Each of these commercials was
honored as my
Loathesome Ad of the Week.
Dentyne
Ice
Hi there.
Can we suck in our cheeks any further?
This guy is lining up a pool shot, and there's this cooey music
with female moaning and whispering "Dentyne Ice".
Just as our pool man is about to gnaw right through his cheeks,
this mystery woman comes up and just starts kissing him for no
reason.
Should I really believe a woman
goes to a pool hall by herself (in a cocktail dress),
armed with Dentyne Ice and ready to slobber all over some random
guy
who is sucking his cheeks in like a goldfish?
Who do they pay to come up with this crap?
I recieved this note from the
ad's producer:
Hi
Nathan, Just want to set the record clear and straight. The Dentyne
Ice "Pool Hall" commercial is over 5 years old. How
do I know? I was
there when it was filmed in Bayside Queens New York. Don't you
think
it's about time you removed it from your site? It would also
be nice to
finally give [name deleted] and I a break and remove the posting
so that we all
can move forward. As a freelancer who has worked many years in
the
business I need all the help I can get to stay working. This
posting
should be removed finally. Who really cares what happened 5 years
ago
anyway. Can you please give us a break already.
Signed: The creative team.
My response:
Hi [name deleted],
I'm glad you and the team
are enjoying the site and I hope to see you
as a regular user on the new message board.
It would be nice to see some opinions from "the other side".
You'll see that I've removed
your names from the website,
and hopefully
within a few weeks,
Commercials I Hate won't be the very first link when you google
your own name.
I've also updated the page
to reflect the facts you've presented to me
regarding the age of the Dentyne Ice commercial.
I hope I haven't done you a disservice by failing to remove my
review.
I worked for years as a freelance
PA and I would have hated to see a website out there criticizing
my PA abilities,
describing how the 2nd AC on the Ludacris video failed to
get the hot dog he asked me for,
or that I accidentally made eye contact with Missy Elliott, completely
breaking her lip-syncing concentration.
I wish you continued luck
and success and I admire your pluck in the face of adversity.
I still stand my
my story that that guy was perfectly capable of getting his own
hot dog.
Take care,
Nathan Alexander
Commercials I Hate .com
K-Mart
- "Bluelight Always"
Hi, let's copy Wal-Mart down
to the last detail.
As if every man woman and child in America
hasn't seen the Wal-Mart ads 50 times each:
Wal-Mart
ads go like this.
We see a big sign with a price on it.
Then a smiley face bounces around and lowers the price.
The commercial ends with "Wal-Mart. Always."
Suddenly K-Mart has this commercial:
We see a big sign with a price on it.
Then little blue lights hop around and lower the price.
(with epileptic seizure-inducing flashes)
The commercial ends with "Blue light Always."
If K-Mart wants to be more like Wal-Mart here's what they can
do:
Clean the place.
Lower prices.
Keep everything in the same
place, week after week.
Label everything with a price.
Don't allow families larger
than 8 to shop all at once.
Hire a really old guy to say
hello to you when you walk in.
Incorporate Customer Service
into the Customer Service counter.
Re-instate English as the primary
language.
Put up big signs that tell
you where things are.
Take the retarded people away
from the cash registers and have them gather shopping carts from
the parking lot.
Have Charmin Ultra in stock.
Fabric section.
Make the check-out aisles WIDER
than a shopping cart.
Lose the con-job "claw"
machines with the stuffed animals.
Put a big fat McDonald's inside.
Then maybe they'll have an
excuse to run what is basically a Wal-Mart ad for K-Mart.
These Tide commercials that
tell a story- they're okay.
I even kind of like the one with Japanese woman who takes her
6-foot-5 anglo-husband back to Japan with his t-shirt collection.
I had no problems with the Tide people.
Until yesterday.
This new Tide commercial shows a woman taking her son to kindergarten.
The voice-over is like, "separation is hard," blah,
blah, blah. Then we hear THIS.
"It's easy for Spencer. As long as he gets to wear his favorite
shirt,
every day. The hard part is getting it clean every night."
Hello, I'm a slave to my child.
The ad shows this tyke pouring
green paint on the shirt,
and then the mom, pouring Tide on the green stain.
I'm pretty sure my mother read parenting books.
I believe those books are still in print, people.
Here's a woman who does laundry and washes the same shirt "EVERY
NIGHT",
just so her kid won't throw a hissy fit.
Lady! Get over it! Teach your kid to wear different clothes!
Bounty
Quilted Napkins
This ad shows a very fat asian kid in a kitchen chair
eating barbequed chicken.
In front of him is a stack of napkins,
and he repeatedly wipes sauce off of himself, throws the discarded napkin on the floor, and grabs a
new one.
There are no adults around him, anywhere.
After ten seconds, I'm trying
to figure out what I would hit him with.
It's either a tennis racket or a fly swatter.
The artist shows a woman a
blank canvas. She says:
"You ran out of paint and the art store wouldn't take a
check again, right?"
Yeah, that would be my first
assumption too.
Because that just happens soooo often. The ONLY place I've been
where they won't take a check is a restaurant. Any supply store
will take a check. Where the flying fuck are they supposed to
be? Russia?
The new KFC commercial boldly
states:
"INTRODUCING New Extra Crispy Chicken!"
I have been eating Extra Crispy chicken at KFC since I could
eat.
I'm tired of having my intelligence insulted this way.
Britney
Pepsi commercial hits "annoying" at Day 42
Here's why:
1) They removed the close-up insert of Britney's tummy.
What other reason was there to watch?
2) The song, the damn song! What does this mean? "My
heart won't skip a beat. I never look before I leap.
Ride. Just enjoy the ride. Don't need a reason why. Everything's
alright." That's the song. That's it. Is she
the ride? Do I have to be over 40 inches?
The minute-long commercial
for herpes medication.
It's great that we know what the medicine is,
and what it's for,
and what it's not ("a cure for herpes"),
but WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT?
A woman on a swing set!
Great. Are we now supposed to infer that she has herpes?
What I want to know is where this swing is so I can avoid it
and not sit on it.
That was the old commercial,
Now we have "Hi, I'm Lisa, the kickboxing Latina with Herpes."
And we see her kicking and jabbing and sweating everywhere,
swimming in the public pool... ugh.
That annoying hell-child!
I want to tie that little out-of-sync snaggletooth
to a post and set her on fire!
Damn her and her Isaac Hayes voice!
And what is up with the emphasis
on the word "cola"?
Like they keep sying "Pepsi-COLA" -
And the new slogan is "The Joy of COLA"
Hey - COLA is just half of Coca-Cola, ok?
A guy pulls his convertible
to a dusty gas station.
He changes his shirt, exposing his bare chest. At the gas station.
A woman watching from the gas station café
drops what she's doing (dishes)
and runs off with him.
"Old Spice. It's All in How You Use It."
SHE NEVER SMELLS HIM!!!!
And I promise, he doesn't smell good.
He's sweaty.
He also hasn't shaved in 3 days,
so when did he use this Old Spice?
Yes, there are a lot of them.
But I particularly object to the one with
Minnie Ripperton's screeching "Loving You"
and the ooey gooey white icing dribbling everywhere.
Obvious reasons.
This is what I call a perpetual
commercial,
because it's been running for at least five years.
One woman says, "I didn't want people spraying all over
my house.
That's why I called Sears Once-A-Year pest control."
Meanwhile, the commercial proceeds to show Sears workers
unscrewing switchplates, removing drawers...
Thank goodness it's not a hassle.
Then this other guy says,
"I can't miss work once a month waiting for the bug man."
WHO MISSES WORK waiting for the bug man?
For 20 years, the Orkin man has come to our house on Saturday.
They should have called it
"Another Bad Creation."
I simply cannot believe that Pepsi is marketing Diet Pepsi
as a new product with a new name.
Who fell for this?
It was only 15 years ago
that Billy Crystal advertised the one-calorie Diet Pepsi.
All of a sudden this is a new drink?
We're not supposed to remember?
By this
time, folks,
if you ever loved
the Taco Bell chihuahua,
I'm sure you're over it now.
It was cute when the dog spoke spanish,
because you said to yourself,
"Hey, a dog that speaks Spanish, how cute."
Then, he said "What is a logarithm," which made you
laugh.
Later he wore a beret, orating to a crowd,
singing a song that sounded like "For Jesus".
Then, Taco Bell got wise and showed us the words to the song.
And they were pretty damn bad.
Now the chihuahua is extremely verbose,
pals around with Godzilla, who made this year's worst movie,
and talks like a Cheech and Chong record.
"Uh, yeah, we'll have 2 million mexican pizzas,
we sure smoked a lot of weed!"
I'm sick of him. Send him to the pound or give him a muzzle.
Here's a compilation of Taco Bell chihuahua commercials on YouTube, including the "For Jesus" commercial.
A woman offers her friend a
dairy treat.
"No thanks, dairy foods really do a number on my stomach."
The first woman is taken aback.
"You're lactose intolerant?"
To which the friend articulately responds, "Huh?"
So this woman is bright enough
to
establish that the pains in her abdomen
are due to the consumption of dairy products,
yet she is totally unaware that her condition
is called "lactose intolerance?"
Every time this one comes on, I go for the MUTE or the POWER
button.
The most annoying jingle on
television today.
"Pizza in the morning, Pizza in the evening, Pizza at suppertime.
When pizza's on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime."
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
The jingle continues with,
"Pizza going down so fine."
Pizza GOING DOWN SO FINE?
Somebody WROTE this, and got PAID for it. It's infuriating!
have gone completely overboard!!!
Have you seen this one???
Same fat black lady.
"You've been amazed by our psychics,
but this time it's me who's going to shock and amaze you!
That's right, if you call now,
I'll give you a FREE 12-minute reading with a gifted psychic!"
And WHAT does it SAY at the
bottom of the screen? To be
eligible for free reading,
caller must sign up for
long-distance service change!
What idiot thinks this is free?
"Hmmm, that's all I have
to do for a free real psychic reading?"
This kid is in a tent in his OWN backyard,
IN THE RAIN,
writing a friggin' LETTER to his mom,
who is in the house!!!!
He's writes that he's HOMESICK
for a bowl of Campbell's Tomato Soup!!!
Hey kid!
Get out of the rain and go get some soup if you want it so damn
bad!
Thanks, Pizza Hut, for yet
another annoyance.
A guy goes into a pizza place and orders "the Edge pizza".
The pizza guy promptly cuts all the edges off of a normal pizza.
The customer then says, "That's not the Edge pizza."
Buddy, that's exactly what the Edge pizza is!
Six or eight huggy guys and
gals hangin' out on the front steps.
So here they all are, passing around this stick of Arrid,
each one of them rubbing it on their FOREARMS
and marveling at how clear it is!
First of all, who passes around their deodorant so that
all of their cuddly buddies can wipe it on themselves?
Second of all, these
people are lying all over each other like a pile of pillows!
How cute. "Jeff! Rub it on mine!!!"
Use Arid, for your swingin' lifestyle.
What is up with this forearm business?
They'll never get it to come off! Idiots.
Say it with me, people.
I can't believe I found it on YouTube.
"Guess what? My family
stopped brushing their teeth!"
How loathesome is this?
"You don't brush?" and the girl replies "Nope."
"Don't just brush,"
booms the announcer, "Reach!"
Guess what? If you use a Reach
toothbrush, you are still brushing.
When you stand on your toes to get a towel out of the linen closet,
THAT is reaching.
And what kind of woman would
even TRY to imply
that her family has bad hygeine?
It's just so BAD!
You see all these plates of
food,
and then half the food disappears from the plates.
and the announcer says
"If you could leave just a little bit left-over
after every meal..."
I expect him to say "You
could feed Somalia"
but instead he says you could LOSE WEIGHT!
Please! Lose weight by WASTING FOOD!
Here's one of those commercials
where people talk all slow-
Like the advertising people decided
"Hey! If the people hesitate when they talk,
it sounds unscripted!"
A new low in simulated honesty.
So all these overweight women talk to the camera like
"If you're ummm... overweight, well...
your doctor has something that... uh, may help you eat less"
Then you see all these heavy
ladies
getting the mail, planting a flower, walking on the beach,
like you're supposed to say, "Hey, they're not eating!"
It MUST be the PILL... wow!
You know, we've all hated these
commercials for years now,
but they are in fact getting worse.
The stupid song never goes away,
and may attack you at work or at home,
especially on the john.
The concept itself is pretty frightening.
Don't they KNOW that if a child CAN remove his training pants,
that he'll DO it?
What a nightmare!
The latest commercial for Pull-Ups
wins this week's Loathesome Award.
The little girl runs around in the garden with a trowel or something,
and the song goes:
"I'm a big kid, look what I can do/
I can make a garden grow like a big kid too..."
The commercial doesn't even mention
pulling your pants up or down.
What is this planting flowers thing going on here?
Who thought of that?
So now, your child can take off his Pull-Ups and plant them?
Let us in on the secret, please!
I saw the commercial five minutes
ago,
and already it is at the top of my hate list.
Two girls are briefing "The New Girl" about college
life,
which of course include eating Triscuits (what else?).
One of the girls is saying "Never eat in the dining hall..."
etc,
an they are discussing all this in a luxury apartment
with expensive hardwood floors and plush armchairs
and a deluxe model phone installed in the wall.
Is this supposed to be a DORM????????
In New York, this would cost $2000 a month!
One of the girls pulls a tray of Triscuits out of (!!!) an OVEN!
A full size oven in a dorm room
Triscuit, who do you think you're fooling?
Certainly not college students, who know what dorms look like.
Yet another prescription medicine
that starts with Z.
I thought we were through with this!
The commercial doesn't give any hint about what Zyban is or what
it does.
Great strategy, Zyban!
