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There are a lot of really bad commercials out right now, and in the last few years as well. I'm not sure why, but it seems like commercials lost the funny. What happened to all the funny commercials?
Best Commercials I've seen recently:
The Volvo commercials where the car gets smashed out of nowhere. The first time I saw one of these, it scared the **** out of me.
Miller Lite - the Man Laws. Speaking as the target demo, I love these.
Citibank identity theft commercials. I don't like all of them, and admittedly the premise is a little played at this point, but the most recent one featuring a middle-aged black man talking about headshots and singing Toni Braxton made me laugh out loud.
Fed-Ex/Kinkos. The office setting where each employee lists their responsibilities. Holy crap, that's funny.
Sportscenter commercial with the Crocodile Hunter. And the Florida Gator mascot.
Worst Commercials I've seen recently:
Any Fanta commercial. Hands down. Those commercials are so annoying that I've decided I'll never again knowingly ingest a Fanta.
McDonalds' entire "I'm lovin it" campaign, especially the latest installments featuring young black men and hip-hop lingo (neither of which, I should mention, I have a problem with in any other context). "Yo, Mickey's D's is hip, yo! Hip-hop is mainstream, yo, and our huge corporation (run by rich white guys who couldn't distinguish Big Pun from Big Bird) can't wait to get in on that action. Word." Bah-da-ba-ba-bah, I'm lovin it! It's insulting, and really freaking annoying.
Most of the feminine product commercials. They just make me uncomfortable, which is no surprise.
Pepsi commercial with Mariah Carey. Please, someone tell Mariah that she's middle aged, and she should stop dressing like a 15 year old.
I know there are a ton more, but just to start it off I thought I'd give a few.
What are the best and worst you've seen?
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Please, someone tell Mariah that she's middle aged, and she should stop dressing like a 15 year old.
Someone please tell fifteen year-olds that Mariah is middle aged, and they should stop dressing like her...
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If she dressed her age, she'd be a great one to imitate. As it is, I think she needs a busful of therapists.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Right now, I'm really hating the Omen trailer. I'm really glad that they seem to have edited it to eliminate some of the parts that disturb me the most, but I still have to do stuff when it comes on.
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I'm currently annoyed with the Nissan "What if we took a trip and only made left turns?" commercials. Yeah, what if you did that? What the heck does that have to do with the car they're selling? It's trying to sound deep, but it's just stupid and meaningless.
The people in them are annoying, too. "All of these cars are facing left!" "Think they can smell the licorice?" Yeah, 'cause everyone knows that buffalo will stampede if they smell licorice.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I hate that one, too. Never mind the fact that a trip like that is totally idiotic, there's also the fact that 3 left turns == a right turn, so you don't actually limit yourself that much with such a trip. It's just a massive inconvenience.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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El JT: Oh I abhor the man laws! Females drink Miller Lite too. It's a cool concept but should be 'Beer laws'. But it's not nearly as bad as the Burger King man burger one. A bunch of men marching with cheerleaders and girls in bikinis in the background? I cringe every time.
I think the unintentionally funniest commercials are the ones from Olive Garden: "We have exotic sauces like alfredo and marinara!" ; or, the ones from Applebee "Coach can you help me put this up?", but then again, I'm really cynical like that.
Oh! I love the Mac vs. PC commercals. Of course, I am a Mac user Posts: 484 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: I'm currently annoyed with the Nissan "What if we took a trip and only made left turns?" commercials. Yeah, what if you did that? What the heck does that have to do with the car they're selling? It's trying to sound deep, but it's just stupid and meaningless.
The people in them are annoying, too. "All of these cars are facing left!" "Think they can smell the licorice?" Yeah, 'cause everyone knows that buffalo will stampede if they smell licorice.
I dunno if you drove forward for a good amount of time after every left turn and varried the left turns by a few hours, I think you could still go on an interesting trip.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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But you could also go on an interesting trip turning randomly. Or flipping a coin at each intersection. Or throwing a dart at a map and driving there.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Oh how I miss foreign commercials. Apparently the need to make sense and/or be funny isn't as important, so, of course, they are absolutely hilarious.
I still remember seeing one in Italy which involved a man running, stealing a tomato, running again for like 2 minutes and then, with no explanation, a beer logo appeared. It was awesome.
Posts: 484 | Registered: Feb 2006
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You know, I don't think that I've felt uncomfortable watching a commercial as an adult. Bored? Yes. Amused? Sure. Incredulous? Occasionally. Angry? Once in a while. Uncomfortable? No.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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The greatest commercials in recent memory are the ones for Geico, of course. Especially the parodies of soap operas and Gap ads:
"Besides, I've got great news." "You're leaving Jessica?" "No. I just saved a load of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico. I saved. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
AND
"New clothes are fun!" "But they won't save you money on your car insurance!"
I also like some of the AFLAC commercials, particularly the one featuring Yogi Berra:
"If you get hurt and miss work, it won't hurt to miss work, and they pay you in cash, which is just as good as money."
But it's a sad world in which insurance companies are the first things that come to mind when talking about good commercials. Many companies, especially those trying to aim at a yonger male demographic, apparently take the tack that being annoying is a great way to sell a product, and therefore I nominate the following as the worst commercials of the past year:
--Skechers. Yeah, I suppose that doing a parody of "The Real World" could be funny, but listening to a bunch of people screech "Who trashed my Skechers?" in high-pitched voices doesn't make me want to run to the shoe store.
--Subway. Particularly the "Subway Dinner Theater" ads with Jon Lovitz. Why would he agree to play an annoying, loud-mouthed character like that, and who thinks that "Three new taste creations from that country that looks like a boot" is an effective slogan?
--White Castle. I know that their selling point has always been that they're quirky, because let's face it--the food there is wretched. Still, the "True Stories" campaign makes no sense and tries to make use of truly pathetic characters to sell their cases of grease. I don't know which commercial is worse--the one in which some pathetic loser got "kissed on the lips" by "four girls" because he brought a "Crave Case" to the New Year's party and how he keeps his music collection ("I tape them off the radio"), light bulbs, and firewood in empty White Castle boxes, or the one in which someone playing an oversexed sixty-something good time girl tells us how she likes to make "Slider casserole" for the "hot boys at the firehouse," and then in her best come-hither impression says, "Slider casserole. Come and get it, boys." Ugh. The whole "What You Crave" nonsense has been going on long enough, but with this, it's reached its absolute nadir.
--McDonald's. I think this campaign airs only in the Chicago area, but the "McWakeupCall" ads, in which fans of Chicago baseball teams get their favorite players to come and wake up their roommates with a "hot and tasty McGriddle" make no sense and are annoying as all hell. If you're trying to torment your roommate by waking him at some ungodly hour, why would you go out and buy him breakfast first? And why would having White Sox closer Bobby Jenks throw laundry at someone while you scream "Cock-a-doodle-doo! It's your McWakeupCall!" be the preferred method? The only redeeming aspect of these commercials is the hilarious disclaimer: "Delivery service not available."
Posts: 10 | Registered: Feb 2006
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The erectile disfunction drug commercials bother me about as much as all drug company commericals do. But I'm sure we've bashed that Valtrex one enough too.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Maybe that should be the next version of 'Big Brother'.
edit: Living in a Tiny House like that would be a nightmare for me, right up there with working in an office... ( to those who get the reference).
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Slate runs a regular column called Ad Report Card. Here's an archive of past reviews.
My favorite installment is this one for a NYC local Gap ad. *Note; I can't get the movie to play and don't know if it's because the link is defunct (it is several months old) or because my work firewall is causing problems.
<edit>Here's a link to a currently working link for the movie.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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If I can specifically target the fairy in that 'silly little fairy' commercial, I'm totally not outdoor bathtub-sitting.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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The worst commercials are the most recent set for Kraft Easy Mac. They're aimed at the college set, so they show up on The Daily Show etc.
They feature several situations with roommates, and they're so disgusting:
One has a disgusting guy in a recliner with a microphone to his belly blaring out his gurgles and growls, apparently demanding that his roommates cook him a bowl of mac.
Another features a guy eating cottage cheese from a milk jug. His roommate informs him that it's really just old curdled and solidified milk, but he shrugs and continues eating.
Never have these commercials made me move a hair closer to wanting to satisfy my cravings with a steaming bowl of rubbery noodles. Usually everybody in the room with me groans and somebody goes for the mute button. Which is too bad, because then we miss out on some of the cool commercials people mentioned in this thread.
quote:The erectile disfunction drug commercials bother me about as much as all drug company commericals do.
The commercial with Dr. Drew Pinsky where he says that the number of men with ED in the US could fill this gigantic stadium suggests an interesting image. That's a sad stadium to be in.
I also hate commercials for fast food that suggest that people should eat there because they're too stupid to make their own food. I think Carls Jr. features several guys peering into refridgerators as if they're scared.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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quote:I also hate commercials for fast food that suggest that people should eat there because they're too stupid to make their own food. I think Carls Jr. features several guys peering into refridgerators as if they're scared.
I like those commercials. They make me laugh. "Without us, some guys would starve."
quote:The worst commercials are the most recent set for Kraft Easy Mac.
I like these as well. It's macaroni and cheese that I hate.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I couldn't figure out what the Easy Mac commercials were saying at first. I thought "Mic some Mac" was "Make some Mac" with an Australian accent, and I was trying to figure out why they had an Australian announcer.
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What is that one with the people dancing on top of a roof?
OLD NAVY NATURALS...or something.
It reminded me of a professor who once said that when he ran a label, if he ever got a picture of a band on a roof, it automatically went in the trash.
quote:Originally posted by pH: I hate that Burger King commercial!
Oh, how I hate it. "I admit that I've been fed chick food"...WTF?!
-pH
ARG! I despise that ad! I want to STRANGLE the people responsible for that stupid commercial or at least cover them in honey and leave them with bees. I saw some comercial the other day that had me cracking up, and I can't remember what it was... It was so darn funny. That German unpimp my car ad makes me laugh. Just thought of the ad, it's some cell phone ad with all these creepy looking kids going, "We want a cell phone." That commercial is so funny! I hate McDonald's ads and truck ads with lunky annoying men
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Yet again, I don't think that you're part of the target audience of the "I am man" commercials, Syn.
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