of a pretty girl.

Another like: Terry Bradshaw doing cheap long distance commercials. Just Terry not the service. Jeep

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Bert
Date: 08 May 01 - 03:03 PM

Most hated: The fourth one. I can accept that we need commercials to pay for the programming and don't mind putting up with two or three during a break, after all we gotta pee sometime. But four is way too many. I suggest that everyone boycot the fourth product - whatever it is, then maybe we'll have a reasonable number of commercials during a break.

BTW, have you noticed the Commercial Doppler Effect? - as you get closer to the end of the movie the commercial breaks get more frequent and get longer.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Matt_R
Date: 08 May 01 - 03:53 PM

Terry Bradshaw is sooooooo annoying! I love the one where Mike Piazza smashes his windshield. Serves him right! Go Mikey!

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: sophocleese
Date: 08 May 01 - 04:06 PM

An interesting thing, bert, is that many ad agencies don't like the fourth commercial either. TV stations are trying to get permission to extend commercial time per hour but ad agencies are disagreeing as they say that it overloads the viewer and the ads become less effective. The commercial doppler effect exists as it means that people have lots of time at the beginning of the show to become comfortable and get interested in the program. Then when they are securely hooked they load in more ads. I don't watch television anymore I just rent videos.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: kendall
Date: 08 May 01 - 04:07 PM

I dont watch commercials as a rule, but, I used to get a kick out of the guy in the diner who tells the waitress,"I didn't want mayo." She takes the top slice off his sandwich and scrapes the mayo off on the edge of the table. I hate all car commercials. Mostly because they are so loud. They use the most awful rock music. Come to think of it, that's redundant.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Jingle
Date: 08 May 01 - 04:33 PM

The one I really hate is that woman with the flared nostrils who says "I know it's only a magazine but it's so real" - pathetic or what?

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: harpmolly
Date: 08 May 01 - 04:56 PM

sophocleese, I'm with you. :) But the idiot box has sucked me in! Heeeelp!

I bought a TV/VCR combo this winter because I owned a few videos, and it seemed silly not to be able to watch them. Then I thought, "Well, I should just buy a cheap antenna, so I can tape the few shows I do watch--X-Files, etc.". Yeah, right. Before I knew it, I was lying there at four in the morning watching Jerry Springer because there was absolutely nothing else on and my finger refused to obey me when I commanded it to press the little red power button.

It's a government conspiracy, I tell ya! Call the Lone Gunmen!

(arrrgh...yet another excruciating tv show...)

M

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: sophocleese
Date: 08 May 01 - 05:30 PM

Mollificent, I must confess to spending several hours watching really bad science fiction programs a couple of weeks ago. I was sick and needed to spend time with my parent's cats. Sitting down in front of their TV without kids but with two cats on my lap was very healing.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Nemesis
Date: 08 May 01 - 07:18 PM

I actually watch very little tele (yes honestly!) but I saw the most fabulous advertisement that I actually tried to watch more to see it!

No idea what it was about:

Fashion show/models/cat walk/one model dressed in the most compelling bird of paradise skimpy outfit and animal marking face paint - cut to cheetahs in African savannah - cut back to model at end of catwalk - cut to cheetah starting to run in slow motion - cut to model starting to sprint down this catwalk - then you realise SHE HAS NO LEGS!! Instead she is using state-of-the-art running prostetics - just curved bits of metal - and as she's running (on these incredibly fragile bits of metal, up the catwalk echoed by the running cheetah, the entire audience is erupting into a applause and giving her a standing ovation!

Don't what it was about - don't know if anyone was trying to sell anything, but it was one of the most compelling and moving things I ever saw. And I only saw it once - and nobody else saw it!

Tell me if you know anything about this!

Cheers, Hille

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 08 May 01 - 07:40 PM

I know the advert you mean Challis and I think it was for freeserve internet.

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Peg
Date: 08 May 01 - 07:51 PM

I mostly hate car commercials too but Volkswagen has made some real good ones in recent years.

I love the new one with the guy driving madly to get somewhere, cut with scenes of a church where a wedding is about to take place. You think he might be the groom, but he arrives and he enters just as the words "speak now etc." are spoken. The groom sees him, looks at the bride, who turns to look at the guest; who opens his mouth, unable to speak...

the music playing helps a lot...

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Nancy King
Date: 09 May 01 - 12:58 AM

Every once in a while, when the lotto jackpot gets really high, the Virginia Lottery runs a series of ads featuring Lady Luck as a blowsy, frizzy blonde. Hilarious!

Cheers, Nancy

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: ddw
Date: 09 May 01 - 01:21 AM

My nominations for the best commercial are (I can't decide which really best, so I'll fudge it):

One a few years ago in which a kid was sucking on a straw so hard he was sucked into the bottle — I think it was for Pepsi, but it might have been 7-Up

and

The car commercial which shows a guy driving (Lexus?) a winding road through sunlit trees, then pulling into the driveway of a tony house. He gets out, pulls his tie loose, tossles his hair, takes a lipstick out of his pocket and smears some on. Cut too sunlit breakfast nook where his gorgeous wife is waiting as he sneaks into the house (obviously shortly after dawn). she looks at disgustedly and says: "Nice try. You've been driving again, haven't you?"

Worst commercial is also a tie between the current, super-irritating repetative-scream "Who let the dogs out?" and one 30 years ago that made me vow NEVER to spend a dime in a McDonald's. It showed an obviously Downs syndrome young man trying to throw a ball and then being elated over it travelling about 10 feet. The voice-over was something to the effect of "Buy a McDonald's hamburger and help sent (the thrower) to the Special Olympics." I thought using people like that to sell those damned chemical burgers was about as low as any human could stoop.

Course that's just my opinion.....

david

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: hesperis
Date: 09 May 01 - 04:13 PM

I hate all comercials, especially the ones for pizza. Especially all the $%#&%$ pizza fliers that I get delivered to my door, when I CAN"T EAT PIZZA WITHOUT BEING ILL FOR WEEKS! grrrrrrrrrrr.

I love pizza. *sigh*

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 May 01 - 04:58 PM

Don't feel so bad, Hesperis. Pizza isn't actually food at all...it's entertainment. Matter of fact, if they advertise anything to eat or drink on TV, you can be pretty sure of ONE THING...it's NOT real food, and you'd be way better off without it. Real food doesn't need advertising. Real life doesn't either.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Banjer
Date: 09 May 01 - 06:01 PM

My all time favorite has to be the Wendy's commercial where the fashion show is being held in the (then) USSR. The overweigth model comes out on the runway wearing a dress, carrying a flashlight and the Comerade Announcer says, "Is evening wear". Same model, same dress, carrying a beach ball, announced as "Swim wear". The point being that at Wendy's you have a choice. My other favorite recent commercial is the one for the super soft toilet paper that gets stacked all over the kitchen and acts as the bumpers for the puppy which is then called in to eat. My wife likes, and I must admit they are pretty funny, but don't ever tell her I said so, the Eveready Battery Bunny..with teh fake commercials and he comes out just about the time they have you believing that this must be a real commercial.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Chip2447
Date: 10 May 01 - 01:03 AM

I think the candy bar (PayDay) ad showing the police chasing the candy truck in which slides to a stop and the elephant takes it on the lam is funny.

Most of the rest are just lame-o....

Chip2447

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: LR Mole
Date: 10 May 01 - 08:57 AM

That law-firm ad is apparently rented to whatever local gang wants to pay for it, according to location (What? They've retained Press, Down and Turn? {CLANK} We're settling this one!!") The only constant seems to be Robert Vaughan. ("Show them YOU MEAN BUSINESS") Oh, Napoleon...

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Pseudolus
Date: 10 May 01 - 09:41 AM

I hate the mentos commercials.....all of 'em and they keep makin 'em!!!!

I also have to admit that until it was overdone, I LOVED the "Where's the Beef?" commercials.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 May 01 - 10:07 AM

"I've fallen, and I can't get up"...the only good thing about THAT piece of garbage was the wonderful parodies it spawned.

...and you haven't lived until you've lived in the US farm belt and heard singing commercials for fence posts and pig feed! "Pig Momma" and "Duerkes Fence Posts"...honest...(I kinda miss 'em)

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 10 May 01 - 12:44 PM

Now if you're old enough to remember cinema adverts in the UK from Pearl and Dean (I know it sounds like a surf-sound duo, but it was an advertising firm), then you'll know crap at its crapiest.

They had a lot of stock footage with voice over like 'after the show, why not enjoy a lovely meal at' then in an entirely different voice someone told you the name of restaurent in your home town, and mispronounced the name of the street it was on! Laugh, I thought my trousers would never dry.

Les

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 May 01 - 11:42 AM

Kudos to VW for turning a lot of people on to Nick Drake who otherwise wouldn't have heard of him...and to Aiwa for running that "poolside" commercial with the Mylinda Farmer music in the background.

...seems like car commercials have the best rock music (excluding Chevy's "Like A Rock") - non-U.S. cars especially, like Honda and Nissan.

Target was mentioned..they ran a commercial a few years back featuring the dance troupe from "Stomp" which featured a really nice routine with a "school janitor" theme for one of their Back-To-School blitzkriegs. Very nice choreography.

A company knows they've really incorporated themselves into the collective consumer psyche when they don't have to feature their product in the ads, and the ad doesn't even have to have anything to do with what they're selling. At the end all they have to do is feature their logo (Nike).

Worst commercials: the ones for perfume, especially Calvin Klein, featuring anorexic Kate Moss. (You've got to wonder about an industry that touts heroin as a cosmetic boon because it relaxes the muscles which cause wrinkles).

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: GUEST,Caitrin
Date: 11 May 01 - 12:57 PM

I hate that singing, flying biscuit in the Hardee's commercial. That thing is seriously disturbing, in fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Jande
Date: 11 May 01 - 06:54 PM

I hate 'em all!

(I'm a TV-phobe)

~ Jande

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 11 May 01 - 07:15 PM

American TV has so many really funny commercials, compared to British TV. I don't watch TV nuch here but sometimes I am ROTFL.

However, artistically, the best ever commercial was the British advert for Tennant's Lager, which featured the late great Frankie Miller singing Dougie McLean's anthem "Caledonia". This was how "Caledonia" SHOULD be sung.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: harpmolly
Date: 11 May 01 - 07:44 PM

Ouch. I adore "Caledonia." I'm not sure whether I should wish I'd seen this commercial or not ;)

M

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 12 May 01 - 10:33 PM

You would have loved it, M. Without the exposure this commercial gave to the song, it would never have attained the worldwide popularity it enjoys today. And Frankie Miller had just about the best voice ever to come out of Scotland.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite or Most Hated Commercials?
From: Dorrie
Date: 13 May 01 - 01:12 PM

i HATE northen upholtstery/dfs etc adverts cos they r soooooooooooo naff and annoying dorrie xxx

i loved j.r.hartley 1s