Tag Archives: commercials we do not like

You May Now Eat The Bride

11 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Culture, Stupidity

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By Smaktakula

Gawrsh! We Wouldn't Know What To Buy If The Man On The TeeVee Didn't Tell Us.

At least 99% of television commercials are mind-numbing horseshit. That Madison Avenue pitchmen are able not only able to part consumers from their hard-earned cash for products they want and need, but also to concoct and sell products for which there was previously no need, is a testament both to their skill and to the credulity of the purchasing public. However, occasionally these advertising geniuses use their talents to such unspeakable ends that we are forced to take notice. A recent example of this type of airwave abortion is Jack In The Box’s odious I Love Bacon.

The commercial’s premise is fundamentally flawed, assuming that the “I” watching the advertisement does indeed love the sodium-saturated snap of sizzling swineflesh.  Gentle readers, be assured that this “I” most certainly does not enjoy this artery-stuffing repast, refusing to pollute his body with the filthy swine. We have watched with growing horror as America’s ongoing flirtation with the pig has recently blossomed into romance, leaving in its greasy wake a host of bacon-themed products, including the faddishly inedible bacon sundae.

Even The Most Atheistic Of Atheists Has Got To Know, Deep Down, That This Is An Affront To God Almighty.

Moreover, this commercial may rankle those groups, most notably Jews and Muslims, whose faith proscribes pork products of any kind. These commercials will most likely not prove any more offensive to Jews (some who may secretly indulge their own love of bacon in a neighborhood with low synagogue-saturation), who after centuries of persecution have learned to discern actual threats from those matters which simply cause the bunching of panties. The Muslim community, however, has of late gained a good deal of traction from the notion that if something is perceived as offensive to the faith, then it should be seen by no one. This could prove problematic for Jack In The Box, as pig-meat is among the many, many things Muslims find ritually unclean and therefore mortally offensive.

Fortunately, It's Unlike Muslims To Go All Batshit Crazy Over Someone Else's Lifestyle Choices.

It is not often we find ourselves in complete agreement with anachronistic fundamentalist wackos with nasty beards, but today is one of those rare times. By even joking about marriage between a man and a food product, Jack In The Box sets a dangerous standard. Rather than the clever commercial it pretends to be, Jack In The Box’s I Love Bacon campaign is a dangerous incitement to America’s impressionable youth, telling them it’s perfectly okay to grow up to be a pig-fucker.

Oooh, You're Dirty Girls, Aren't You? Say It! Say, "We're Dirty Girls!"

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Self-Confessed Pig-Fucker.

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Commercials We Do Not Like: Messin’ With Sasquatch

17 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Culture, Entertainment, Stupidity

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By Smaktakula

Not Since "I've Fallen And I Can't Get Up" Has A Commercial Pitchman Been The Subject Of So Much Ridicule.

It seems unbelievable that the public would choose sodium-infused roadkill as a snack, and even more unlikely that they would continue to consume this pricey shoe-leather if incessantly bombarded by an annoying commercial.  And yet this is exactly what has come to pass in Jack Link’s popular advertising campaign, Messin’ with Sasquatch.

This Nonexistent Creature Rues The Day He Ever Let A Drunken Washingtonian Take His Picture.

The premise which guides this series of ads is interesting enough: practical jokes.  All the old standards are here: the hand in warm water trick, the rat’s tail,* the ‘want-a-ride?’ tease, and so many more.  The campaign quickly turns unfunny, however, when it becomes apparent that there is but one target of this sophomoric harassment.  Invariably the lonely, hunted Sasquatch is the sole victim to the childish whims of Gen X white guys, and can only bellow inarticulate rage at his tormentors.  Beef jerky, the ostensible focus of the campaign, is tangential to the story, something for the inebriated yahoos consume as they torment the massive cryptid.

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The most damning aspect of the commercials is the complete lack of comeuppance for bigfoot’s tormentors.  After being so cruelly mocked, the enraged Sasquatch reacts violently against the perpetrators,  sometimes tossing them about, once going so far as to turn over a speeding golf cart.  However frightening the beasts’ counterattack, the response is clearly not forceful enough to compel the abusers to desist: the wildly popular commercials continue.  This is a dangerous message for a society already rife with bullies.

The Sasquatch's Peculiar, Non-Threatening Disposition Is A Liability In The Cutthroat World Of Nature.

The Sasquatch’s well-deserved revenge extends only far enough to leave the soused perpetrators with minor injuries, perhaps a fracture or bad sprain.  In a perfect world, these commercials would be so graphic as to require a parental advisory warning, depicting a more realistic fate for those drunken cretins foolish enough to taunt an 800-lb. beast with the brain of a man.  In this more just version, the forest is decorated with the carcasses of Bigfoot’s assailants: human heads nestled in the crotches of trees, entrails festooning tree-limbs like holiday crepe-paper, the woods alive with the electric white noise of flies, and the sky above marked by a slow gyre of lazily circling vultures.  In the center of it all, atop a massive pyramid of sun-bleached bones picked clean of meat, Sasquatch sits munching from a blood-streaked bag of Jack Link’s.

"Fuck Your Jerky! Sasquatch Want BRAINS!" The Comeuppance We'd Really Like To See.

* Smaktakula has personally met someone who ruptured a testicle thanks to a carelessly whipped towel.  Although he went on to father three children, he claims it still hurts when he’s in the shower and “the water hits it just right.”  ∞T.

Commercials We Do Not Like: Bad Andy

22 Tuesday Feb 2011

Posted by in Culture

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By Smaktakula

Look--At Least Now You Know Now Why Your Pizza Tastes Like Monkey Ass On Cardboard.

Television commercials are subject to the same limitations as all human endeavors: they don’t always turn out the way they’re supposed to.  Advertising can be particularly vulnerable to this in that failure might not only mean that a spot was unable to steer buyers toward a product, but that it actually turned existing buyers away.

These Horrifying Simulacra Did Not Encourage Customers To Buy Duracell Batteries. Rather, They Caused Terror-Induced Incontinence.

At the same time, innovations such as digital recording which make it easier to skip through commercials have given advertisers greater anxiety that their message not be heard.  Increasingly these advertisers are forced to concoct new and outlandish advertising campaigns to seize–however briefly–the viewer’s consciousness before his moth-like attention span gives way.

This Advertising Campaign Was Funny . . . (Wait For It) . . . About A Million Years Ago.

Sometimes, as in the case of GEICO’s ‘Cavemen‘ or the ‘Old Spice Man‘ commercials, a radical vision can portray an existing product in a fresh light.  More often, however, these attempts are forgettable misfires, quickly relegated to the dustbin of commercial history.

"But You Know What Would Really Help Us Sell Our Sandwiches?--A Horrifying Creature That Looks Like What You'd See If You Swallowed An Eye-Dropper Full Of LSD While Battling A 104° Fever."

But there exists an odious few campaigns, spectacular misfires which have been elevated to the pantheon of all-time rancid commercials, which cling in the mind like dog shit on the bottom of a shoe.  One such commercial campaign was Domino’s late, but certainly unlamented, ‘Bad Andy.’  Around the Turn of the Century, Bad Andy stunk up the airwaves like nothing else.

We Don't Recall Anyone Asking For 'Gay Andy.'

“Bad Andy, Good Pizza.”  Conceived upon a foundation of fallacies, the campaign was doomed to fail.  The first of these was the mistaken belief that, despite the cautionary example of Pets.com, sock puppets would appeal to anyone but the poorest of children.  The second miscalculation was even more severe: a failure to recognize that a feces-flinging primate run amok inside a pizza parlor is not only unappealing, but shockingly unhygienic.

Don't Be Alarmed--She's An Actress And Wasn't At All Hurt During The Filming Of This Classic Scene. Of Course, She's Dead Now.

Thanks to the magic of the marketplace, consumers quickly convinced Domino’s that the savory aroma of fresh pizza and the nasty funk of the zoo’s monkey house were two tastes which didn’t belong together.  Bad Andy was unceremoniously yanked from television, and with the exception of a brief stint as Deputy Director of FEMA in August of 2005, the irritating puppet has maintained a low profile ever since.

Bad Andy’s debut!

The mouth-watering stank of moist primate:

And he’s a fucking thief now . . .

Me vale madre! Bad Andy en Espanol!

Jeez. Maybe They Should Call You 'Sleazy Andy.'

Want more shitty commercials?  Try these:

Bush’s Original Baked Beans

The Olive Garden

A1 Steak Sauce

Commercials We Do Not Like: A1 Steak Sauce

29 Wednesday Sep 2010

Posted by in Culture

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By Smaktakula

Now With More Chutney!

A1 Steak Sauce, which first reached American shores in the late 19th Century, has become a restaurant staple.  The surprisingly addictive brown sludge–which contains among other ingredients: dates, vinegar, mango chutney and apples– can be found next to the napkin dispenser on grimy tables across this great land.

Although there are certainly better steak sauces on the market, the fact that every year steaks are covered in enough A1 to fill Lake Superior is evidence of the regard in which the food-like product is held.  Despite having all the flavor subtlety of a semi careening through the living room wall, A1 doesn’t suck.

In One A1 Campaign The Announcer Boasts "I Have Actually Wept Over A Steak." Really? Because That Makes You Either A Hindu Or A Pussy. We Don't See Any Dot On Your Forehead.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for A1’s commercials.  For over twenty years the company’s executives have been greenlighting commercials which could not possibly appeal to any sort of discerning taste.  Marketing a mid-range product to a host of desperate hut-dwellers is not unlike pushing Showtime on a Cinemax audience–they’re just not ready for it.

This first commercial highlights A1’s apparent target audience: the shapeless ignoramus.  A1 presents as a virtue the protagonist’s unfathomable stupidity in addition to his complete disregard for his own safety, when at the end he asks about the welfare of a steak which will never cross his lips.

In the sauce giant’s most recent campaign,  A1 juxtaposes images of  Meatloaf, the grotesque singing oddity of yesteryear, and meatloaf, the meat-based comestible.  This apparently in the mistaken belief that watching a lumpy has-been grunt over his meat before lip-synching  to a mangled version of one of his few hits will be in any way appetizing to all but the most lonely fetishists.

As we have seen, A1 now focuses a significant portion of its advertising on individuals with aberrant personalities.  But what about the truly damaged?  A1 especially wants them.  Witness this appeal not only to dangerous sociopaths, but the victims upon whom they prey who refuse to see themselves as anything but helpless.  Enjoy!

In this A1 offering from yesteryear, one family’s creepy uncle (and Dick Cavett doppelgänger) ruins yet another get-together when he becomes orgasmic over A1:  My dear nephew, what is hamburger–chopped ham?  NO!  It’s chopped steak.  And what’s better on steak than . . . A1? This occasion marked the last time that Uncle Chester was asked over to the house.  Not because he was giddy for steak sauce, but because of the way his hands always seemed to linger too long on Joey.

A1 boasts that it was originally the condiment of kings, and would have consumers believe that a little bit of that royal awesomeness can still be found within each and every bottle of A1.  However, their advertising speaks to a completely different class of person, one which shares a single characteristic with the 19th Century European Royalty for whom the sauce was concocted, an appreciation for sexual congress between  first cousins.

Although this last commercial cannot truly be counted among the A1 Canon, if it were, it would be under the heading “Commercials We Like.”

Commercials We Do Not Like: The Olive Garden

23 Friday Jul 2010

Posted by in Art, Commercials, Corporate Culture, Culture, Food, General Foolishness, People, Relationships, Social Networking, Television

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By Smaktakula

The Olive Garden has been crapping out adequate fare for nearly thirty years, all the while striving mightily to frame itself as the workingman’s access to continental dining.  Targeting those customers for whom the Red Lobster is too provincial, the Olive Garden aspires to bring the charm of an idealized Old World Italy to such unlikely spots as Lexington, Kentucky or Elko, Nevada.     

These Ample Eaters Are More Representative Of Olive Garden Customers Than Are The Beautiful People In The Commercials

No one begrudges Olive Garden’s right to pass off its inedible fare as authentic Italian.  Americans have long been tolerant of such culinary bastardizations, preferring them in most cases to the authentic ethnic dishes from which they came.  However, as understandable as Olive Garden’s right to make a profit from the insensate palates of gastronomically-benumbed Americans may be, their commercials venture into the realm of the unforgivable.     

One familiar commercial features a laughing group of family members engaged in spirited non-stop conversation about the food set before them, thrusting lightly with their forks at one another’s plates, merrily sharing food.      

Any real gathering of an American family that doesn’t include drunken recriminations and acidic passive-aggression is a sham.  Moreover, in the current climate of bacterial paranoia coupled with orgiastic overeating, anyone foolish enough to attempt snatching food from a neighbor’s plate is most likely to end the encounter with a fork jutting from the back of his hand.     

Another commercial features a similar assemblage, this time a group of upwardly mobile, physically fit and improbably racially diverse friends.  Like the aforementioned family, the hot young pals can think of nothing better to discuss than the fine fare at Olive Garden, until one asshat kills the conversation by declaring his intention of “doing the alfredo.”  Outside of their boorish behavior, these people bear very little resemblance to the mouth-breathing hominids one is likely to encounter within the stuccoed confines of this craptastic eatery.     

Olive Garden’s most memorable campaign is also its most odious.  It should be familiar by now: an unctuous voice, oozing with manufactured warmth, intones at the close of the commercial, “When you’re here, you’re family.”     

Really?  Unless it’s a tacit guarantee that the meal will be free, promising to treat the customer like family is cynical glibbery of the lowest order.  It’s doubtful that many people will recall Mom charging $14.95 for a lackluster plate of spaghetti with the promise of unlimited salad and MSG-encrusted bread sticks.     

And last is this commercial, which informs us breathlessly that “At Olive Garden, ‘generosity’ begins with a G,” clearly ignorant of the fact that the word also begins with a G throughout the United States and many parts of Canada.  However, the unconvincingly accented narrator goes on to remind us that at Olive Garden, generosity ends “when you are happy,” which sounds a lot like this Chinese massage parlor that Smaktakula knows about.     

 

Commercials We Do Not Like: Bush’s Original Baked Beans

06 Tuesday Jul 2010

Posted by in Commercials, Corporate Culture, Critters, General Foolishness, Justice, People, Relationships, Scandal, Television

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By Smaktakula

Jay Bush, the balding, squishy spokesperson for Bush’s Original Baked Beans seems like a nice enough guy.  With his rounded, non-threatening contours and schlumpy, vulnerable charm, Bush is an able enough pitchman for his family’s product.                 

Then there’s Duke, Bush’s golden retriever and sole confidant.  Two details about Duke serve as a radical distinction from other dogs.                 

1) Duke speaks.  This in itself is unusual, as human-like speech has previously only been evinced in some more advanced members of the Great Dane family.  In most cases, those animals formed words with great difficulty, and no one was likely to confuse them with a human speaker.  Duke speaks more eloquently than does his ostensible “master.”         

2) Whereas dogs, and golden retrievers in particular, are prized for their loyalty, Duke is a treacherous cur.  For reasons known only to the conniving canine, Duke is continually seeking to sell the Bush Family’s secret recipe to competitors.  That the animal is compelled to do this despite the near impossibility that Duke would be able to utilize any money he received from betraying the Bush Family, points to an advanced–and dangerous–psychosis.                

The fact that Duke, after several times nearly succeeding in selling the time-honored recipe, is still positioned so securely within the company should be troubling to stockholders.               

If the public face of Bush’s baked beans can’t command even the loyalty of his own dog, while at the same time choosing to remain ignorant to the mounting evidence of Duke’s perfidy, how much faith can the public have in Bush Brothers and Company?          

Accountability, and lack thereof, is a slippery slope.  One day America loves you for your savory products, the next some little girl finds half a pinky finger in her chile con carne.         

If Bush Brothers & Co. wishes to regain the trust of the baked beans buying public, they must take drastic and immediate action to reassure nervous shareholders that theirs is a company on the grow, free from internal distractions.                

They can start by killing that fucking dog.                

Here's My Concept. It Also Comes In 'Purse.'