dissecting commercials for humor value

September 11, 2006 3:21 PM

commercialsihate.com is an old-school site that had me laughing so much that i hyperventilated. does anyone do stuff like this still?
posted by sdn (49 comments total)

What do you mean by old school? It looks like half the blogs out there.
posted by MythMaker at 3:25 PM on September 11, 2006

maybe it's just that he is funnier?
posted by sdn at 3:31 PM on September 11, 2006

Being funny makes it old school? Or just that it has commercials referenced from before the Internet? I'm just not sure what makes it "old school."
posted by MythMaker at 3:38 PM on September 11, 2006

Note - I'm not trying to be snarky. It just doesn't read "old school" to me. Not like a 1996 geocities site...
posted by MythMaker at 3:43 PM on September 11, 2006

it's a site about TV ads that has no video

it's like, web 0.3
posted by unSane at 3:44 PM on September 11, 2006

I love his review of the green tea ginger soda:

"I took a sniff. It smells like a swingset. Outdoor chain and rubber seat.
It's what I imagine a manhole cover would smell like after a rainstorm.
Fresh and sewery.
I still can't believe it.
The next day, the can actually smells like a vagina."
posted by solid-one-love at 3:45 PM on September 11, 2006

Well, the one for Totino's Pizza Rolls made me giggle.

I really wish he would have mentioned the ad that gets me all het up:

HEAD ON!!! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!!! (X's 3)
posted by skilletfish at 3:47 PM on September 11, 2006

Believe it or not, I now want to try "Diet Hansen's Ginger-Flavored Green Tea Soda," because I can sort of remember liking the taste of loose change when I was a kid.
posted by Citizen Premier at 3:55 PM on September 11, 2006

The HEAD ON ad is dissected in the latest podcast.

Money quote from the VP of the company that makes Head On:

"Nobody in the focus groups said the ads were annoying"

(link goes to a brilliantly snarky LA Times article)
posted by unSane at 3:57 PM on September 11, 2006

Arg, I was so disappointed in not finding a Blue Bell Ice Cream ad in there. I hate those with a passion (and I don't even watch that much TV)! The most recent one I saw had two old women and an old man coming back to their old farmhouse. Cut to sepia-colored flashbacks of all of them as children doing all the down-at-the-farm stuff that kids do (swingin' on a tire, splashing around in the pond, etc. all in slow motion, of course). All the time some sentimental, cliched country song plays over the whole thing. And at the end, cut back to the old man and women out on the front porch, sitting on their wooden chairs dishing out Blue Bell brand ice cream. Just like the old-fashioned kind mamma used to make.

But, then, I guess there are a number of commercials that take that whole nostalgia drenched angle, though I think Blue Bell's ads are pretty much always like that.
posted by Stauf at 4:08 PM on September 11, 2006

HEAD ON!!! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!!! (X's 3)

Freedom from hemorrhoids? FREEDhem hemorrhoid creme! Freedom from hemorrhoids? FREEDhem hemorrhoid creme! Freedom from hemorrhoids? FREEDhem hemorrhoid creme!
posted by daninnj at 4:13 PM on September 11, 2006

Wow... I had never seen that Head On commercial so I found a video of it...

Actually I can't stop laughing. Thanks for the link unSane.
posted by Stauf at 4:16 PM on September 11, 2006

Stauf, I swear I read that as, "Blue Ball Ice Cream" the first time through.
posted by Richard Daly at 4:16 PM on September 11, 2006

No way, man. Their commercials rock...
posted by Stauf at 4:18 PM on September 11, 2006

Thanks for the link, unSane.

I knew better and I still clicked on Stauf's link. My co-worker was not impressed and I am now blind with rage.
posted by skilletfish at 4:22 PM on September 11, 2006

I think the head-on people realized that chapstick for the forehead is an incredibly bad idea, and just decided to waste some company money to annoy tv watchers.
posted by Citizen Premier at 4:35 PM on September 11, 2006

They need to step into the 21st century and get some video links up in that site.

Aside from that I'm pissed that he implies in his review of the casual Male ad that tall people have easy lives just because they are tall.
posted by Megafly at 4:37 PM on September 11, 2006

Citizen Premier writes "I think the head-on people realized that chapstick for the forehead is an incredibly bad idea, and just decided to waste some company money to annoy tv watchers."

Check out unSane's link: it actually explains the commercials. They had to take out some medical claims to pass BBB muster, so they just edited them out and looped the application instructions. It's unintentional genius!
posted by mr_roboto at 4:50 PM on September 11, 2006

I searched the archives and they don't mention the commercial I hate more than any other.

Remember that Kellog's ad they played a few years back where the guy runs out of milk and he sees a cow outside of his house and he runs up to it and another person in the house says to a third person in the house "Does he know that's a boy cow?"

Think about that for a second.

While you're thinking, I'll remind you they ran this ad for at least a year.

Still haven't figured it out?

Well, there's NO SUCH THING AS A FUCKING BOY COW. A boy cow IS A FUCKING BULL!!!

That is all.
posted by Ndwright at 4:56 PM on September 11, 2006

Ndwright writes "Still haven't figured it out?"

Hrm. I thought you were getting at something about the nature of the "milk" our unsuspecting naif would wind up obtaining from that "boy cow".
posted by mr_roboto at 5:02 PM on September 11, 2006

head-on is homeopathic, so it has no ingredients.
The Amazing Randi elucidates.
posted by hexatron at 5:09 PM on September 11, 2006

I was all set to laugh at the "white trash dolls" section but saw this one and though of some poor fat white-trash woman in a moomoo buying this doll as her son ships off to Iraq or something. Then the son dies and oh mah got how tragic. Etc.
posted by delmoi at 5:12 PM on September 11, 2006

Yeah, that annoyed me too Ndwright, though for a different reason: that joke has been run into the ground. Off of the top of my head it's been used in City Slicker's II and by Laura Bush (and it was already old before it reached her).
posted by Stauf at 5:12 PM on September 11, 2006

I think the head-on people realized that chapstick for the forehead is an incredibly bad idea, and just decided to waste some company money to annoy tv watchers.

Bad Idea? Are you serious? Those are probably the most effective low-budget commercials in the history of advertising.
posted by delmoi at 5:14 PM on September 11, 2006

it's a site about TV ads that has no video

it's like, web 0.3

this is what i meant by "old school."
posted by sdn at 5:18 PM on September 11, 2006

The commercial that drives me mad right now are the truck commercials with the animated spokesman who keeps blowing his lines. I'm totally at a loss at what we're supposed to think about those goddamn ads.
posted by Bookhouse at 5:30 PM on September 11, 2006

delmoi writes "I was all set to laugh at the 'white trash dolls' section but saw this one and though of some poor fat white-trash woman in a moomoo buying this doll as her son ships off to Iraq or something. Then the son dies and oh mah got how tragic. Etc."

Jesus, delmoi, I'm seriously getting choked up here....
posted by mr_roboto at 5:43 PM on September 11, 2006

Nifty.
posted by Smedleyman at 5:44 PM on September 11, 2006

Yeah, that Lamisil ad is pretty disgusting. Anything where either bacteria or snot is depicted as some kind of nasty, elf-like creature living inside of you -- I mean, come on. This is suppose to make me purchase your product?
posted by drinkcoffee at 5:57 PM on September 11, 2006

I always found those Valtrex commercials funny. In all of those there's always a scene where the woman is running around hand-in-hand with her unidentified partner. You just want to break through the commercial format and warn the poor sucker: "Watch out! That chick's got herpes! Protect yourself for chrissakes! It's incurable!"

Also I've always wondered why women seem to be so keen on doing all sort of crazy physical activities like rock climbing, swimming and riding horses right around the time Aunt Flo's visiting, when they're really not that keen on doing these things at other times in the month. Or at least that's what I've been lead to believe by commercials for feminine hygiene products.
posted by clevershark at 6:07 PM on September 11, 2006

Those are probably the most effective low-budget commercials in the history of advertising.

Totally, and that's the terrible thing about all of these commercials; if they are irritating enough for somebody to remember them (let along comment online about them) then they are doing exactly what they're supposed to do. [...insert rest of anti-marketing rant]

I definitely prefer this version (youtube) of the HeadOn commercial. Oh, and there's this comic.
posted by whir at 6:14 PM on September 11, 2006

let alone comment, that is
posted by whir at 6:17 PM on September 11, 2006

At the request of the Better Business Bureau, HeadOn removed claims that the product provides relief from headaches, migraines and headache pain with sleeplessness.

Thus expunged of any claim of efficacy or benefit, what remains is, I think, unique in advertising: a commercial that says nothing about the product except how to use it.
posted by mrgrimm at 6:18 PM on September 11, 2006

Erm...

I love his review of the green tea ginger soda:

"I took a sniff. It smells like a swingset. Outdoor chain and rubber seat.
It's what I imagine a manhole cover would smell like after a rainstorm.
Fresh and sewery.
I still can't believe it.
The next day, the can actually smells like a vagina.

Does this mean that the next day it started smelling good, or that "vagina" is the next level of disgusting after sewer?
posted by jokeefe at 6:26 PM on September 11, 2006

Two commercials - or campaigns, anyway - that I didn't see on the site which are very annoying:

Enzyte, for "natural male enhancement". This campaign is so creepy that even if I did believe that their product worked - I kind of doubt it - and I felt a need for such a thing - err, no - I still wouldn't buy anything that would apparently turn me and everyone around me into a lobotomized Stepford-ite. Does anyone else think that maybe Bob's funhouse-mirror-faced wife might have something to do with him having shrinkage issues?

Kellog's Raisin Bran Crunch series of "Oh, the dude is eating crunchy cereal so he can't hear his increasingly frustrated boss try to fire him" spots. I can't decide whether this campaign makes me want to strangle the advertising genius behind it with his or her own entrails, or just shoot myself now because humanity is doomed. This series is stupid.

Thanks for letting me vent.
posted by John Smallberries at 7:22 PM on September 11, 2006

whir: "...that's the terrible thing about all of these commercials; if they are irritating enough for somebody to remember them [..] then they are doing exactly what they're supposed to do."

I've never bought that argument. I mean, yeah, I know that HeadOn exists, and I know that you apply it directly to the forehead. But I still, after all this talk about it, have no idea what it is. Personally, I'm not too inclined to spend money on mystery products. Can you really call that effective?
posted by CrayDrygu at 8:11 PM on September 11, 2006

CrayDrygu: I'm not too inclined to spend money on mystery products.

Well, maybe HeadOn was facing hundreds of potential civil trials from consumers who mistakenly rubbed it on their armpits, and will now know precisely where to stick it. But now you recognize the product's name, and on a broad statistical level (as I understand it), you are more likely to buy a product you have heard of than one you haven't.

I'm sure someone who more of a marketing-head than I am can explain this idea better (or even back it up with facts/research, which I can't). The thing is, I don't like this theory of behavior myself; I think it demonstrates a contempt for the intelligence of the consumer that is a depressingly common thread in all of these commercials. But the people who make really annoying ads do so precisely because they believe that even if you are annoyed by the product, the fact that you may recognize it outweighs any negative assocation you may have received from the advertising itself.
posted by whir at 9:07 PM on September 11, 2006

At some point my wife will buy Head On. I know she will. She won't be able to stop herself. The voices in her head...

HEAD ON... APPLY DIRECTLY TO FOREHEAD... HEAD ON...

... will drive her to it. When she gets home I will mock her mildly for buying a wax stick. She will try it once and it won't work. It will sit in the bathroom cabinet for the next twenty years. It will probably be there when our children finally clear out our effects and sell the house.
posted by unSane at 8:35 AM on September 12, 2006

Just because you remember an annoying ad doesn't mean that the ad was effective. Chances are you're never going to buy the product/service being advertised. You might be aware of the brand, but awareness doesn't fill the coffers with gold. Only the lowest form of shit sets out to create work like that. And if you don't like it: blame the clients. It's the weasel B.Comms out there who insist on this crap. Trust me.
posted by theinsectsarewaiting at 9:23 AM on September 12, 2006

Why does everybody hate Digger the Dermatophyte from Lamasil so much? I'd rather have a little plush version of him hanging from my rear-view mirror than a Serta sheep.

Sorry I don't have a link, but somewhere I read that HeadOn contains chemicals similar what's in copiers. That's probably not so good.
posted by Wylie Kyoto at 9:56 AM on September 12, 2006

john smallberries (ha!) -- that enzyte commercial is horrific. now i want to send it to the commercialsihate.com guy.
posted by sdn at 10:32 AM on September 12, 2006

I operate a site called awfulcommercials.com and I'd love to hear some input about it. To the best of my memory this is the first time I've seen "commercials I hate".

I've been considering going the youtube route with my videos.. Right now I only link to one video on youtube (the dreaded head-on commercial), everything else is on-site.
posted by DigDugDag at 1:58 PM on September 12, 2006

Thus expunged of any claim of efficacy or benefit, what remains is, I think, unique in advertising: a commercial that says nothing about the product except how to use it.

That's hardly unique at all, as anyone who's seen an ad for a douche, excuse me, "feminine hygiene product" can attest. I saw one on television the other day, and if I hadn't recognized the product after seeing it in Target and wasn't already familiar with the coded language these ads tend to use I would have had no idea what they were selling. They just throw out all this talk about "freshness" and whatnot, and then to top it off show the woman in the ad spraying herself on the arm with her little can of aerosol vagina perfume. WTF.

Mind you, I suppose the alternative slogan: "Douche: Because your Cooter is a Dirty Dirty Thing" would probably not have met with FCC approval.
posted by kosher_jenny at 2:02 PM on September 12, 2006

does anyone do stuff like this still?

If this site is any indication, there's a reason why they stopped.
posted by crunchland at 2:03 PM on September 12, 2006

Well, they only have to talk you into buying the product one time; after that; it's up to you.

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." -- H.L. Mencken (attr.)

I'm pretty sure the Enzyte ads are enlightened self-parody, but maybe I'm too into the whole hip-detached-irony thing to tell. Maybe 1955 put the schnitz on their ad company's brains and they really mean it.
posted by pax digita at 2:28 PM on September 12, 2006

theinsectsarewaiting: "Just because you remember an annoying ad doesn't mean that the ad was effective. Chances are you're never going to buy the product/service being advertised."

As an example, I'm personally boycotting GNC (as are a few of my friends) because their TV and radio ads start with an alarm clock sound.

I'd like to know what their marketing department thinks about the value of that mindshare. Because I'm certainly remembering them, no doubt about that.
posted by CrayDrygu at 3:32 PM on September 12, 2006

HEAD ON!!! SHOVE DIRECTLY UP YOUR ARSE!!!!
HEAD ON!!! SHOVE DIRECTLY UP YOUR ARSE!!!!
HEAD ON!!! SHOVE DIRECTLY UP YOUR ARSE!!!!
posted by kcds at 5:39 PM on September 12, 2006

I think this is a quote from somewhere. A friend of mine was fond of repeating it (after annoying commercials):

"Let's get down on all fours, and look at it from the customer's point of view."
posted by Goofyy at 11:24 PM on September 12, 2006

If you're feeling the strong urge to rant about commercials, you should check out the Commercials I Hate Forum.
Most commercials you mentioned are in there:
Here are the posts on Lamisil and Enzyte.
Head On has over 100 posts about it. Check it out.
posted by sinus at 6:26 PM on September 20, 2006