Sprint's latest commercial for its cell-phone business is a bit tacky, to say the least. A woman is gleefully (and I do mean gleefully) using all possible avenues (like e-mail and text) to break up with her boyfriend. While she's having lunch with him. That demonstrates a complete lack of tact on her part. Breaking up with a "Post-It" note shows more class than the woman in the ad does.

I really don't like the new 7-Up ad where David Spade stops being a total jackass only because he drinks 7-Up. I suspect that because he started out as a comedian and then became a third-rate actor and a complete sellout by hawking products, this was appropriate for him to do.

Hey, remember back when Farley and Sandler left SNL and Spade stayed, and guest host Jennifer Aniston pointed this out? I thought that was funny. Also, guest host Teri Hatcher impersonated Spade in one bit, while he impersonated her. She said that she was going to "sell out and do more phone comemrcials", and he said that he was going to "put more naked pics on the internet". I thought that was funny too!

I hated Spade on "8 Simple Rules", he was OK on "Just Shoot Me", and now he does "Rules Of Engagement". Plus, he sells out and hawks products. Plus, like I said before, he wouldn't get any movie roles if it wasn't for Sandler, and that's really too bad!

The Progressive Insurance commercials have reached a new height (or low) in inanity. In a recent one, after Stephanie Courtney's Flo shows a couple a rate comparison, a guy wearing a dollar sign costume dances out. "Flo" tells him that it's his break time; I think we need a break from Flo.

In the new "Hamburger Helper" commercials, you can see the arm of the person operating the "Hamberburger Helper" character.

Wasn't the whole point of the commercial to NOT see the arm...that the character moves around by itself?

I mean...it used to be anyway.

the radio conmmercial,drive me mad- the Giants are ready for a
winning season....(hello, arnt they 1 game from
winning the world series????)
------------------------------------
(JUst kidding, relax ScottN, this is like in 2002, 1 game to win , the Angels and Bengi didnt do
anything great this time)

Wrong board, "Fan".

amr, I bet you are the one cutting me off
my Facebook on the Giants.

its still commercials?

sorry Amr, i found out who was the one
deleting my baseball stuff on fb,
and he/she reposted my things on my
account.

I h ope your ok with me. and Rodney and Scottn,btw, I am desabled
from my braintumor days and I got stopped
by a nurse who was going to threaten me with
with a 911 call -I had to show her my braintumor
hole...(I had the disable handicap plaque and she
didnt believ it was mine either)

, she said OH you had a brain absses ------ word there)

sorry for the lower casings.
--------------------------------------

.
mod,
keep this until Amr reads it .

And the day after Halloween it starts.

Hey, advertisers!!! Have some decency and wait until *AFTER THANKSGIVING* to start your Christmas ads!

Toyota has a new commercial for its 2011 Highlander SUV that drive me nuts. A Highlander pulls up at a light next to a red Ford Taurus. A boy of about ten in the Taurus looks to a boy in the Highlander for help, as the parents of the kid in the Taurus are singing "Angel of the Morning." (According to that kid, they've been singing the same song for three hours. Pure torture. ) The Highlander pulls off, as the Taurus stays put, with the parents still singing. By the way, there's a big nit at the end of the ad. The Highlander goes straight ahead in a left-turn only lane. That's ticket bait, my friends.

I hate the new Allstate commercials with that guy as "Mayhem". They need to go back to just having Dennis Haysbert, instead of having him as a voice over a the end of these new ones.

And the new eSurance commercials stink, too.

---

quote:

I hate the new Allstate commercials with that guy as "Mayhem"...

---

The Volvo commercial with the women who swap clothes while their BF's are getting coffee.

Are we really to believe that

• "Mr. Suit" wouldn't realize that his girlfriend suddenly became a brunette, when "Mr. Slacker" noticed that the blonde wasn't his GF immediately?
• "Mr. Suit" could start "Mr. Slacker"'s car?

J. K. Simmons appears as an "instructor" in several commercials for Farmers' Insurance Group. In one ad that's a bit inane, photos of some sales agents pop up. They're followed by photo of a dish of meat loaf, and then by a picture of Meat Loaf as he appeared in his Bat Out Of Hell days 34 years ago.
Does Simmons need to do the ads? He has a pretty good acting resume. He co-starred in Oz for several years, played Skoda in Law & Order for three episodes during its final year (and numerous other times in the series' 20-year run), played Juno's dad, played J. Jonah Jameson in three Spiderman movies, and he's currently Chief Will Pope on The Closer. Maybe since The Closer is heading into its final season, Simmons is afraid he won't get any more work, and is doing the ads for the quick bucks...

Megan Mulally dancing about "nutrition" in an ad for "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter"? WHY?!

I ask this, once again: does she really need the money that badly?

She must be pretty much set, based on the huge success of "Will & Grace", and they were even talking about doing a "Jack & Karen" spinoff at one time!

But I'm glad they didn't!

Adam, I just saw the meatloaf Farmer's ad, and I had to admit, it's pretty funny.

"That's meatloaf."
"OK" changes slide
"That's still Meat Loaf"

Adrian Brody doing a beer commercial? WHY?

Because of that huge schnozz of his, I'd recognize him anywhere (and I just saw him in "Splice" to boot) and that was definetly him, crooning to women in a bar about his favorite imported brand of beer, I forget which one.

But I have to ask: does he really need the money? He won an Academy Award, for crying out loud! He also gave a very passionate smooch to Halle Berry in the process! I don't think this guy wants for very much, if you know what I'm saying!

The new series of Snickers candy bar ads have been quite annoying, I think.

First there was the one with Betty White and Abe Vigoda. Nyyeeaah, maybe that one wasn't too bad.

Now, I have just seen the new one with Richard Lewis and Roseanne as would-be lumberjacks. Now, he *definetly* needs the money at this point in his virtually dead career, but SHE most certainly does not!

So why did she do this commercial?

I swear, celebrities selling out and hawking products really gets on my nerves, at least most of the time. I mean, if it's someone just starting out in the business and hasn't already done a bunch of TV shows and movies and doesn't have several million dollars to their name, well, in that case, I would look the other way when they do a commercial.

But when it comes to someone like Roseanne, who was already a multi-millionaire in the early 90s, for her to do something like this, it just isn't neccessary!

I am reminded of the dialogue in an episode of "The Critic", an extremely funny and tragically short-lived cartoon series from the 90s. It starred Jon Lovitz as film critic Jay Sherman, and he was interviewing the accomplished British thespian Sir Roger Twice-Nightly, the star of the new film "Howard Stern's End":

JAY: Sir Roger, WHY on Earth did you do this movie?

SIR ROGER: Because I needed the money. I have three mistresses of various ages and genders back in London.

There you have it, folks. ONE explanation why a big star sells out and does a stupid movie or TV show, or hawks soda, chips, or long-distance phone calling plans. The latter has been done by ALL the major comedians - Rock, Spade, Carlin, Miller, for starters. And those are just the ones I've seen and know about! Name a celebrity at random, and chances are they've sold out at some point in their career!

It's a shame, isn't it?

---

quote:

Name a celebrity at random, and chances are they've sold out at some point in their career!

---

Guys, seriously. You can be a movie actor, used to working 16-hour days for four months, and then someone calls up when you're between productions and offers you a million for a week's work, just because you're famous. This is selling out?

Selling out or not, I'd take the cool million in a New York minute.
There's a weird commercial for Traveler's Insurance. What looks like life-sized Playmobil figures are thrashed about in a moving house, all to the theme of the old childrens' series Captain Kangaroo (which I found out is a stock music piece titled "Puffin' Billy.") Kind of reminds me of the twister scene in The Wizard of Oz.

Of course there are also the ads for Lean Cuisine that Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jane Lynch have done. And in one of them, Julia openly admits that she gets paid a boatload of money for doing them. How refreshingly honest. During Seinfeld's run, she did ads for Clairol Nice & Easy shampoo.

Meanwhile, Jason Alexander did a Micky D's ad in the mid-80s and then hawked Rold Gold pretzels at the time Seinfeld was on. Afterwards, he had two failed sitcoms and then became the temporary KFC spokes-guy. After that, they used a cartoon Colonel Sanders.

And Michael Richards did Pepsi ads, and of course Jerry himself did American Express commercials, my favorite one being the one with Superman (who has no pockets so he cant carry money!)

It seems superfluous to mention every single instance of a celebrity selling out, and I feel its only fair to mention the most recent ones on this board, not all the ones I saw growing up.

I find this kind of thing fascinating!

---

quote:

...My favorite one being the one with Superman (who has no pockets so he can't carry money!)

---

Hey, after weeks of Where the heck is my notebook, (hp),it finally came and they didnt fix
my dvd drive, which is why I bought the darn thing
to replace my old T----- computer with 5.4 inch
diskett,but they did renew my warrenty on the last day
I really feel like Laforge some days!


as I was watching my tv and noticed the Dodge Ram
Hit it guys got fired for singing just two words
! Somebody read the Nits on Nitcentral or
they woke up and said "2 words?"

Did *anyone* understand that jibberish?

Ah I see the world's most unluckiest man has returned with more tales of woe...

Geez, that's insulting Laforge.Can a mod delete
Laforge the Useless, Say what, and Rodney's response?

Don't post stuff if you're going to get uppity when people respond to it Sherman.

Asking mods to delete stuff like that tends to be ignored.

Flo is back in a new (and as inane as the rest) Progressive commercial. In it, she's using a very old Kodak Brownie camera to take pictures. To take the snapshots, Flo is holding the camera at eye level. Which is the wrong way to use that model of camera. My dad used a camera like that for years, and to take pictures, you hold the camera at waist level, and not eye level, as the viewfinder in on the camera's top.

Well, theres another new Snickers ad, and yes, its stupid!

Two guys are talking with two women at a party, and one of the guys becomes Joe Pesci, who, in typical short-tempered short person form, asks the girls if they think that theyre "too good" for him and his friend. The friend take him to the kitchen and gives him a Snickers, as apparently when we are hungry, we dont think straight and we become people we're not!

The guy goes back to normal, but one of the ladies becomes Don Rickles and calls the guys "losers", and her friend scolds her for being rude.

Yep, that's what its come to these days. Former A-listers who used to have regular work in gangster movies and former actually-entertaining-and-funny comedians who were past their prime thirty years ago are now subjected to hawking candy bars.

Isnt that just a little bit, you know, depressing?

BTW, I never got the appeal of Joe Pesci. I did like it when he and Deniro showed up on SNL to upstage Jim Bruer and Colin Quinn and call them out on their shitty impersonations, and then proceed to beat them up. I have to admit, that was funny.

But why is he doing a commercial? He won an Oscar, and in the process, gave the shortest and one of the best acceptance speeches on Academy Award history! It went: "It's my privledge. Thank you." And that was it! How come hes not getting any more movie roles?

As for Rickles, well, he's washed up and has been for a mighty long time. He should be glad that Pixar let him voice Mr. Potato Head in three of their films, how else could he stay afloat these days?

In short, I hate it when celebrities sell out and hawk products. And I always will!

Progressive commercials are getting even more annoying. In addition to Flo, the newer ads star a guy who reminds me of Jim Carrey with a goatee and a week's stubble. He's just as annoying as Flo, and he's always seen playing with a bobblehead of Flo on his car's dashboard at the end of the ads he's in.

In the latest Audi commercials, we see people getting out of their (moving) luxury cars such as BMWs, and climbing onto a (moving) car carrier to get into an Audi. I'm waiting for the day when real people start doing just that. The accidents caused by that behavior will be explained away by "It worked on the commercial." Even though the commercial has "Do Not Attempt" displayed at the bottom of the screen. Which should be highly legible with today's state-of-the-art HDTV sets. Or even on old SDTV sets.

Those dumb J.G. Wentworth ads with the singing Vikings. Monty Python already did that 40 years ago, get a clue already!

And now the "I Need Cash Now" song ads are branching out into regular people singing how they need cash. A whole busload of people are in an ad singing about it, and the one I saw today have people all over the place singing off-key about "the lump sum of cash they will pay to you". And I think they are pretty annoying!

BTW Adam, those new Progressive ads with "Mr. Mustache" are pretty lame, I have to agree with you on that. What, is he a porn film reject or something? He belongs back in the 70's, I think!

Actress turned professional pitchwoman Jennifer Lopez is seen in a commercial for the Fiat 500. She's driving the car back to the old neighborhood, while progressing her love for it. Unless she's had a transfusion of positive emotions since I saw her at the Enough premiere in 2002, I doubt she has any love for the old neighborhood at all. In fact, she probably treats the people there (if she really goes back at all) like she did her fans at the movie premiere - with complete contempt. Lopez is such a prima-donna, I have my doubts it's really her driving the Fiat. I'll bet that her face was CGI'ed over the real driver's.

And, somehow, I doubt that she drives a Fiat in real life, when she's not being paid to do so.

How much longer does Barnes & Noble have to exist? Not a whole lot longer if they continue to let Jane Lynch sing off-key in their new series of ads!

I mean, Brentano's bit the dust years ago, and recently Borders did the same. Face it, hardly anyone actually goes to bookstores anymore, it's all done online now. Hell, nobody even reads actually books anymore either, according to all these stupid Kindle-like products where you can downloads hundreds of books onto just one of those things. Call me old-fashioned, and this may show my age here, but I grew up with books, and I will still continue to buy and read books. While they still exist, that is, maybe in another 10 years or so there wont be any more print materials published whatsover. That day day will come, just wait, it'll happen!

And what is up with Jane Lynch, anyway. Where did she even come from? Glee comes along and becomes a huge hit, and she becomes a huge star! The ONLY other thing I've EVER seen her in is Two & 1/2 Men as Charlie's therapist, one of the VERY FEW women in his life that he never hit on. Well, besides Berta, but it's obvious why not her!

I find it annoying when people you've never heard of suddenly come completely out of nowhere and become incredibly rich and successful megastars. In either acting, singing, politics, or anything else you could think of. But I'm not saying that I envy those who have that happen to them. Quite the opposite, I value my privacy, and I'd rather be anonymous and live my own life without having either the paparazzi or crazy fans hounding me all the time.

Simply put, I am NOT "one of them", and I don't ever want to be. I'm happy with my current situation. That's pretty much all there is to it!

For some reason, I thought that B&N had bought out Brentano's. Go figure.

---

quote:

Actress turned professional pitchwoman Jennifer Lopez is seen in a commercial for the Fiat 500. She's driving the car back to the old neighborhood, while progressing her love for it.

---

Scott recently wrote:

---

quote:

For some reason, I thought that B&N had bought out Brentano's. Go figure.

---

I hate those "This is Bob." ads that Spike runs all the time. I just want to sock that grinning freak in the jaw and knock all his teeth out!

Aim lower if you really wanna hurt him.

I thought this Men's Wearhouse commercial had disappeared, but it's back. A bride is shown walking up the aisle in church, and MW CEO George Zimmer's voice-over comes up, saying "While everyone's looking at her, she'll be looking at you." The commercial then cuts to the groom, who has a really goofy grin on his face. My negative feelings about marriage, well documented elsewhere on this site, are probably what drives my contempt for the ad. Also, the frequency by which it airs drive me nuts; it aired twice within a 15-minute timespan earlier today. BTW, Men's Wearhouse is one of the pricier men's clothing stores. No way would I ever pay over $55 (or more) for a dress shirt.

The JCPenny "NOOOOOOOOOO!" commercial. Whenever the d**n thing comes on, I have to mute the TV.

I think that one's kinda funny.

Me, I couldn't stand that commercial they had on years ago for apples, which featured a gazillion different shots of different people LOUDLY biting into an apple. It was annoying as hell. I remember watching it with my father at one point, and I was pleased that he expressed the same irritation at it.

What's the point of that JCP commercial? Over the top opposite reactions to sales (since they're usually shown to be so positive)> I don't even get it.

JC Penney restructured and simplified their pricing this past February 1, cutting some prices by as much as 40%. The screaming people represent (I assume) those who missed out on the sales on the banners. (I liked the screaming string puppet.) Since Penney's restructured their pricing, I gather there will be less sales and Friday/Saturday "doorbusters." And maybe as a side benefit, they'll save a few trees by making their Sunday circulars smaller.

---

quote:

Those dumb J.G. Wentworth ads with the singing Vikings. Monty Python already did that 40 years ago, get a clue already!

---

Shatner is being dumped by Priceline????

AFAIK, Shatner is still under contract to Priceline. Whether they'll use him anymore, I don't know. (Maybe the "evil twin" from that Priceline ad will take over.) The Shat is busy enough these days, especially for a man who'll be 81 in a month.

---

quote:

Adrian Brody doing a beer commercial? WHY?

---

Yes, Adam, I have seen that Gillette commercial. Sellout celebrities (or as the late great Bill Hicks referred to them "demons set loose on the Earth to lower the standards) never cease to bewilder and disgust me.

On that note, Mr. T is doing ads for Old Navy. But in this case, I'm not surprised in the least. He obviously mismanaged his finances from his 70s and 80s heyday and now is forced to take any job he can get and hawk every lameass product under the sun just to pay the bills!

BTW, before his untimely passing, Rick James also did an Old Navy commercial. I never saw that one, though.

And as the "Saturday TV Funhouse" version of Mr T from SNL would say, "If you believe in yourself, don't do school, stay in drugs, and drink your veggies, you can get work!"

And that ain't no Jibba-Jabba!

Richard Simmons is in a new ad for Geico. That man will hawk ANYTHING. And has it been officially confirmed if he is a homosexual? Because I have never heard of him being in a relationship with anyone, male or female.

I loved it when Eddie Murphy did a combination parody of both Simmons and Little Richard on SNL. Even his "Lance Perkins" character from the first "Nutty Professor" film was pretty funny. And yes, I do actually like that movie and it's sequel. He made them after a string of flops in the 90's, but after both NP's came out, he started doing really bad flicks like "Pluto Nash", "Norbit", and "Meet Dave". Although I didn't think "The Haunted Mansion" was as bad as critics said, and I did also like "Tower Heist" as well. I haven't seen "Dreamgirls" yet, but he stormed out of the theatre when he didnt win the Oscar for his role in that. Who knows if he will be nominated ever again?

Anyway, Simmons seems to have no problem with still being in the public eye, and is just as flamboyant and hyperactive as ever. And he really has helped people to lose weight for quite some time. He's OK in my book!

And what difference, exactly, would Richard Simmons sexual preferences make?

Well, the man seems to be blatantly effeminate and showcases a lot of stereotypical homosexual mannerisms, that's all I'm saying. His preferences do NOT matter, you are correct.

But didnt you read the good things I said about him, or did you somehow miss all that? Just wondering.

No, I read the rest. I was just wonder what it mattered.

Progressive had a really dumb commercial on the air for a while, withdrew it, but now it's back. It shows a sleeping Flo spewing off complete nonsense while dreaming. ("Squirrel jail?" What the...?) Flo's musings are accompanied by animations that appear to have been done by the people who did the Ice Age movies.

Lowe's has a new commercial that drives me nuts. We see a lawn mower cutting grass. The smell of the cut grass wafts up into a man's bedroom. Immediately, he wakes up, starts floating in mid-air, lands in his front yard and begins trimming the foliage. My total hatred of yard work, including cutting grass, is doubtless what drives my dislike of the ad. Also, when the man in the ad starts floating he's wearing pajamas, but when he lands on the lawn, he has a shirt and blue jeans on.

Apparently Kirstie Alley didnt make enough from Fat Actress or her stint on Dancing With The Stars. She is now doing an ad for Poise panty liners. And she wears fake wings like some kind of "angel" who has come to "rescue" some woman from the embarrassment of incontinence.

That's all well and good, but really? Why did Alley feel the need to do another commercial? She already shilled for Pier 1 and Jenny Craig in the past, I didn't think she was this desperate!

Anyway, she is also a Scientologist, and I learned that was the reason she never guest starred on Frasier as Rebecca, because Fraiser was a psychiatrist and Scientologists don't believe in psychiatry. I mean, it's not like any of them actually need it or could possibly benefit from it! *cough* Tom Cruise *cough*

I miss the younger, thinner, actually sexy Kirstie myself. It's like she's become a caricature of herself, and maintaining her dignity isn't exactly her strong suit!

Two words: Steven Tyler.

Three more words: Burger King ad.

I have nothing to say about this, I shall merely let those words stand together on their own merits!

And now, Jerry Stiller is in an ad for air conditioners/electricity providers. And he is constantly asking himself if he is still funny!

Well, he is. But he really didn't NEED to do this. But after all, it was only due to Kevin James' insistence that he took the role of Arthur "You're Dead To Me, Boy" Spooner on "The King Of Queens" in the first place! And I read that he wanted to keep on working and was not merely content to sit on his laurels as Frank Constanza from "Seinfeld". On the one hand, that's admirable, but on the other, his portrayal of Arthur Spooner was one of the most annoying things about that show. (More about that on that show's board!)

So, yes, Jerry Stiller is still funny, but he really didnt NEED to do this one. That's pretty much all there is to this one!

And now for the WTF Moment Of The Week: Tracy Morgan is hawking Triscuit crackers! And he is in character as "himself" from "30 Rock" as he spouts idiotic non-sequiters! Which, as you may be aware if you've read other posts I've made on this site, I thoroughly loathe!

I already speculated that Morgan is somewhat mentally challenged because of the way he talks and how he presents himself. I still cant believe he's still gettting work after that homophobic "comedy routine" he performed last summer where he said he would "stab his son" if he said he was gay. I'll leave that one to stand on it's own utter stupidity!

But I will say that my favorite Tracy Morgan performance was the "Uncle Jemima's Pure Mash Liquor" commercial parody from SNL. It's on the DVD of the same name, and Tim Meadows is in it too! It's probably the funniest thing I've ever seen Morgan do, so I will give him credit for that one. He was more coherent than he usually is in that, so that's why I liked it. And the fact that only he could see the cartoon animals was pretty funny too. "Whatcho swattin' at?!" Ha Ha!

Well, that's it for this one. Make no mistake: Tracy Morgan DID NOT need to do this commercial. He DOES NOT need the money. This I am sure of!

Hershey's is really pushing their new "Air Delight" line of milk chocolate on assorted TV commercials. Me, I won't buy it, as to make the candy they (what else?) pump air into it. So, you're paying for a bar half full of air the same price you'd pay for a complete chocolate bar. I kind of resent paying for air. This writer from the Huffington Post feels the same way.

A brand new WTF Moment for y'all: Dire Straits, one of my favorite British hard rock groups, whose lead singer Mark Knopfler is a great solo performer in his own right, have sold one of their songs to a Burger King commercial!

The song is "Walk Of Life". Personally I prefer "Money For Nothing" and "Heavy Fuel", but why would they want to do this at this stage in their career? I just dont get it!

I remember when the Rolling Stones sold "Start Me Up" to the Windows 95 campaign, and Foreigner also had their song "Urgent" in a late 90s BK ad as well. Why are these things done, I wonder?

You know, there was a scene in the truly terrible Oliver Stone Doors movie where they show Jim Morrison going ballistic after he finds out that the other band members sold "Light My Fire" to a car commercial. They claimed it was because he was unavailable to make the decision. And the film clearly implied that it was something Jim did not approve of. Even though he was OK with drinking, drug taking (except heroin for some reason) and extreme womanizing. And according to Stone's script, Jim even tried to kill his common-law wife Pamela Courson by locking her in a closet and setting it on fire. But I digress, the point is that it was officially confirmed many years later by numerous sources: the Doors NEVER sold any of their songs for commercials. IT NEVER HAPPENED! Simple as that!

Oh well, I've gone on for long enough about this topic, I suppose. I still dont understand why rock groups do it. When they dont even need the money. ANd I never will!

The recent Taco Bell nacho burrito commercial is kind of odd. It's at a baseball game, someone hits a homer to the stands, they all stand up to catch the ball and the guy the ball is heading to is shown eating nachos. The commercial basically says that he's in an unfortunate situation because he's holding the nachos with two hands and therefor can't catch the ball. Their solution is to get their cheesy nacho burrito, giving the taste of nachos with the convenience of holding them with only one hand.

Here's the thing, though. Initially, he isn't actually holding the nachos with two hands. He has the nacho tray in one hand and a single chip in the other. The only thing he has to do to free up that hand is eat the chip or drop the chip. Heck, he might even be able to catch the ball with the little chip in there.

The burrito isn't bad, though.

This time, I'm not being all pissy about a celebrity doing a commercial. It's because Emmy Rossum, the celebrity in question, is young, inexperienced, and just starting out in the business, relatively speaking. I am fairly certain that she does not already have several tens of millions of dollars to her name, so I see her in an ad for Cotton, and I choose to look the other way.

And also, it's because she's just so goshdarn pretty! I mean, really, how can ya hate a girl with a cute little face like hers?

On the other hand, that mediocre country trio Lady Antebellum have just done a commercial for Lipton tea drinks. And they didnt need to. I'm pretty sure that they DIDNT need the money. They are, for reasons I cannot comprehend, very popular in this country right now and therefore, very wealthy. Already having a lot of money and then still hawking a product is a sure sign of the standards being lowered as a whole if you ask me!

Yeah, I know I am a real stickler for keeping track of those pesky sellout celebrities, cause I figure, hey, somebody has to be! Know what I mean!

---

quote:

Emmy Rossum, the celebrity in question, is young, inexperienced, and just starting out in the business...

---

Who was talking about Wood? I sure wasn't. Where did that come from, Adam? (I remember when she was 13 and on an episode of "Touched By An Angel." Whoah!)

As for Emmy, yes I am aware of her career up to this point, the first film I saw her in was "The Day After Tomorrow". And she was really cute, sweet and pretty in that role, and we all rooted for her to live and not succumb to the nasty infection she got from the metal digging in her leg. But the whole "go to the Russian ship to look for penicillin and avoid badly-done CGI wolves out for blood" part of the film just didnt do anything for me, know what I'm sayin'?

I was, indeed, being a tad bit sarcastic with my post. That's all, nothing more.

And lastly: nothing to say about Lady Antebellum, Adam? They were here in Bangor last year, and I think they're mediocre and highly overrated. Yep, that's pretty much it!

Gallagher. Is. In. A. New. Ad. For. Geico.

BUT HE *DOES* NEED THE MONEY!

So this time, I will look the other way.

In the early 90's, the late comedian Bill Hicks (whom nobody remembers as there's no cure for cancer) said to one audience "I see you all looking at me, and you're like 'Why doesn't he just hit fruit with a hammer? Why doesn't he give us something we understand?' Well, I dont work that way!" Or something to that effect. His point was that he couldnt believe that some hippie freak who smashes watermelons actually had a fanbase and could actually make a living with such banality and mediocrity.

And quite frankly, neither can I!

Jackie Chan has been doing a series of ads for the V8 fruit/vegetable drinks. He leaps, he flips, he climbs, he jumps, and he pours the drinks. But for some reason the ad dubs in wacky sound effects for all of his actions. And I wish they wouldn't.

That's all I got for this one. This time, the fact that Chan is hawking a product is not the problem. Even though he probably doesn't need the money!

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quote:

Gallagher. Is. In. A. New. Ad. For. Geico.
BUT HE *DOES* NEED THE MONEY!

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Julia Roberts is starting to do commercials. She appears on-screen in a Lancome ad, and does the voiceover (I'm 99 44/100% sure that's her) in a Nationwide insurance commercial. What, the $20 million plus you get per film isn't enough any more? (It never is, isn't it?) Or, is the film work starting to dry up? (At least her career is going better than brother Eric's. Who's main claim to fame in the past few years was a role in Sharktopus.)

In a new Capital One ad, Jimmy "I Can't Keep A Straight Face During A Sketch To Save My Life" Fallon portrays various questionable ethnic stereotypes, including TWO different Italians (mobster and pizzaria owner), a "Yee Hah" Texan cowboy, and Maine Lobster fisherman. Well, I'm OK with that one, but I may be a bit biased, heh heh.

So why is this on the air, and who at Capital One greenlighted it? I just thought I would ask. Nothing else more to say about this one, really.

You know, I remember back when David Spade did a bunch of these, and now not only has Fallon done several of them, so has Alec Baldwin. Personally, I prefer the ones with the time-displaced barbarians. They're actually funny, I think.

Spade, Fallon, and Baldwin must not be managing their finances very well. Why else would they have done these? Think about it, usually the reason for sellout celebrity product hawkers is that the IRS will have their legs broken if they dont pay their back taxes, which apparently some people feel is beneath them and that the rules we all have to follow somehow dont apply to them. Wesley Snipes, anyone?

Just some food for thought!

I think some of those Capital One ads are amusing. Even Baldwin's. As are Fallon's ads with the baby girl; she doesn't want extra cash, no matter what. I like the one in which the baby says "Yes" to a whole bunch of stuff, especially an Etch-A-Sketch. But, not only does she say "No" to any extra cash, she has "No" written on the Etch-A-Sketch.
And no, I have nothing to say about Lady Antebellum. I know only one song of theirs; it played frequently on Lite-FM here. A fellow I worked with played Lite-FM on his radio when he was working. He's now retired, so I don't hear the song any more.
An ad for Beta Prostate pills, with Joe Theisman, was just on. Theisman goes on about his need to frequently urinate, and how Beta Prostate helps to relieve his symptoms. Well, if his symptoms are as bad as he says, he probably needs more than Beta Prostate. He probably needs serious medicine like Flomax or Avodart. Maybe he even needs prostate reduction surgery, like I had back in 2009.

Jessica Simpson is shilling For Weight Watchers. Seeing how she gained 70 pounds while pregnant, maybe this is an example of a celebrity actually using and benefitting from a product endorsement. Well, good luck to her with that.

But I noticed that they only show her face and not the rest of her. It's like they went out of their way to zero in on that and were intentionally not showing anything else, not even her ample chest. Cuz that's what made her famous in the first place, right? Her Double D's? Hey, even her daddy said how great they were at one point. As for the script of the ad, I wonder how wrote those big words for her, as she is notoriously stupid. But then, maybe that's only an act! You never know...

As for the Capital One ads with the washed-up has beens, as opposed to the time-displaced barbarians? Well, Adam, you can like whichever ones you want, it's your right. I happen to prefer ads with unknown people who haven't already had careers in show business for twenty years and don't already have several million dollars to their name. That's just me, I guess!

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I happen to prefer ads with unknown people who haven't already had careers in show business for twenty years and don't already have several million dollars to their name. That's just me, I guess!

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Maybe he should start a laundromat. Think about it. Eddie Money Laundering. Wait a minute...

I REALLY hate the new Ragu ads. What makes them think people are now gonna start liking them better than Prego, which is clearly far superior? And that country-style singing certainly isnt helping the situation either!

That's all I got for this one!

There's a commercial for a mobile company that shows a lady on a bike riding through various American locations.

It starts off with 1...2...Kalamazoo and then says 3...4...Jersey Shore and goes to other locations.

Am I going too far finding it insensitive given current events?

It's the T-Mobile chick. And it was airing long before Sandy hit.

On that commercial, they change from even parity (1-2, 3-4, 5-6....) to odd parity (2008-2009).

I know, I've seen it on channel 47 for some time now. It just seems a bit insensitive at the moment. There have been other examples of (for example) games and TV episodes that had parts censored for similar reasons. I wonder why they're allowed to keep airing this one?

Did either of you read my post under Great New Commercials? I spoke of this ad campaign there. I like it. And I too wonder why they keep the Jersey Shore reference.

I still wonder why they chose to have her to do that, rather than just stand around, look pretty, and help people with their internet service. Just for a little variety, I guess!

I don't think I remember your post about it.

I wonder what other place rhymes with four that they could use.

I thought that T-Mobile ad was slightly insensitive, maybe even dumb. Especially since so many in my area lost power after Hurricane Sandy. Many, as I write this, still have no power.
After the World Trade Center was destroyed on 9/11, movies then in production (like MIB II) eliminated references to it. However, you can still see the late, great Trade Center in older shows and movies, such as Die Hard With A Vengeance and some episodes of Law & Order.

Macy's has a new Christmas commercial playing now, in which celebs such as Tommy Hilfiger, Donald Trump and Justin Bieber interact with (a non-colorized) Kris Kringle from the classic 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street. More on the ad here.
The footage of Edmund Gwenn as Kris is expertly "Gumped" into the ad. But, what is a no-talent like Justin Bieber even doing in show business? Edmund Gwenn had more talent in his beard (which he later shaved off; he's clean shaven in Them and The Trouble With Harry) than that singing Hobbit Bieber has in his entire body. In fact, calling Bieber a Hobbit is probably an insult to Peter Jackson, Martin Freeman, and the cast and crew of the three upcoming Hobbit movies. As well as an insult to Tolkein fans, here and elsewhere.

Personally, I really dont like it when modern-day commercials digitally insert "people from the past" into them so that they "interact" with today's celebrities. I remember when both Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke did that in the early 90s, and so did some sweeper broom thingie ad with Fred Astaire at some point. I find the whole thing highly unneccesary and totally pointless.

Let the past people remain in the past and let them rest in peace, please. At least that's how I feel, others may not be so bothered by it. I sure am, though!

(BTW Adam, I completely concur about the Beebster!)

I remember when both Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke did that in the early 90s, and so did some sweeper broom thingie ad with Fred Astaire at some point.

Well, you still remember the adds, and the products. So I would have to say mission accomplished.

Yeah, but that could be because I have an incredibly encyclopedia-like memory that can recall things said and done years and even decades before, thanks to the fact that I have Asperger's Syndrome.

As for the missions of the ads being accomplished, that's neither here nor there. The point is that I can still remember seeing them when they aired. That's pretty much it, nothing more!

Some of us have memories like that without Asperger's.

So? What's your point? Are you trying to get a rise out of me for some reason?

If so, sorry dude, It's not gonna work this time. I like it here, I enjoy posting nitpicks I have, and I'm not gonna leave just cuz some people here think that "I don't fit in" or for whatever reason they dislike me.

If you dont like me, just say so, or just ignore whatever I have to say. Cause Benn, Luigi, and John Lang do just that. They have their reasons, believe me.

Just sayin'. Now can we please get back to complaining about crappy commercials that are really stupid? Thanks!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Because of a really heated argument we had on FB about pro-lifery and religion in general, Andrew G. will probably never speak to me again either.

Oh well, his loss, I suppose. And I dont take back anything I said to him either. And I wish I could have printed out our conversation before it was deleted, I was rather proud of the things I said!

But that's neither here or there! Right?

Asperger's is no longer a legitimate diagnosis.

One thing that bugs me is how people assume that everyone with that (or without it?) are geniuses or get all of these mental advantages. It's like thinking all blind people have super hearing for example.

If anything, having it makes life a lot more difficult for a genius. There are also plenty with Asperger's that only get the negatives from it and none of the positives.

Believe me, I have both. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Not Luigi, not Andrew, no, not even Sherman! (He already has enough to deal with. As far as we know, anyway.)

But let's get back on topic. Are they any other dumbass ads that drive you nuts? Anyone? Cuz I've already pissed and moaned about the ones I can think of. At least for now!

Billboard for "Twilight Breaking Dawn Pt. 2"

"The epic that will live forever..."

Me: Or for two weeks, whichever comes first.

I hate the "5-Hour Energy" ads with the obnoxious douchebag stereotype walking around bragging about all the dumb things he did after drinking a shot. It's incredibly annoying and unneccesary.

Unless they were going for a comical parody satire. You know, like the product company was intentionally trolling it's audience or something. If that was the case, then maybe it wasn't too bad after all!

In any case, I never drink those things. They're full of sugar and caffiene and they can damage the heart. Or was that all those other drinks that exist that they market to stupid teenagers and college students that don't know any better? Some of them even have coffee *and* alcohol in them! Woweee! I'm REALLY buzzed now!!

I suppose I'm made my point. Until the next maddening commercial, I bid you auf weidersehen!

thanks, Amr, I wouldnt want Asperger or other some disease!

The Subaru commercial, with the two kids washing Dad's brand new Subaru sedan, shows the kids dumping water inside the car. Dad comes out to see what's happening, and tells the kids "You missed a spot". Dad should have been furious, because his brand new car is probably toast. Especially the electronics, which modern cars are very much dependent on, and (this goes without saying) can't withstand water.

Liberty Mutual has a series of ads which show drivers getting into dumb situations, like an air conditioner falling on a car roof, or an open car door being damaged by an oncomimg car. (The door speaker gets exposed in that one, and the speaker is of really poor quality). Human League's 80s tune "I'm Only Human" plays over the ad. Well, Liberty Mutual is my insurance company, and they're pretty inhuman. They just raised my annual car insurance premium by $260. With zero tickets or accidents.

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I REALLY hate the new Ragu ads. What makes them think people are now gonna start liking them better than Prego, which is clearly far superior?

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While it probably depends on the company, I've heard that the insurance rate has something to do with the number of accidents in your area in general. So, even though you have no tickets of collisions, I think if others in your area do then your rate can still go up.

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I've heard that the insurance rate has something to do with the number of accidents in your area in general.

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I *just* remembered another series of ads I really can't stand. I meant to put this here sooner, and now here it is.

I hate the ads for the Greek yogurt with John Stamos. Is he *really* that hunky and desireable that women would fantasize about being with him when they're eating that stuff, but they then would remember the kind of men that they're married to (fat balding obnoxious slobs) when they're brought back to reality? Or that one where the woman on the plane obviously doesnt want to sit next to the overweight loser but instead is able to get a seat right next to Stamos, and she then plants a big wet one on him and takes his yogurt, while she ignores the request from the other guy about how he wants yogurt too?

I mean, what exactly is so attractive and compelling about a man who hasn't had a regular acting job in at least a decade (his last sitcom "Jake In Progress" was watched by almost no one and was cancelled in it's second season) that he is able to convince sex-starved women who are clearly unhappy in their marraiges to average dudes who aren't all gorgeous and stud muffin-esque like he is, to eat this smooth greek-style yogurt? Did he have to do these ads? Could they have possibly been done by some homely dude instead?

And yes, apparently there are ads with hunks/studs/muscleheads that pander to women with low self-esteem as well as the ones who use hot thin and sexy babes to sell things to dumbass dudes. Madison Avenue clearly knows how to manipulate the emotions of both men and women, merely by catering to their unfulfilled fantasies. That's all, nothing more.

And if I ever saw John Stamos, I would have two things to say to him:

"Why did you divorce Rebecca Romaine, what could she possibly have done for you to end it with her? You remember what she looks like, right?"

And.....

"Have mercy, Uncle Jessie! HAVE MERCY!!!"

Ha ha hee hee ho ho!!!!

The new Velveeta Cheese & Pasta ads are pretty stupid, I think. Not only is that stuff totally gross and nearly unpalatable (unless you're REALLY hungry) they say that you should eat it because people that you would ordinarily make fun of (such as people with ham radios for instance) also eat the stuff!

What kind of sense does THAT make? Hardly any, if you ask me. These ads are as annoying as the recent Ragu spots where they sing a country tune and say that their pasta sauce is the best. Which is obviously wrong, because Prego is my favorite, followed by Emeril's and a few others.

Both ad campaigns fail. At least that's how I see it!

There is a new ad for Yoplait yogurt that am positive it is Lisa Kudrow doing the voice-over. The question is: why? Does she really need the money? So "The Comeback" was cancelled after only one season and she was in crappy movies like "Lucky Numbers", "P.S. I Love You", and "Kabluey" (an *extremely* boring indie film, dont even bother with that one), but why should she have to do commericals? She was making multi-millions from "Friends". So why this sort of thing now? I wonder!

I got two this time.

Robin Williams doing a Snickers ad. Well, the only explanation for this one has to be that his last six or so movies have bombed miserably, therefore he now feels the need to hawk a product to remain relevant. You know, like he wasn't already enough of a attention whore to begin with! I totally loved Jimmy Fallon's impersonation of him on SNL. ("For the love of God, shut your mouth!" LOL!)

And now Nicole Shirzinger has brought back those Herbal Essence shampoo ads where women are brought to orgasm by washing their hair. And Nicole has hers on an airplane in the toilet! Well, she was fired from the U.S. X Factor for being a really untalented and incompetant judge, so maybe this is her way of staying in the spotlight. I think her
famous-time was up a LOOONNGGG time ago, quite frankly!

That's it for now!

How did she even get a bottle of shampoo onto the plane?

Although if the video is on youtube, people probably would be more interested in complaining about the safety record of the type of plane then the shampoo ;).

Speaking of videos with planes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdpzjRqU814

It's fake but the ending is hilarious.

The new Progressive ad with longtime sports announcer Michael Buffer is pretty stupid, I think. I just flat dont like the guy, I never have, and it was even worse when long-since-collapsed WCW hired him to announce for Monday Nitro and their PPV's. This is what was said of him in the excellent book "The Death Of WCW" by R.D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez:

"In order to give their shows a big-time feel, WCW brought in Michael Buffer. He knew nothing of the product or the business, and would often get wrestlers' names wrong, including one infamous incident where Bret Hart somehow became 'Bret Clark'."

That's pretty much it for this one!

Stephen "Deacon Frost" Dorff is an a commercial for some new kind of high-tech smokeless cigarette. And in it, he says "We're all adults here, lets get real." Sure thing, Mr. Edgy Hollywood Bad Boy. He started out in the 80s horror film "The Gate", that was the first thing I ever say him in. And the only other thing I can think of that he did that ever meant anything was, of course, "Blade". Anyway, I remember reading about Dorff getting into an altercation of sorts with Jeremy Piven outside some L.A. club a few years back. Dorff tried to cut the line and Piven didnt take this too well. The dialogue was as follows:

Piven: What are you doing, man? You can't cut the line like that!
Dorff: I can do whatever I want!
Piven: You're a has-been!
Dorff: At least I'm a movie star, you can only get work on TV! Cable TV!

And then the story progressed to where both guys tried unsuccessfully to pick up women while using lines like "I'm famous, honey, you should want to be with me" and then one of them was kicked out soon afterward, I forget which one. I really doesn't matter, anyway!

In short, I have no interest in anything either man does or has ever done. At all. And there you have it!

PSY of "Gangnam Style" fame is now shilling for pistachio nuts. In fact, there have been quite a few celebrities "going nuts" for pistachios in that series of ads as of late. It kinda reminds me of an episode of "Fraiser" where he decides not to do an ad for a brand of mixed nuts, and the part goes to Dr. Joyce Brothers instead. Of course, she's also a real corporate shill in her own right.

Some people have wondered why PSY would need to do this commercial. Isn't he like, rolling in the dough at this point? That's what I thought.
In any case, I do like pistachios, but why do there need to be celebrities doing commercials for it? After all, there's a brand of paper towel that has the announcer specifically state that they dont need to use famous people to sell their product. That's pretty cool, I wish that other products would follow suit with that philosophy!

Here's one that really gets me mad. I'm amazed that a concept depicting such a dangerous, inconsiderate and moronic stunt made it past the execs at Firetone.

Some people have wondered why PSY would need to do this commercial. Isn't he like, rolling in the dough at this point? That's what I thought.

Capitalism doesn't work that way. There is no 'okay, that's enough' point. Ever see or read Treasure of the Sierra Madre?

Well, the lines "We dont need no badges! I dont got to show you any steeking badges!" are basically all I know about that classic Bogart film, to be honest.

Are you saying I should see it, though? Maybe I will at some point. In any case, I was only wondering why famous people who have *already* made a *whole lot* of money feel the need to do ads and hawk various products. Also, that complaint of mine is a recurring theme on this board. I started voicing my discontent with the situation back in 2009, as a matter of fact.

Others may feel differently about it, but that's my opinion on that matter. That's pretty much it!

Those Jimmy Fallon Capital One with the baby ads continue to grate. I can't imagine it's helped that company get many new customers.

And I tend to tune out anything with Flo at this point.

I don't care if some people around here hate it when I "moan and complain" about sellout celebrities hawking products when they DONT EVEN need the money. I'll still continue to do it, regardless if certain individuals dont like me doing that. I dont care what you think. You hear me? I just dont care.

And on that subject, Kaley "Penny The Dumb Slut From Big Bang Theory" Cuoco has been showing up in Ford commercials lately as the "Rev 4 Genie". Good lord, how incredibly idiotic and unnecessary is that? And she's also been playing the Priceline Guy's daughter in their ads as well.

I ask you, what is going on here? Why is this kind of thing happening? You dont think that she's already making a buttload of money as the Good Time That's Had By All on that loathsome contemptible CBS show that jumped the shark about three years ago and continues to perpetuate more stereotypes than I care to count? Cuz I think she's just fine with her current financial situation. Can you prove that she isn't? Well, can you?

That's what I thought. And yeah, I totally get that nobody agrees with everything everyone else says about anything. Case in point, people around here thinking I shouldn't say the things I do. Especially when it flies in the face of everything they happen to believe in.

But ya know what? I still don't care. And that's pretty much it about this for now.....

If you're going to ••••• and moan about something, get it right. Kaley Cuoco is the TOYOTA RAV 4 Genie.

Also, please see the Second Rule of Nitpicking here.

I'm wondering what Virgin Wireless was thinking when they started the whole "retrain your brain" campaign. (Sorry for the unintentional rhyme.) I think the request to retrain your brain would be more effective if it didn't come from someone who looks like he fried his own.

Also, if I ever go to Vegas, I don't think I'll be staying at the Cosmopolitan due to their "Just the right amount of wrong" commercials. I can't figure out what's so wrong about cute animals running around the hotel or reciting the lyrics to "Bohemian Rhapsody". In my mind, good commercials inform, not confuse.

And I know I'm a year late on this one, but I absolutely couldn't stand Target's "Color changes everything" commercials from last year. Let me just say that if you make Parkour look stupid, you've done something wrong.

Yeah, I don't quite get what the Cosmopolitan is aiming for with those ads.

Call me a sucker, but the "French Model Boyfriend... 'Bon Joor'" (misspelling deliberate) always makes me laugh. I have absolutely no idea why.

I already KNOW "the rules". I dont need you or anyone else around here to be patronizing and condescending in my direction. That kind of thing just doesn't do anything for me, if you know what I'm saying.

Oh well. In any case, I agree about the Virgin Wireless brain re-training thing. No woman in her right mind would ever believe that a homely goober doofus like the "French" guy in the ad is really who he says he is. In the real world, where I live, guys like him never even get the time of day from the vast majority of women. That's just how it is.

And what can one do about it? Nothing, that's what!

I'd just point out that this is PHIL'S SITE. He lets us play here, so long as we follow *HIS* rules...

Deal with it.

Boy, you're really being a thorn in my side lately, aren't you? You're like that little bug that buzzes around your head for minutes on end and you can't catch it no matter how hard you try. And then it flies into the interstate and splatters on a windshield. Get my meaning?

Heh heh. I was just thinking of the opening credit sequence to "Men In Black". Some people, even ones who nitpicked it on here back in 1997, think that it was unnecessary and that it went on too long. But I don't. And the awesome Danny Elfman score accompanied it perfectly!

Just where has the Chief even been lately, anyway? He never shows up here anymore unless somebody like you is complaining about somebody like me and the things I say. I find that somewhat unsettling. That's just me, though!

Well... here's the deal. I happen to have a lot of things to do between work, wife, kids, grandkids, friends, and writing my own fiction. I have a very fun, immensely enjoyable life.

And unfortunately, you're right, the only time I head out here is when somebody complains. I do enjoy nitpicking, but I just don't have that much time for it any longer. The Nitpicker's Guides died in 1998 and, at this point, they are only producing around $200 a year. So I am off to other more potentially profitable things.

I am, however, glad to keep this site up and will continue to pay for it as long as my fellow nitpickers seem interested. I only ask that every be civil to each other and try to be fair to the creators.

So, I'm sorry that you find it "unsettling" that I'm not around but... I stopped writing the Nitpicker's Guides over 15 years ago and I have other things to do!

Happy Nitpicking!

Phil

Nationwide has a fairly lame commercial out touting safe driving and their discounts for doing so. It's from the point of view of a fictional traffic reporter in a helicopter, overseeing one car traveling solo on a highway. That alone is a nitpick; when were you the only driver for miles on end? Also, he's applauded for doing 44 in a 45 mph zone. Well, if he was really doing 44, he'd have many cars piled up in back of him, or (of course) passing him. Me. I've received two speeding tickets in 40 years of driving. My most recent one was in 2004. I was doing 80 in a 65 mph zone. In a rented Dodge Neon, a car I thought would have trouble reaching 65, much less 80.

Toyota has a series of commercials featuring Jan, a receptionist at a dealership (played by an actress named Laurel Coppock). In one ad, a guy looking to buy a (IIRC) Camry shows "Jan" a lizard that changes color, allegedly to help him choose a color for his car. "Jan" immediately acts like a scared puppy, screeching at the sight of the animal, and eventually standing on a chair to avoid the lizard. Sorry Ms. Coppock, but you really overdo the scared role here. Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest screaming "No wire hangers!!" is the only thing that (maybe) tops Ms. Coppock's overacting in that commercial.

The "Lifestyle Lift" commercials drive me nuts; they definitely do not "light up my life". The ads are seemingly everywhere, all the time. They've covered all bases, with their one-and five minute commercials, and a 30 minute infomercial. Makes me wonder if spokesperson Debby Boone (or her dad) has had the procedure.

Marshall's/T.J. Maxx/Homegoods stores air a commercial with a woman they call "The Gifter". They should have cast Julia Louis-Dreyfuss in the ad; then they could call the woman "The Re-Gifter".

Audi has a commercial out in time for Christmas. A sidewalk Santa has a bucket for donations. People see Audis drive by, and put their car keys (Lexus and BMW keys, mind you) in the bucket. A female "elf" with pointed ears says "We're gonna need a bigger bucket". I doubt people would get rid of their Lexuses (Lexi?) or BMW's for Audis. For a Dodge Challenger, maybe; that car kicks major ass. (On a personal note, I thought the BMW 3-series was a bit tight for me; the few Audis I've sat in were pretty comfortable).

Credit Karma.com has a commercial with an animated character who calls herself "your grandma". Well, she's not my grandmother. My grandma died in 1959, when I was four years old.

Chevy has a commercial for its Cruze model, in which the two ladies in the car say the word crazy many times. Thd ad itself isn't too bad, but the frequency that WCBS-TV plays it during their morning newscast drives me...crazy. (It's played so much, I know when it's coming on by the sounds at the commercial's intro).

Just about every car commercial nowadays has cars jumping over buildings, other cars, and other fancy stuff...and includes the disclaimers: "Do not attempt", "Cars do not jump over buildings", etc...

Well, why are THEY doing it?

Apparently, cars now know parkour.

As part of the trend that John noted above, the original Duke boys, John Schneider and Tom Wopat, are back in the General Lee in commercials for AutoTrader.com. And, they're still trashing irreplacable 1969 Dodge Chargers. Or, maybe the footage of the jumping General Lee comes from either the series or the 2005 movie, I don't know. Regardless, a classic car is a terrible thing to waste. In one ad, a 2014 Dodge Viper becomes the new General Lee, complete with orange paint and the "01" decal on each side.

I don't believe they are actually trashing real 1969 Chargers. They must be cars made up to look like 1969 Chargers. How many 1969 Chargers still in working condition could there be anyway?

I have a different issue with that Autotrader commercial. If you had a car as iconic as the General Lee, why why why would you trade it in?

I have a problem with the CarMax commercial where the blonde lady has a wrecking ball dropped on her car.

She would NOT be going to CarMax to get a used car. She'd be getting a nice brand new car, courtesy of the demolition company.

Why does Geico have so many mascots?

Ancestry.com has an ad that starts off with a woman saying "I type my name and date of birth...". Yeah. And hackers and identity thieves are chomping at the bit for just those bits of information.

Have a look at this cat food commercial for Blue Healthy Gourmet. The woman lists the ingredients for both brands of cat food. The second one is actually healthier for the cat than the Gourmet stuff. Cats are exclusive carnivores and have no use for fruits or vegetables in what they eat. Meat and meat byproducts (meaning guts, marrow, skin and stuff like that) are actually the only thing wild cats eat, and they thrive on it. Domestic cats are no different in that respect. Adding vegetal food to a cat's diet could actually make it sick. Not life threateningly sick, but sick nonetheless, probably similar to what lactose intolerance does to us.

It really pisses me off that advertisers can, and do exploit people's general ignorance of these facts to push questionable products on consumers.

There should be a new "Jake from State Farm" commercial; the original one (where a man wants a good rate on insurance, and his nasty wife thinks he's talking to a phone sex operator) is kind of wearing out its welcome. Me, I'd like to see a commercial in which the nasty wife ("What are you wearing, Jake from State Farm"?!) has an affair with Jake from State Farm.

There's one I sometimes see on youtube for a muscle gain (or something like that) product. It has a guy with large muscles wearing a tank top LOUDLY smacking his lips as he sits in front of a table full of food and condiments eating a Steak (iirc).

He usually says something about wanting to tell us about his product. Usually at this point, I hit the back button or click on skip ad if it lets me. They went away for a while but I have seen them make a comeback recently.

Progressive has a commercial where Flo is sitting at the dinner table with (I assume) her family. Stephanie Courtney plays everyone at the table. It was funny when Eddie Murphy did that in his remake of The Nutty Professor. Here, uh....no.

The Geico commercial, where one guy says to the other "Playing cards with Kenny Rogers gets old real fast", is ...getting old, real fast. So is Rogers, who appears (playing cards) in the ad. Rogers looks like he's had about a dozen facelifts, and has lost a good deal of weight, since his glory days in the 1980's.

1980's hearthrob Rob Lowe appears in a series of annoying commercials for DirecTV. The ads are dumb enough, especially when a second Lowe appears. ("I'm clueless 80's Rob Lowe. And I have cable".) To add insult to injury, the commercials are now closing with the instrumental theme from Lowe's 1985 Brat Pack flick St. Elmo's Fire. IMHO, Fire was one of the worst flicks from that decade.

Have a look at this cat food commercial for Blue Healthy Gourmet. The woman lists the ingredients for both brands of cat food. The second one is actually healthier for the cat than the Gourmet stuff. Cats are exclusive carnivores and have no use for fruits or vegetables in what they eat. Meat and meat byproducts (meaning guts, marrow, skin and stuff like that) are actually the only thing wild cats eat, and they thrive on it. Domestic cats are no different in that respect. Adding vegetal food to a cat's diet could actually make it sick. Not life threateningly sick, but sick nonetheless, probably similar to what lactose intolerance does to us.

Iam's must have read your post because their more recent cat food commercials have been emphasizing the lack of vegetables in the product.

All those commercials for fruit-and vegetable-flavored beer drive me nuts. Beer should taste like beer, not orange or tomato juice, or lemon/lime soda. If I want orange or tomato juice, I'll drink that. If I want lemon/lime, I'll get 7-Up or Sprite.

There's a new BMW commercial that shows a space shuttle launching.

A little boy looks out of the BMW window at the shuttle (which is at least 100 miles up) and says, "Whoa!"

Seconds later, the astronaut looks out the shuttle window (which by now is at least 200 miles up) at the BMW and says "Whoa!"


There is NO WAY that astronaut would be able to see that BMW from that far up

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quote:

1980's hearthrob Rob Lowe appears in a series of annoying commercials for DirecTV.

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Burger King Chicken Fries

Why would a CHICKEN be in love with Chicken Fries?

Isn't that cannibalism?

And what is up with the mannequin-like Burger King?

He's creepy!

Why don't they hunt down a guy with red hair and hire a live actor for the Burger King commercials?

They had one once back in to 70's

NEW KFC commercials

They now have an actor impersonating Colonel Harlan Sanders

Not too bad.

Sure beats the sloppy drawing they had a few years ago.

They now have an actor impersonating Colonel Harlan Sanders...

Wouldn't be the first time, John. KFC did that sometime (IIRC) in the late 1980's; the Colonel passed away in 1980 at the age of 90. By the way, according to Wikipedia, the actor who plays the Colonel in the ads is SNL's former cast member/current announcer Darrell Hammond.

Now that the football season is upon us, the constant (and I mean it) commercials for fantasy football gambling site FanDuel make me wish it would end. One interviewed guy brags that his $35 account got him $2 million. Well, if that's true, for him to get that 2 mil, a lot of people had to lose.
And, Darrell Hammond's tenure as Col. Sanders in KFC commercials didn't last long. Another former SNL cast member, Norm MacDonald, is now playing him.

Cannibalism on the increase...(?)

McDonald's...features chickens who love "Chicken Fries"

Lays...features Mr. & Mrs. Potatohead eating potato chips

That's Burger King, not McDonalds.

Sorry. I knew it was one of the two fast-food places.

Jennifer Aniston has done a commercial for Emirates Airlines, in which she's dreaming she's on a plane without a shower. I've never known any airplane to have showers; I guess you learn something new every day. To me, Aniston comes across as the clueless, spoiled Hollywood brat she probably is. The ad can be seen here.

Pam Cooking Spray

This commercial tells children to take a highly flammable product in a combustible can and spray it INTO THE FIREPLACE! What could possibly go wrong?

There's a Tylenol commercial about a guy preparing to meet what we first think is his wife or girlfriend, but turns out to be his daughter. He says she means the world to him, but he has a bad cold, so he takes Tylenol to take care of the aches and pains and fever, and thus be able to have his quality time with her. Yeah right. He will let his beloved daughter come to a house and a father full of viruses, in all probability cause her to get sick, expose her to the potential serious complications of that disease, just so they can have a good time. Take your Tylenol if you want, but call your ex wife and tell her to keep your daughter away until you are REALLY rid of that cold, moron.

Chase has a commercial out, which advertises not only its services, but the movie Kung Fu Panda 3. Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson is observing something one of her assistants is doing, when she promptly spills her drink on his shirt. So, right away, she uses her phone to send the assistant $80 for a new shirt using her Chase account. I think $80 is a lot of money for a shirt; I guess Hollywood types can afford it. Me, I would have washed the shirt; it's a lot cheaper. (The last shirts I bought cost a combined $12. With a lot of discounts and coupons). Plus, the idiot who spilled coffee on my pants at a conference last year didn't send me the money for new pants. (I did get an apology from her, but I gave her a tongue lashing anyway; walking in a crowd with coffee is an accident waiting to happen. Which it did.)

Kellogg's has a really silly commercial for their Eggo waffles. A mother and daughter are arguing over a waffle that just popped up from the toaster; the mom even takes a picture of it with her phone. Come on ladies; there's more than one waffle in the world. Or even in the package. Both mother and daughter get their comeuppance when someone takes the waffle out of the toaster and eats it.

The Trivago guy (real name Tim Williams) is everywhere. It seems that his (unshaven) face is part of every commercial break. On every channel (or at least on TNT.) Hey Tim - You can get complimentary razors and shave gel at the hotels you plug; they're free for guests.

Katherine Heigl is featured in a commercial for Cat's Pride Kitty Litter. Heigl had a decent TV and movie career, until her prima-donna attitude turned it into...kitty litter. Is this commercial the best she could do? You can see more here.

The commercials with "talking" animals drive me mad....people treat the talking animals like its an every day occurrence.

Not to mention other inanimate objects talking...like insurance bundles, toilet paper rolls, etc.

Back in the 70's there was a commercial featuring kids dancing around a laundry line singing, "Ring around the collar" to the tune of "Ring around the Rosie."

Whose brats are these anyway?

How would they like it if the woman with the laundry problem went over to their yard and made fun of their situation?

Geiko:

Why is there so many varieties of commercials for this company?

It's very confusing.

The constant commercials for attorneys and prescription drugs make me long for the days when they were both prohibited by federal law. Especially the plentiful commercials for ambulance chasers who hawk their services to get you money due to the alleged damage caused by heavily advertised prescription drugs.
Also, I'd like to see the ad campaign from Match.com, in which people proclaim "I just met someone", countered with a campaign from people exclaiming "I was just dumped by someone."

M&M's has hauled out that stupid "They do exist" commercial again (where the M&M's meet Santa).

This thing is twenty years old. Isn't it high time it was retired?

Two local commercials, for a hospital and a medical group, get me going. The first is an ad for Sloan Kettering cancer center, touting their great progress in treating and beating cancer. Well, (as I've posted elsewhere on this site) my great brother-in-law died at Sloan-Kettering back in 2011. That left my kid sister a widow with three children. The other is for NYU Langone Medical Center. My urologist joined that group earlier this year. Unfortunately, that leaves me high and dry, as now they're out of my insurance network. So now for me, it's like The Clash song - "Should I stay, or should I go?"

The constant (and I mean that) ads for My Pillow, featuring pillow inventor Mike Lindell, make me want to put the ads to bed. Permanently. As an aside, I heard on Bloomberg Radio that Lindell is a recovering cocaine and crack addict; I believe he was doing drugs as he was developing My Pillow. I believe he's clean now; Lindell opened up about his past drug use here.

The CEO of a company called "Untucked" commiserates in his ad that he couldn't find a shirt that looks good untucked. So, he designed one. If looking good while wearing a shirt untucked is your biggest problem, you're pretty well off, dude. (BTW, his shirts cost close to $100 each.)

Verizon has a commercial where the Verizon guy drops in on a wedding, to make sure it's being streamed OK. Are the happy couple expecting gifts from the people viewing the wedding on-line? You can see the ad here.
Gift-giving for weddings is totally out of control. People are posting the wedding details on-line months before, and trolling for gifts before the invitations go out. Absolutely insane.

Two things

First, there was a big Verizon logo in the background of the wedding, what's up with that?

Second, Youtube puts ads on publicity videos, very meta

There was a big Verizon logo in the background of the wedding, what's up with that?
Product placement in weddings, maybe? Wouldn't surprise me one bit if that happens in real life.

Another GEICO ad that's real dumb is one in which a loud football ref explains his wife's dinner order so everyone in the restaurant (and probably outside) can hear him. The ref then orders tater tots and chicken tenders. (I know of no restaurant that serves tater tots.) He's told they don't serve tater tots (why am I not surprised) and then orders nachos.

(I know of no restaurant that serves tater tots.)

What about Sonic?

I don't know. I've never been to a Sonic; I have no clue what they serve. The last restaurants I ate at were an Applebee's and a Denny's. Who, AFAIK, don't serve tater tots.
Infiniti has a commercial in which a husband keeps forgetting items his wife need for dinner. So, he keeps going to the store, in his Q50. Which is a highly desirable car to yours truly, but not the most fuel efficient. At the end, the wife goes out to get the last forgotten item herself. In a QX50, an even less fuel efficient SUV.

M&M's has hauled out that stupid "They do exist" commercial again (where the M&M's meet Santa).

This thing is twenty years old. Isn't it high time it was retired?

Well, they came up with a sequel

I know.

So perhaps the original is FIANLLY retired.

Classic M&M commercial from the 70's

The camera focuses on a mom's hand with her saying, "LOOK AT THAT MESS!" while pointing at the chocolate on the tablecloth and everywhere else.

Meanwhile, there are 2 M&M's evaluating the situation and saying, "Is she angry!" followed by "Oh,my!"

After that she says, "NO MORE CHOCOLATE FOR YOU!!!!"

Good gravy, lady...it's only chocolate! CHILL! Haven't you heard of Windex & Handi-wipes? Geez! You act like the kid spilled Sulfuric Acid all over the place!

In this Intact Insurance commercial, my answer to "How does that make you feel?" would not have been "Makes me feel sad", it would have been "Fuming mad!", and then I would have killed the •••••.

The Audi "witness protection" commercial.

Yeah, I'll just let the mob find me and kill me because I want to drive an Audi instead of a Lexus.

Ted Danson is in commercials for Smirnoff vodka. He (jokingly I hope) calls himself a "legendary actor". Yeah Ted, you're a legend. In your own mind.

It's self-deprecating, Adam.

Best Western Hotels use that very annoying song, "Best Day Of My Life", in their current ad campaign. I can't remember the last time I stayed in a Best Western; all things being equal, I prefer either a Marriott or Holiday Inn. Who, AFAIK, don't use annoying songs in their commercials.

The constant commercials for Draft Kings gambling sites are extremely tacky and uncalled for. Especially the latest round, which stars "Sir Charles" Barkley, and some un-named dipwad, who wears a white lab coat with "Dr. Aftkings" stitched on it. My late uncle had a gambling problem years ago; he would have not needed dumb TV ads to encourage an already bad habit.

Best Western Hotels use that very annoying song, "Best Day Of My Life"...
Now Ford is using that same song in its ads, to unload the last of its 2018 models.

Yeah, I'll just let the mob find me and kill me because I want to drive an Audi instead of a Lexus.
There's this great You Tube guy, Scotty Kilmer, who can't say much good about Audis. You can watch his video on that subject here.

In the Progressive ad where the agents are all protecting stuff in the neighborhood one says that the fire pit was last used at oh-six-hundred.

Who uses a fire pit at six o’clock in the morning?

(Serial killer?)

Those annoying QuickBooks commercials with Danny DeVito (that the Canadian History channel loves to shove down our throats for some reason).

Yeah, great way to hawk your product, some aging, washed up actor, with an irritating voice. That ought to knock them dead.

Celine Dion sings "Respect" (or a portion of it) in a commercial for L'Oreal. Sorry, Celine; Aretha Franklin owns that song. Even though she passed away last year.

Hard for a corpse to own a song. Or a title - The First Lady of Radio was somebody else before it was the God Bless America singer.

State Farm has a very inane commercial for their auto insurance, in which a woman demands "Don't mess with my discount!!". Including one where her son in a car seat has to go to the bathroom. (Yeah, I know that gag is overused.) Of course, she will risk a urinary tract infection for her son so she can keep her lousy discount.

How about that stupid Bounty "NOOOOOOOO" commercial.

I've vowed to boycott Bounty until they take it off the air.

I find that commercial hillarious, the way everybody is going "NOOOOOOOO" and the dog is going "YESSSSSS"

Well, Tim, there are plenty of brands of paper towels. Brawny and Viva come to mind. As well as the store brands.
Maybe Bounty and State Farm can combine forces. The mom uses Bounty to clean up the mess her son makes, as she wouldn't let the kid go to the bathroom, to save her precious discount.

"Yes, dear. You were born in the car on the way to the hospital, because NOBODY messes with my DISCOUNT!"

The Bounty commercial was funny, the first time it aired.

By the 557th millionth viewing, it has long since worn our its welcome.

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quote:

There's a commercial where a family is hot and making their way across the hot sand at the beach. The dad, especially, is hot and sweaty. He's the one pulling the cooler and carrying the beach chairs. And then he turns around and sees an Audi. He yells, "Change of plans!" They drop their beach stuff and run back toward the boardwalk.

So does that mean they're going to buy a new Audi instead of going to the beach? Why are these things mutually exclusive Can't they go to the car dealership later that day or the next day? And why are the kids so excited about car shopping? And what happens to the stuff they're leaving on the beach?

I know I'm overthinking this, but it's been extremely hot and humid on the East Coast. I would love to spend a leisurely day at the beach, Audi or no Audi.

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The latest dweeb from Progressive is named Jamie. He is more irritating than Flo. If that's possible.

Way back when, MarkN wrote:

Any Subway ad with Jared. God, I hate that fugly mug of his! I like Subway but that's almost enough to keep me away from it!

I'm sure Subway now rues the day they got involved with that pedophile (he got arrested for having a computer full of child porn).

Steve Harvey is the spokesperson for the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. It's not the commercial that drives me mad, but that orange necktie (with matching handkerchief) he wears in it. Borderline hideous, if you ask me (and you haven't. ) Guess my taste in ties is a wee bit more conservative; the last tie I wore (to my former supervisor's dad's funeral) was black.

Jared Fogle will stay in prison until at least July 2029. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Progressive has a commercial airing now which is good. For about ten seconds, when Smash Mouth appears at "half-time" to perform (part of) "All-Star". Before and after, it's the inanity of Flo. (Me, I'm still partial to Jethro Tull or Steely Dan, but you take what yon can get. )

Things i want to see: Flo from Progressive being [tacky commentary cut]

Moderator's Message: Knock it off, Judi!

Mike Lindell, former (big time) cocaine addict and current (big time) supporter of Donald Trump (are those two attributes connected? ) has a commercial on for his Giza Dream Sheets. Which, at $50, are as overpriced as Lindell's My Pillow. Me, I wouldn't use his sheets in a dog bed, much less my own.

That damned Bounty commercial is still playing.

God, make it go away!

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I am soooo fed up with all the bloody PSA's about Covid-19 on TV and radio.
I shut them off and change the channel within the first 5 seconds, because there's nothing worse than being lectured about something you already know about.

And a series of old commercials that I hated were for Meow Mix;
"meow-meow-meow-meow, meow-meow-meow-meow, meowmeowmeowmeowmeowAAARRRGGGGHHH!!!!"

You mean those commercials that Dr. Theresa Tam has been doing.

Yes, Theresa, we know the situation, thank you. We're not all morons like Orange Hitler apparently is.

And a series of old commercials that I hated were for Meow Mix;
"meow-meow-meow-meow, meow-meow-meow-meow, meowmeowmeowmeowmeowAAARRRGGGGHHH!!!!"

Bet you wish they'd knock off that incessant caterwauling.

I once mentioned that commercial to a woman I worked with at work and then she procceeded to sing that VERY irritating jingle for the next 30 seconds! UGGGGHH!!
I just smiled at her, thinking, "Shutupshutupshutupshutup!"

Kind of weird to associate Santa and Christmas with the violent movie Pulp Fiction. The scene after the dance at the diner is the one where Vincent has to stab Mia in the heart with a huge syringe. Is that Mrs. Claus' fate?
https://youtu.be/7tbx9HN3qk8

The latest Liberty Mutual insurance commercial is really dweeby. It's presented as a flashback to Christmas Day, 1990. A boy of about six opens his present, and gets really enthusiastic that the box he just got contains Liberty Mutual homeowners insurance. ("You only pay for what you need".) Meanwhile, his brother is down in the dumps, as all he got was a bike. (Not as dweeby as the Progressive commercials, in which Stephanie Courtney does an Eddie Murphy, and plays a lot of the characters herself.)

Like someone that age would care about homeowners insurance.

I'm sure Alex P. Keaton did.

Was the Liberty Mutual ad mentioned above filmed in 1990, or did they fake the 1990s for nostalga purposes.

I'm sure it was filmed recently, and made to look like it was shot in 1990. The "flashback" part of the ad is framed at 4:3, (and "dirtied down" to make it look like it was shot with an old camcorder) but the intro was shot at the current HDTV framing of 16:9. Also, an ad that dweeby I would remember, even after 30 years.

I'm sure Alex P. Keaton did.
Touche, Francois.

Tim can relate to this one, since it's for a Canadian lottery.
A guy has won the lottery twice and recalls calling his sister about it, and just his deep, guffawing laughter about winning pisses me off. The guy looks like what the WWE's Bray Wyatt used to look like, but it's the fact that the guy has won hundreds of thousands and is bragging about it-- not a good commercial.

And I hate car commercials where the driver is driving recklessly. One used to have a car speeding SIDEWAYS, and I just had to ask myself, Why?
And car commercials that don't show you the interior, instead focusing on happy, crazy people doing stuff-- anything other than driving the actual car!

And why won't that Bounty commercial go away?

I wish they would pass a law that says that a commercial is allowed to only air for so long (say six months), and then it must be withdrawn and never aired again.

I officially dislike the new McDonald's 'spice face' McChicken commercials. They've come out with three new flavours of McChicken, all of them (apparently) hot as heck.
NONE of the customers are enjoying the sandwich-- they all stop eatting it and look helpless and look like they're about to throw up or cry.
Probably regretting buying something that isn't enjoyable to eat. It sure as heck doesn't make me want to buy one. (I had the unplesant experience last year of trying Burger King's spicy nuggets and hated them! After the third one I wasn't tasting anything other than FIRE!)

Mike Myers and Dana Carvey have revived their Wayne and Garth shtick for some skip the dishes ad.

Guys, you're both thirty years older, and look it. Nothing as pitiful as two men, in the 50's, trying to act like teenagers.

But that's perfectly in character. Don't you think the "real" Wayne and Garth would refuse to grow up exactly like that?

Tim, the Bounty commercial is STILL playing here in Toronto. Unfortunately, it's the slightly shorter version without the bulldog thinking, "Yyyyyeesssss!" as he gulps up that dumpling. At least he made it mildly amusing, but without it...borrrrring!

That damned commercial has long since worn out its welcome and needs to be pulled.

The only way to do it is for many to do what I've been doing, and boycott Bounty until that commercial is taken off the air. Hit them where it hurts, and they'll get the message.

Discover Card has a commercial out that touts their fraud protection benefit. As far as I know, every credit card has fraud protection; it's by Federal law. And that benefit helped me a while back, when my Visa card was used fraudulently.
I dumped my Discover card years ago; I've never regretted doing that.

Something that's always annoyed me is the penchant of advertising companies to stick a famous song into their commercials, and alter the original meaning.
As an example, I worked at MacLaren McCann for 20 years (in the not so glamerous accounting department), and the lazy guys in Creative constantly used rock songs for our GM commercials, namely, Bob Seger's 'Like A Rock' for the truck commercials.
Nowadays, it annoys me to see a series of Rakuten commercials using (and rewriting the lyrics) of Elton John's 'Rocket Man'. He's far from being a favorite of mine, but I like the song, as is.
Advertising companies are just lazy when they don't create new music for their ads, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that drives crazy.

Well, I think they finally retired Tim's favorite Bounty commercial.

Here is the new one.

I can end my Bounty Boycott now.

Proctor and Gamble are jumping for joy, Tim.

As for me, the constant commercials (and 30-minute infomercial!) for Car Shield drive me to drink. (OK, sparkling water. But still...) With celebrity spokesmen Chris Berman, Mike Ditka and Ice-T, no less. As an aside, I had heard that Car Shield picks and chooses what services they will pay on. And when they do, they pay at unrealistically low rates, not the generally accepted rate for your area. (Here in the NYC area, mechanics can and do charge $125/hour labor. And parts are more expensive here as well.)

Ugh, infomercials. Those things can make one almost wish that the Soviet Union had won the Cold War.

I think I saw a Car Shield commercial last night on A&E, starring Ric 'Nature Boy' Flair. WWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

There's a recent commercial, I think it's for Frosted Flakes, and a couple guys are watching hockey and none of the players have a team emblem or insignia on their jerseys. This drives me nuts! I've seen this in other commercials, and it doesn't make sense to me! Would it kill them to put even a stylized letter, like an 'S' or a 'D', on the player's chests? Hockey jerseys have insignias and emblems, people!

But they would have to pay for having those faux emblems printed on the jerseys.

As Krusty the Klown once said: stop the music! Any more and we have to pay for the song!

Pay for what, Francois? I mean just get some material, cut out a letter 'S' or a 'D' or a 'T' or whatever, but don't base it on any known sports franchise.
Or a cartoon version of a wolf or a tiger or SOMETHING! A PIANO! SOMETHING! Even if it doesn't make sense!
The blank jersey just doesn't make sense to me.

Heck, just use Tony the Tiger in a hockey outfit. ;-)

You'd think Kellogg's would have art of their mascots that could be used.

One I can't stand these days is for the Peleton exercise bikes. They have a screaming trainer telling the out of shape customer to keep going, you can do this, I know this hurts, blahblahblah.
Totally annoying, so...*click!*...channel off.

A six year old child was recently killed by a Peleton treadmill. That, and other assorted injuries from Peleton equipment, resulted in a recall of those machines. More here. Me, I'll stick with my Planet Fitness Black Card membership. The local gym has a nice selection of exercise machines. Especially treadmills.

They must have been listening to the 1,306 protest letters that Tim sent them, because Bounty paper towels have a SECOND commercial out already, to replace the bulldog-eating-the-dumpling commercial.
The first was in May with a couple and a laptop, and this time a couple is about to get their winning lottery ticket soaked-- until it's Bounty to the rescue!

Guess I can end my Bounty Boycott now.

Joe Montana is fronting a commercial for Wellcare. Which, I assume, is yet another Medicare Advantage plan. In the ad, Montana states that one of the benefits of Wellcare is free grocery delivery. Well, ole' Cheapskate Joe gets a grocery delivery in the ad. And doesn't even tip the poor delivery guy. Come on Joe. Didn't you make enough from the NFL over the years (I assume you're now on a fairly generous NFL pension) to slip the poor fellow a few bucks?

El Cheapo, Joe.

In a really dweeby Christmas ad for Macy's, Catherine O'Hara recreates her role as the mom from Home Alone. She's in Macy's 34th Street store, screaming "Kevin! Kevin!". Just like in Home Alone 2. So, out comes...not Macaulay Culkin, but Kevin Hart. 'Nuff said.

Was reading TV Tropes and it made me realize someone. Those old Trix cereal commercials could be considered racist. The rabbit was not allowed to have any Trix because he was a rabbit. And, in some commercials, the rabbit had purchased the Trix himself, only for the snot nosed brats to take it from him (they were, in fact, mugging him).

As for the racist part: "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids." Swap the word rabbit with the N-Word (or any other derogatory term), and the word kids with white people, and there it is: Racism.

Uhhhh...................whaaa?
Tim, they were made in the 1960's. It was a cartoon bunny rabbit that wanted to eat cereal.
An ad agency created a short cartoon to sell cereal.
That's it.
That was such a stretch to compare it with today's over-reaching P.C. crowd that sees racism in everything.
P.S. Did you know that leaves are trans? They start out as green and then they're all, like, "Eewww! I was born green, but I'm gonna turn red and yellow and orange! That's who I really am!"
Or, maybe the leaves just change because of the change of seasons.

Also it isn't racist it's speciesist, as rabbits, cartoon or otherwise, aren't a human race, but a separate species. ;-)

I didn't make this idea, I merely reported it. Here is the original statement from TV Tropes:

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quote:

Fantastic Racism: An unintentional example: the whole reason the kids give for not letting the rabbit have any Trix is simply because he is a rabbit and "Trix are for kids", which comes across as a pretty lame reason. Imagine if someone in real life said "(some food here) is only for white people."

---

It's a different species. What is good for kids might be harmful for rabbits, and vice versa.

How do we know it's racist? Maybe it's anti-semitic, because the bunny rabbit is Jewish and no Jews are allowed to eat Trix!
Maybe it's anti-gay, because the bunny rabbit is gay, and no gays shall dare eat Trix!
Maybe it was a case of the kids having Leporiphobia, the fear of rabbits. In which cases it's the bratty kids with the problems.
Maybe the problem is with the kids because when I was that age I learned how to SHARE with others.
Racism, my arse. TV Tropes is twisting a harmless 50-year old series of commercials into something hateful by using our P.C. present-day standards.

And one last point; racism? The rabbit is denied Trix AND HE IS WHITE!

Gawd, I hate the 21st century sometimes!

Steve, you seem to be operating under the assumption that people are only saying this about those commercials now.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you here and say that there has probably always been those kind of people.

However, you must remember that these commercials came out in the era of snail mail, rotary phones, and three networks and nothing but. The kind of social media, that allowed those that felt the commercials were racist to get that message out, simply didn't exist back then. In those ancient days, to get such a message out meant writing letters and such, and, to many, that was too much like work.

It's not the current century that's at fault here, Steve, it's the technology that allows such views to reach a mass audience.

When I say this 'century', I'm really talking about the people and society we live in as a whole.
I'll go one better, Tim, and say it's the PEOPLE using today's technology to push their own politically correct agenda on the rest of us, after they've been triggered by a harmless children's commercial from 1968!
Reading negativity within a cartoon commercial and twisting it like a pretzel to fit a ridiculous conclusion just boggles my mind.
Literally EVERYTHING can be warped and subverted to be considered inappropriate, just by twisting facts, igoring the truth, and shoving a snowflake personality down everyone else's throat.
Excuse me if I sound angry and condescending, but this whole Trix rabbit commercial thing just blows my mind.

Steve - TV Tropes is twisting a harmless 50-year old series of commercials into something hateful by using our P.C. present-day standards.

The change history page only covers the last year, but I'm pretty sure a Trix Rabbit comment was on the Fantastic Racism page years ago when I was a Troper and a lot of Tropers had a sense of humor (at least in those days).

While there are too many idiots incapable of understanding jokes or tongue-in-cheek comments these days, I'm pretty sure the original Troper who added the Trix Rabbit to that page did understand.

You were a Troper, Keith?

I visit TV Tropes all the time. Mind you, I'm just a lurker, but I've sometimes spent hours there.

Yeah, back in 2007/2008 I think I got started. They were still using their confusing in-joke titles back then like The Rick, or The Ruri (naming a trope after a character from a specific show) then they started renaming to make them more understandable to an average person, so The Ruri became The Smart Kid, I forget what The Rick became, but it's what we would call a cabbagehead. At some point it became less fun to hang around there and other things came along.

2007 or 2008 was when I found the site (not how long I was a member), not sure when I signed up and started troping, but I was there for a few years, mainly adding thing to webcomics although there were other topics I added to. Kind of just faded away from the site rather than having a clean break.

Eh, it happens. Sometimes one just loses interest in a site.

Another really dweeby Liberty Mutual commercial ties in with Spider Man - No Way Home. Doug is dreaming of being Spider Man. So he allows himself to get bitten by a spider he frees from a lucite case. Doug rises up, like he has a surge of spider-strength. The next scene, he's being loaded into an ambulance. Well, at least it's not Covid-19.

Many commercials do tie ins to movies.

It's not the movie tie-in that irks me; it's Doug's (played by an actor named David Hoffman) irritating behavior in the Liberty Mutual ads that drives me to drink. In another commercial, he's day dreaming that he's up in a helicopter while playing with the copter model on his boss’s desk. Maybe he saw the movie Blue Thunder one too many times.

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One I can't stand these days is for the Peleton exercise bikes. They have a screaming trainer telling the out of shape customer to keep going...

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There's a series of Peleton commercials featuring Ebenezer Scrooge. Here is one of them. I really don't like them, it's like using the paintings of the Sistine chapel to sell underwear, stupid and tasteless­.

Good news, everyone! I just got permission from the Sistine Chapel to paint underwear on Adam to sell underwear.

;-)

There's a series of Peleton commercials featuring Ebenezer Scrooge. Here is one of them. I really don't like them

Well, now that Christmas is over, I imagine they'll disappear.

But, how will we know if Ebenezer Scrooge gets into shape???!!! OOOOHHHNNNOOOOO!!!!! Life is so unfair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, how tragic.

Well, I continued to see the Scrooge/Peleton commercials up until January 8th, which have mercifully been replaced by normal ones with exercisers working out to David Bowie music (probably to mark the 6th anniversary of his too-early death).
Much better commercial.

At least, we did find out that he gets in shape by august 19

Christmas holidays are over! All related commercials, back into storage.

Another commercial that I can't stand and have
tried to forget is one for Crest that you use to whiten your teeth-- by painting on them! I can't even be bothered to Google the product's real name, but you basically paint your teeth with this white stuff, instead of, you know, actually brushing your teeth and having good dental hygiene.
It features a young woman with short blonde hair with a big dumb smile on her face as she is painting her teeth an unnatural shade of white, while the dumb and irritating background music has a girl singing something like "Maaa-neee-aaaaah!"
Yuck!
Terrible product, terrible commercial.

an unnatural shade of white

I should say so. Shade is used when you add black to a color. Tint is when you add white.

Gray teeth, it's what's happening.

I'm surprised I forgot about this excessively-long series of commercials that I change the channel every time they come on;
Jennifer Aniston's Aveeno commercials.
I've loathed these things for so long that it's become a reflex action-- there she is...click!
I'm still a fan of 'Friends', but I've never understood how overrated Aniston is, how guys think she's hot, when she's just average to me. And my other nit is that she looks virtually the same in every single movie she's in, except for a very few-- basically Rachel is in the movie. Where's the range? Where's the characterization?
And don't get me started on how she and Brad Pitt were married in 1998 and only lasted 5 years, and STILL the gossip rags insist they'll get back together.
Ugh.
And now that's she's 53 it's really time to bring in someone else. PLEASE!

So what if she's 53. She still looks good.

That's what I'm saying, Tim-- I don't see what others are seeing. She doesn't have full lips or a sexy mouth, or cat-like eyes, or eye-catching cleavage or an hour-glass figure.
What's the appeal?

Girl-next-door appeal.

That's it.

Ugh. More like boring-next-door.

Everybody usually ends up with a girl-next-door type, anyway, so there's no fantasy appeal there for me. How often do guys wind up with a Megan Fox, Beyonce, Scarlet Johasson, Adriana Lima, Laetitia Casta, Gwen Stefani, Shakira, Keira Knightley, Natalie Portman, or Sofia Vergara?
About one in a million.

I think you are selling women wwwaaayyy short. A lot more than one in a million of them are as beautiful, if not more so, than the ones you have listed, and most of those owe much of their beauty to surgery, skillful makeup and photographic trickery.

Actually, Francois, I said 'how often do GUYS wind up with (the type of women I named), and then I randomly threw out the estimate 'one in a million'. The vast majority of men end up marrying women that are NOT 9's or 10's in the looks department, regardless of surgery or makeup. It's just reality, and that's okay. I wasn't saying there's only one gorgeous woman in every million-- obviously the number is much, much higher per million ladies.
Heck, if I was dating Megan Fox I would be susceptible to levels of jealousy of other men looking at her that I don't have with my actual wife.
But, to each their own, guys. I'm saying she's not my type and I don't see the appeal, not criticizing anyone for being attracted to Jennifer Aniston.
And I would point out that at age 53 she's about 20 years past the label 'girl next door'.

The world revolves around ME and ONLY ME!
I know this because my post from May 10, 2021 has lead to THREE commercials that have triggered me, and the advertisers are doing it to ME on purpose!
Okay, just kidding, but...
My earlier post was about my pet peeve that has people wearing hockey jerseys, but NO team emblem on the front, made-up or actual professional team.
Now there are THREE commercials out there bugging me;
1. A young woman buys various products from Best Buy, including a big screen TV which she can watch her favorourite hockey team on. I know she's watching her favourite team because she's cheering for SOMEBODY, wearing what appears to be a Nashville Predator's jersey, based on the design, but it has NO team emblem.
2. An older woman, for a commercial about getting back to normal life after Covid, is excited and hyped up about the game she's watching, while wearing what appears to be a Team Canada jersey...but NO team emblem AGAIN.
How can you cheer on your team, if you're wearing a generic, blank jersey?
And the third commercial gets a half-pass from me, because of the circumstances. Former Toronto Maple Leafs Captain, Darryl Sittler, walks across a hockey rink, as a bunch of players skate around him. It appears to be the same team, half in white jerseys, the other half in dark jerseys, and they seem to just be practicing, and even stop to talk to him as he advertises for a hearing loss clinic.
And again, NO team emblem. But sports teams can practice without emblems on their jerseys.
Whywhywhywhy??? Why meeeee???

And I have another pet peeve that's bugged me for years. It's always women, and they're either taking a bite out of chocolate or candy, and after a single bite they close their eyes, and smile like they're stoned and in somekinda ridiculous euphoria. They just look so stooopid acting like that.
It's just chocolate, people! And after watching my wife eat for 34 years years, I have yet to see her fall into a weird zen state from a single bite of ANYTHING!

Some commercials are just stupid that way.

As I understand it, if the commercial uses a team emblem they have to get the team's permission and pay a fee. So it's just less of a problem to imply a team.

Maybe commercial companies should just make up some fake teams they can use the way various Hollywood productions use the fictional Oceanic Airlines?

Right-- as I said in my original post, just stick a brand-new, unheard-of character as the emblem, a wolf or dog or dinosaur, or even just a fancy letter 'S' or 'T' or 'M' or SOMETHING! A jersey with an empty front just looks weird to me-- like a plane with no windows at all.

Good idea.

There's a Shell commercial out there that I find completely offensive at this point in time.
When gas prices are literally skyrocketing and much, much higher than any dollar amount that was ever considered 'too high' up until last year (they've increased about 48% here in Canada), Shell has the audacity and gall to make a commercial showing people coming home, and on their way home, and basically saying on your journey home, we'll be there.
Yes, you and every money-grubbing, customer-gouging, blood-sucking oil company. You're taking credit for bringing me somewhere, knowing I don't have a choice but to use your gas to get home and go to work and buy food, and eating up 50% more of my weekly budget on your gas?
Give me a break.
You are NOT the good guys!

Not to mention gas helps drive up Global Warming.

There's two commercials for a drug called Tepezza that annoy me no end. A woman named Jeanne, an actual user of the drug (according to the ad), takes off a pair of sunglasses to reveal...another pair of sunglasses. (Tepezza is used to treat thyroid eye disease, which Jeanne supposedly suffered from. Before she used Tepezza, of course.) Again, it makes me long for the days when advertising prescription drugs was prohibited by law.

And I hate those ads for drugs that say "side effects may include, blah, blah, blah."

The AMC Channel loves to show those ads, for some reason.

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And I hate those ads for drugs that say "side effects may include, blah, blah, blah."

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As I said, the AMC channel just loves these kinds of commercials, for some reason.

TBH, I don't think that they should be advertising prescription meds at all.

They weren't, until the FDA made advertising prescription drugs legal in 1997. I'll bet that many people now hound their doctors for the latest advertised "miracle drug" for whatever ails them. According to what I just looked up, only the U.S. and New Zealand allow advertising for prescription drugs. As for Canada, I assume you get the American feed for AMC, which has those ads. BTW, back in the day, AMC was a commercial free channel that ran classic movies. Pretty much what TCM does now.

As for Canada, I assume you get the American feed for AMC, which has those ads.

You are correct.

A commercial for home warranty company American Home Shield features a woman who is extolling the virtues of having a home warranty, while her (constantly running) toilet sucks away everything in sight like a tornado. I don't know what AHS covers (or doesn't), but you can fix the toilet with a repair kit that costs less than $25 at Amazon, Lowe's or Home Depot.

I've noticed the excessive drug commercials, too, as well as ones for lawyers and law firms. And those ones are constantly being played on TV and radio, so it's hard to get away from them. Used to just see them on the Big Three American networks, but we have Canadian lawyers looking for your money, too, eh!

There was even a bit of a controversy for the Preszler firm, with the nice-looking, professional-appearing middle-aged man doing all the talking, who most viewers, including me, thought he was Mr. Preszler. Turns out-- he's an actor! And they had a perfect excuse, in that he never did introduce himself as Preszler-- it was just a viewer assumption.

I only have problems with one type of ad.

Those are the ones that try to get you to ask your doctor to prescribe it without telling you what it does.

Don't forget - the U.S. had an idiot president during a pandemic, who pushed unproven treatments for Covid-19, just because some Fox News talking heads said so. An absolute disgrace.
Some drug ads that are everywhere are commercials for Dupixent, that looks like they were done in one shot. Also, an ad for Ozempic modifies the 70's song "Magic" to fit the drug's name.

I'll never understand why the drugs get science fictiony names like 'Dupixent' or 'Ozempic', but they're actually known to doctors as 'monoglutosian verticulamonasissisis', or whatever. The shorter names aren't even shorter versions of the bigger name.
And John's right-- weird ads tell you to ask your doctor about it, but not what it's actually for.
Me; "So, Doctor McCrusherbashir, I'd like to be prescribed 'Blixplunkalot'. I saw a commercial for it, and think it'll help me."
Doctor; "It'll help with your teenage menstrual pain? Is there something you're not telling me, Mr. McKinnon?"

And John's right-- weird ads tell you to ask your doctor about it, but not what it's actually for.

By law, if they tell you what the drug is for, they also have to list the potential side effects, something they might not want to do because it could scare away the customers.

These commercials should be banned again. No one will mind.

"By law, if they tell you what the drug is for, they also have to list the potential side effects, something they might not want to do because it could scare away the customers."
Or maybe...
"By law, if they tell you what the drug is for, they also have to list the potential side effects, something they might not want to do because it could kill customers."
Some 'side effects' are way too serious for me to think of this stuff as medicine and not poison.

They get around that by playing the list of side effects at a speed that is to fast to be understood.

They can be sneaky that way.

Ban them.

Or just require them to be understandable.

And they almost always have lame, irrelevant acton taking place on screen-- people walking a dog, parents playing with kids, somebody driving through the country, a mother baking-- all while a voice cheerfully warns that this drug could (pick all or 4 out of 5) cause abdominal pain, constipation, migraines, vomiting, dizziness, chest pains, suicidal thoughts, depression, stiffness in the joints, blurry vision, swollen tongue, etc. etc. etc.
Yea.
I'm gonna ask my doctor about that 'medicine'!

No one wants to see commercials like this.

Another series of commercials that drive me nuts are ads for car buying services such as Drive Time, Carmax, Carvana and their ilk. The ads imply that you're buying a car right off those sites. Sight unseen. Something you should never do. Always have a used car you're considering checked out by a qualified mechanic. Of your choosing.

Sight unseen is a good way to get swindled.

And not just the buyer. Some dishonest customers can use being far away and unseen to their advantage.

That too.

Hashtag has this new Christmas commercial with Jennifer Coolidge.

UGH!

That woman ruined 2 Broke Girls. Make her go away, please.

Really? When I attempted to watch that awful show it was the writing that drove me away, not the acting.

For me, it was fine until Coolidge's character, Sophie, showed up.

If she had been confined to one episode, fine. But they kept bringing her back, and then she became a regular.

Was Coolidge sleeping with the Executive Producer? Or did she have some dirt on him. Those are the only reasons I can come up with to explain why this horrible character wasn't dropped.

The mean Commercial Ad people are at it again, and I'm taking it personal again.
A Frosted Flakes commercial has Tony the Tiger giving a pep talk to a hockey team (which also, somehow, has a young woman playing on the same team as her husband and other guys), and they're breaking my cardinal rule-- NO TEAM EMBLEM ON THE FRONT AGAIN! ARRRGGGHH!!!
It's just such a small, dumb, but simple thing to correct, and ad people or wardrobe people keep getting it wrong! A cartoon animal, a word, a letter-- SOMETHING!
Every hockey team in any kind of organized set-up HAS AN EMBLEM! GAAAAAAAAHH!

Their emblem is the invisible man.

LOL! Might as well be!

If they used a real emblem, they'd have to pay for it.

One commercial that was everywhere, backed off a bit and then was all over the place again is one for Aspercreme. Two young ladies are sword fighting, in what looks like ancient Rome. One starts complaining about arthritis in her elbow. The other one slides a tube of Aspercreme down her sword, and the lady with arthritis rubs the stuff all over her elbow, while exclaiming "Thank the gods" for the pain relief while the lady who donated the Aspercreme says "Don't thank them soon!". They then resume sword fighting. By the way, both ladies appear to be far too young to have arthritis.

By the way, both ladies appear to be far too young to have arthritis.

Rheumatoid arthritis can strike at any age. It's an autoimmune disease.

One of the JK Simmons Farmer’s Insurance commercials

He’s talking about how a car loses value the second you drive it off the lot, and how Farmer’s gives you full replacement value.

Just then, a driver pulls out with his new car, and the dealer’s ginormous advertising gorilla fall on the car, wrecking it. Simmons says, “like that”.

This is a poor example because Farmer’s wouldn’t be paying, the dealer is clearly at fault.

It just annoys the heck out of me

Thanks for the clarification, Francois. I was diagnosed with arthritis in my (big) toes when I was in my fifties. Doesn't really hurt me too often, and it hasn't kept me off the treadmill, elliptical or rowing machines.

Ouch!

CBS has a promotion for its tacky reality show Survivor that uses a snippet from my favorite song, "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones. It's hawking the fact that the show will now be expanded to 90 minutes per episode. That's out of necessity, due to the need to fill air time as a consequence of the current writers'and actors' strikes. (My late dad loved Survivor; my late mom couldn't figure out why.)

This is gonna be our fall season, nothing but reality garbage.

My cable box conked out over a month ago, but I'm in no hurry to replace it, because of this.

This one has annoyed me for years, because they've kept the same concept for so long that I don't remember when it started.
The Dawn dish soap commercials where an unfortunate duckling has found itself covered in nasty oil, someone picks it up and cleans it with Dawn dish soap, and we see a clean little duckling chirping away.
Ugh.
It's DISH soap! Show some greasy, slimy DISHES! They've shown the duckling for so long that I've come to think that it's soap for farmers and people that want to bathe their pet duck!

I think the message here is that if Dawn can clean crude oil off of a duckling without harming it, it will clean the dirtiest dishes without damaging your hands. What annoys me a lot more about that commercial is that ducklings grow up fast, and the few days that critter would be kept under observation to recuperate would be long enough to completely change what it looks like.

It was a stupid commercial, IMO.

It's a dual meaning. "Strong enough to cut grease, yet gentle enough not to hurt a baby duckling".

And now it's clean enough to be used for Peking Duck.

If only they had Dawn after Exxon Valdez.

I thought it was crashes like the Exxon Valdez that led to that commercial?

I think so, too, but the gimmick has gone on waaaay too long. Time for a ditzy wife and clumsy husband doing the dishes. DUMP THE DUCKLING!

Sounds like you feel the same way about this as I felt about that Bounty commercial.

Time for a ditzy wife and clumsy husband doing the dishes. DUMP THE DUCKLING!

Or have a ditzy wife & clumsy husband PLAYED by ducklings!!!

;-)

That too.

Dixie has a couple of commercials on the air, in which the cheap, store brand paper plates droop, and all the food on the plates fall off. (In one particular ad, all over a young girl's diorama school project.) It's of course implied that would not have happened if they had used the stronger Dixie paper plates. How about using a regular ceramic plate? That way, their food wouldn't have fallen off and be wasted. And, less paper would have been discarded into the waste stream, to rot in a landfill.

Jennifer Coolidge is one again stinking up our screens.

I can't believe I never mentioned this annoying pet peeve of mine about certain commercials;
It's always a woman, and she slowly takes a small bite of a chocolate or some other food, then she closes her eyes, her shoulders relax and sink and suddenly Life Is Good for her.
Oy.
I have NEVER met a woman that EVER took a bite of food and felt the need to close her eyes as if she was experiencing somekinda existential bliss.
Hey, lady; you and your chocolate should get a room !

I never really noticed this until I saw the Roger video about Chocolate a while back. I.e., one of those 'if X ads were honest' videos.

Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcQa8xvKOIk

It's probably best not to watch this one at work. Not sure I'd call it NSFW but some might.

Weird stuff.

Daryl Hall and John Oates song "You Make My Dreams" is used in a current Doritos commercial. Just as the two are engaged in a very public lawsuit over their partnership. More on that here.

Talk about timing. You'd think that commercial would have been pulled due to the legal situation.

Kind of sad about this Hall VS Oats lawsuit. A 50 year partnership down the drain.

Onlia Insurance is at it again.
Last time they had annoying people yelling in the streets, "I WENT ON-LINE WITH ONLIA!".
Now, the new one is less annoying on the ears, but the concept is a little off-putting.

A man stands in front of his large, fancy 2-story house, practically a smaller mansion, and tells us he's with Onlia. The camera pans and a little girl warns everyone, "HEADS UP!" and a second later we hear a crash and pan back to the man. One of his upper windows has a hole in it, courtesy of the little girl's baseball, and he casually states he's putting in a claim with Onlia.
I'm sure 99 % of us would do the same and be reimbursed for the damage, but it's just such a big, fancy house my first thought was, "You rich slob! Just pay for it yourself! You can afford it!"

Uber Eats commercials with celebrities forgetting things.

I'd like to forget these stupid commercials, the existence of Uber Eats, and maybe a couple of the celebrities.

Those Elf perfume commercials.

Somehow they rope Judy Sheindlin into appearing in them. Why? She's a respected judge and had a successful television show. Surely she does not need the money.

Elf must have some dirt on her.

Or she's addicted to this thing called... "money".

;-)

Surely she's not that desperate for money.

Dixie has a current commercial that's the epitome of waste. A plate of food is shown falling off a skimpy paper plate. At the same time, a Dixie made paper plate is holding up the same amount of food without it falling off. Hey-How about using a regular sturdy ceramic plate (or whatever dinner plates are made of) and save a few trees in the process?

Morons.

Yeah. And I posted that one before, in October 2023. Deja Vu all over again.

They air on TV, but they're just as annoying on the radio, and play there much more frequently-- commercials for musical stage plays.
Recently here there's been upteen million airings of the same, single commercial for the play, 'Six', where the young lady belts out, "Listen up, let me tell you a storrrrryyy!".
It makes me just want to yell at her, "Shutup, already! Your story doesn't remotely interest me!"

And now to replace it, an even more annoying musical is coming back to Toronto--
"HIIIIIYAAAAAAAA! WAAAATTAAAMMAAAYYYAAAAA!"
'The Lion King'.
Again...shaddup, PLEASE!!!!!

Only time I listen to radio is when my powers goes off. I have a battery powered portable that I bust out on those occasions.