Watch out!

There is a watch commercial that touts the watch as 'unstoppable' like Eli Manning. Now....I got nothin' against Eli Manning. But, if I'm buying a watch that is the same unstoppability as Eli Manning...I think I'm going to not buy a watch! (Sorry Eli)

Remember me?

Well, I have a minute and thought I'd see if I remembered how to do this 'blogging' thing. I'm suprised I remembered my password! Some more things about commercials...and, I don't remember how to format this the way I want it. So, I'm not going to format it at all. First, the Geico Cavemen. I don't think there has been a new Caveman commercial since I last wrote about how much I loved the Cavemen!! What's up with that?!? Sure, they got their own series (or, something. I never saw an episode). But, why no more commercials?

Another thing...And, I see that I have posted on this before. But, those Toyota Tundra commercials, (I guess they're Tundras. This is a different campaign than the one mentioned below) have got to be as dumb as anything I've ever seen shy of a Hardee's commercial! the trouble they go to (or, make it look like they go to) to have a gravel-voiced tuff guy talk about '...you better be able to stop 10,000 pounds' is nonsense. Nonsense, I say. All the swinging I-beams and made-up obstacles? The truck taking off fast to not get hit by some big chunk of metal, then flying through some big metal door closing, only to have to slam on his brakes to not go flying off a cliff!?! Give me a brake....whoops...I mean break!

"Where do we go now...."

Toyota Tundra...

How could I have gone so long, made so many riveting posts, and not mentioned the commercials for Toyota Tundra? I think that just goes to show how flawed flogs can be. I LOVE the Toyota commercial with the meteor hitting the pick-up truck out in the desert and the truck just drives on. Very nice. I also like the one with the Loch Ness monster. I chuckle when the man says "Shoot it! Shoot it!" Chuckle, I say!

Two in one day...

Chevy

The commercial with a bunch of womens in an ugly little station-wagon-looking thing (An 'HHR'?) with a bunch of men, nearly naked, dancing around and rubbing on the car is plain old, flat out stupid. 'Stupid', I say.

"It's not delivery, baby!"

Dick Vitale...in general

Okay, Dick is probably a nice guy. Maybe not. What do I know. But, somebody needs to tell him we are tired of his DiGiorno commercials and are going to get tired of his new Hooters' commercial (which seems to be the same as the DiGiorno commercial, only it's for Hooters), too. So, don't stop pitchin'...just stop throwin' the same pitch.

Sierra Mist

First of all...I credited some other company (a job-finding website, I think) with the goatee comb-over ad during the Super Bowl. It was actually Sierra Mist. They've had some good commercials over the past few years, many with Jim Gaffigan. And, the comb-over/short cut-offs is about the best. Kudos to 'The Mist'. They've also used Kathy Griffin in a couple. And, those ads may be the only time I've ever seen Kathy Griffin and not wanted to punch her.

"What's in your attic?"

CapitolOne

Alright...ALRIGHT!! The plunderers and pillagers were funny the first couple of times. And, I kinda sorta liked the recent ones where they've gotten 'real' jobs. But, for the most part, they need to follow the AFLAC duck to the basement at TIAA-Cref and none of them ever be seen or heard again. The whole "What's in your wallet?" thing can go away now.

SUV commercials in general...

Why do automakers think that if they show us how much nature an SUV can tear up we'll want to buy one? With few exceptions, SUV commercials show people going places you shouldn't be able to drive to, and that are essentially ruined if you do, in vehicles that seem to never get dirty. There always seems to be rocks and dirt flying from beneath tires as these destroyers of earth go flying by on their way to a place that was much prettier before the yuppies arrived to take a snapshot photograph through the window.

Hardees

Hardees sux!!

A Coke and a smile....

Coca-Cola

So, here's a question for you: Does a company like Coca-Cola really need to advertise? Do you think there would be a substantial drop in sales if they cut their advertizing budget in half? How many Cokes do they have to sell just to pay for the advertizing? Obviously, Coca-Cola isn't hurting financially. I just wonder why a product like that, as strong and engrained as Coke, has to spend the kind of money they do to tell us about the product.

Another thing about beverage ads...have you ever changed your choice of beverage based on a 'taste test'? No? The fact that some old woman from Knoxville, TN prefers Coke to Pepsi isn't going to make you prefer Coke to Pepsi? No? Then, why, oh why, do they all keep telling us that this cola or that beer won a 'taste test'?

Ford

I love the Ford Fusion commercial. Don't get me wrong; I don't know what Ford Fusion looks like and would never own one. But, in the commercial, (which I don't think I've ever actually 'watched') the guy tells us how much 'Car and Driver Magazine' loves the Ford Fusion. That the Fusion 'is' the 'best' something or another in America. I wonder if anyone at Ford or 'Car and Driver' has picked up a Wall Street Journal lately to notice the billions of dollars Ford lost last quarter.

Chevy Trux

I gotta tell you, I LOVE THE CHEVY SILVERADO CAMPAIGN!!! Hell yeah, this is Our Country!! Are you kiddin' me?!? (The fact that I love these commercials has little to nothing to do with the fact that some of the money spent on the commercials, via the trickle-down effect, is paying for the internet connection I'm using to post this. Little to nothing...)

Wendy's

Alright...here's the thing: I love the miniature hamburger, fries and beverage the guy in the '$2.99 value meal' campaign is eating. Funny. BUT...I hate the guy!! I hate his teeth. I hate his sunken eyes. (I see him in a tax prep company's ad now, too) I hate that two guys are sitting in a library EATING fast food...next to each other...from different restaurants. What are the chances? I also think it would have been better if the second guy had said something like "Same here" instead of "$2.99" Is that picking nits?

Alright...enough of this

You've changed, man.

I've done some editing on some of the previous posts...so, if you've been here before, you may want to take a peek and see. I wouldn't. This is all just a bunch of crap anyway... though, still better than Hardees.

More...or, less

Alright, let's go again...

Taco Bell

Revisiting Taco Bell, we are. I like the commercial with the lions talking about burritos. The one lion teaching the other how to trill his 'r's. "Like Ricardo Monteban" he says. That's funny.
(And, again...this is not to indicate that Taco Bell food should EVER be eaten!)

Degree deodorant/anti-perspirant

There's some weird new thing that has guns and shooting and robberies and WAY too much tension for a deodorant commercial. I don't like it AT ALL. Apparently there is a website that you can go to to see the next 'scene' in a continuing saga of the bank robbery. Not sure about that. I AM sure I don't like a deodorant commercial to be so violent.

Applebees/TGIF/Chilis/Olive Garden, etc.

I don't like any of the commercials these large, successful restaurant chains come up with. The 'everybody's laughing and having a good time' theme is trite and obnoxious. I wouldn't go to a restaurant if there was as much laughing and good-timing as there is in the commercials. And, the guys they let talk generally say nothing that makes me want to go to the restaurant. I did like the Applebees commercial with the girl having the recently-retired basketball coach hang a picture. It's a heart-strings thing. I DON'T like the one where everyone decides to work late because the local football team got beat. COME ON! (There'll be more, at some point, on some of these commercials individually. Aren't you excited??)

Another commercial I don't remember what the company is:

I have no clue what the product is, but I love the commercial with the little kid putting on an 'art show' for mommy and daddy. Apparently the child is pretty good because because the parents are able to tell the painting named 'Spot' is the neighbor's dog. The one name 'yellow house' is grandma's yellow house. And, the one named 'mommy and daddy wrestling' is....purchased quickly by mommy. Very nice. (What IS that for??)

As long as I'm here...

Sonic

I like the Sonic commercials with the two guys in their car
eating and talking and talking and eating. There is generally some good
back and forth and forth and back going on .


Safe Auto Insurance

I hate the Safe Auto commercials. They have a few different campaigns,
and I hate all of them. The ones with the people
walking around a cubicle-filled office where people tell 'us' what a
caller just told them...and, how Safe Auto was there to save the day
for them. Stuff like "She doesn't get paid until next week. I told her we'd hold the check!"
Then, there is the goofy guy with the bow-tie and windshield-size glasses who does all
the slap-sticky things...like "When you want the minimum coverage..." and, he's wearing
nothing but a sandwich-board. And, all the ads with people
singing, in various scenarios, the Safe Auto jingle "1-800-SAFE
AUTO"... anyway...I hate 'em.


State Farm

Since we're talking insurance....How about State Farm. You know
when they have people tell us 'real stories' about how great State Farm
is? Like the one where a coach's car is broken into and all the kid's
uniforms are stolen. The State Farm agent ends up coaching the team. My ASS!! Or, the brother who was an insurance agent who didn't
take as good of care of his brother as State Farm took of him? Ask a few million people in Mississippi and Louisiana what they
think of State Farm. Good neighbors?


Nextel (and, some other company they joined with)

How's that for someone who pays attention to commercials?
Anyway, the Nextel commercial I like has the two gunfighters in an
old-tyme tavern and they're facing off. Only, the one guy, who is
representing Nextel (and, this other company), is faster than the
other. He (the Nextel guy) keeps slappin' the other fellow before the
other fellow (who, apparently is representing another, slower cell
phone company) even moves. I mostly like the sound effects.


Rembrandt.com/ ???

I'd never heard of this 'company' until I just saw their
commercial. I don't know what they sell...but, it must have something
to do with the mouth. I'm pretty sure I'll never go to
Rembrandt.com simply because their commercial makes me ill...a close-up
of two folx 'swapping spit' isn't enough to lure me to find out about
taking care of my mouth.


Hardees

Haven't mentioned Hardees lately. I hate them as much now as I
ever did. You?

Two days in a row!!

Burger King

I like both of the campaigns BK has going now. I loved the ones with 'The King' inserted (cleverly) into old football games and movies, etc. Very nice. I also like, for some reason, the BK Family...with Whopper Jr. and Sr. That's thinkin' outside the box.... I don't like, AT ALL, the 'Stacker' ads with the miniature construction workers. Why does that little feller have such a bad attitude?


Taco Bell

Thinkin' outside the bun. I hate Taco Bell's food...but, I like most of their commercials. Usually clever and fun. And, they had Carmen Electra bowling! How bad can it be?

Mac

I like the Mac/PC ads. Very nicely done...and, I'm a PC-guy. (I imagine that depends on who you ax.)

Diamonds? Give me a break...

Again we go.

Diamonds

I can only think of one commercial for diamonds that I've ever liked. And, that was on Family Guy ("Diamonds...she'll almost have to"). There was one a few years ago that had a very European-looking couple in a very European-looking setting with everything seeming to be some sort of gray or black or silver colour. (I spell color that way because it is European-looking). The man all of the sudden begins to yell out, at the proverbial 'top of his lungs', "I love this woman". She is horrified and embarrassed. Then, loverboy gives her a diamond something-or-another and somehow all is right in Buffy's world. "I love this man" she whispers as she hugs him. Don't get me wrong, Buffy was HOT...but, it's still a sad display. Not as sad, however, as the recent, horribly acted, ad with a woman who is apparently stuck in a world that only allows her to say 'Wow' at varying levels of intensity. Stay away from diamonds, my friends.


GM's Super Bowl robot

I just knew GM was gonna take some heat over this one. I liked it, for the most part. But, ya just can't seem to have things dyin' in commercials these days. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it was the commercial in which a car-building robot (the same robot that put 108 Michiganders out of work, I assume) drops a screw or something. I believe that he, too, is fired because of the breach in quality control. He takes on other jobs...which were quite funny, some...until the depression gets to be too much and he jumps off a bridge to an assumed watery death. When the water splashes, he awakens to find that it was just a bad dream and he still has screws to screw and nuts to...screw?

The Two Greatest Commercials of all time??

Not sure about that title. But, without doubt, the two commercials that packed the biggest impactual wallop that I've ever seen were for Nike shoes and some insurance company. (I've told you before, I rarely know what an ad is for...I just know about the ad. ) Now, this wallop didn't fruit in such a way that I was compelled to run out and buy the product. Hell, I don't even remember what one of the products was. No, the impact was that after the commercial was over, I said "Wow". Now...I didn't say 'Wow' like the woman I chastized from the diamond commercial. I said "Wow" because of the wallop the commercial packed.

Here's the thing about those commercials...they packed too much of a wallop. I saw the Nike commercial only one time. At a very late hour. After it was over, I said "Wow". I thought "THAT was intense". The commercial, probably in the late '80s, had two guys bungee-jumping off a bridge. The camera showed the two chaps fly by in their downward plummet. But, only one guy came back up on the 'recoil'. He was the one wearing the Nikes. The other rope just had a pair of shoes dangling. It was back when Nike started marketing those shoes with the 'pump'. Tighter fit will keep you attached to the bungee.

The other commercial I saw on a Sunday afternoon. I saw it two times that day. It had a father and son talking. The son, mid-teens, was weeping uncontrollably. And, you figure out that the father is dying and he is telling the son that he is going to be in charge, and so on. Too intense for a Sunday afternoon golf commercial. But, it definitely got my attention. Can you believe I've gone on this long about two commercials I saw a total of three times over 15 years ago? True dat.

All for now...

Alright, alright...I'm back.

Alright, alright...I'm back. After unanimous badgering by the only other person to ever see this flog, I have decided to add more to this thing. I cannot promise it will be as stellar as the stuff that was here already. I cannot promise it won't be.

So, hmmm....what's on my commercial mind?

The Super Bowl happened recently. And, for the second time in two years consecutively in a row, one of my teams won the danged thing (Steelers and Colts). Which is nice considering it is on the heels of back-to-back World Series victories by my two teams (Red Sox and White Sox).

Now, we all know the Super Bowl is well-known for two things: Over-production and its commercials. To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to the commercials this year. I guess I generally don't go out of my way to watch them. If something catches my eye, I'll see what happens. I generally don't even know what a commercial is advertizing. On with this...

Snickers: (A lot of people would make the word 'Snickers' a link to a website or homepage for 'Snickers' and link all of this companies to their websites. Not me. It's called 'being lazy'.)

Snickers had the two guys eating the same candy bar until it ended in a kiss. I hated it. Thank God it was so short. I didn't hate it because of homofobia. I hated it because of execution. Pulling chest hair was the most 'manly' thing they could come up with??

???
I don't remember what the product was, perhaps an online 'job placement' company (?). There were two commercials that feature comedian Jim Gaffigan, who is rapidly becoming a hot item for 'tongue-in-cheek' commercialry. In one of these commercials, Jim sports a comb-over...that originates at his goatee. Nice. The other has him wearing cut-off-too-much cut-off jeans...Again, nice.

There was another commercial series, possibly by the same company, that involved people working in an office 'jungle' and various goings-on thay happen in a typical office (I guess). There was a lot of potential there...but, there was just too damned much going on. Too many people doing and saying too many things. It was too much like watching an hour and a half long movie in 45 seconds.

Robert Goulet's Nuts:

I don't remember what the brand of nuts he was advertizing was....'Eagle'?...I don't know. I think if I'd watched the ad from the start, I would have liked this commercial...if nothing else, because I liked watching him slink....yes, 'slink'...across the ceiling. I guess I didn't like it enuff to pay attention to who paid him to do it, and to subsequently buy their product.

K-Fed (McDonalds??)

It was alright. I like when folks make fun of themselves and that's what he seemed to be doing. The fact that I know absolutely nothing about 'K-Fed', and don't want to, made this commercial less interesting than if someone hadn't had to tell me "That's K-Fed". I thought they meant he eats SpecialK.

That's all I remember off-hand from the Super Bowl...(well, other than hating Phil Simms...). Here are some other commercials that I've wanted to comment on.

GEICO

I absolutely LOVE the 'caveman' campaign. ALL of the cavemen commercials have been funny. My favorite being the recently release one with the three Cro-mags at a party. "Am I less of a caveman because I buy insurance from GEICO?" "Tina's here. We're getting back together!" Funnier than anything Bob Saget has ever said.

I'll admit that I also like most of the GEICO Gecko commercials, too. Not all, but most. I love when he says "I mean, there's fish....and, chips".

This is all for now. How do you like the 'enlarged' and 'emboldened' way I type in the companies' names now. Clever, huh?

The right place? Naaaaah...

This stuff should probably go on my website instead of a blog. But, it's my blog and I can put whatever I want to...right? (Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure I want to put them here. Now I have a quandry....Damn it!)

My take on some commercials/advertisements out there:


Hardee's
This is the Midwest's name for Carl's Jr., and the makers of some of the worst fast-food on the planet. Their commercials generally feature this horribly irritating 'dead-pan' narrator taking a 'whatever' view of life in general. A few years ago, when the current ad campaign started, the idea was to fess up to making bad food and to show that they were sorry for trying to get by not caring what they were serving. They featured 'interviews' with various people (employees, patrons, executives, vendors) talking about how it 'was' and how it was changing and how bad it was and how good it is now. Every aspect of the campaign has made it so that I have now vowed to never again eat at a Hardees. That is not a good ad campaign...one that makes people not use your product out of spite.


Enterprise Car Rental

I hate the people. I hate the car all covered in brown paper. I hate that "Moose" thinks that two hot chix are gonna say "Lookin' good, Moose" because he's driven a rented Cadillac to his class reunion. I hate the music. I hate negro man who says 'They should be number one' and has the big foam novelty finger on. I HATE ENTERPRISE!

AFLAC

My God! Please, please, please do away with the 'duck'. It was, perhaps, cute at first. Perhaps. It is now the most annoying 'animal' on TV. Be gone...please, be gone.

TIAA-CREF

I don't know about the commercials, per se. But, shirley there is someone somewhere who could have come up with a better name for a company. I mean, seriously. Wouldn't "Joe's Investments" have been better? Anything?

Levi's

I'm not sure how I feel about the two Levi's commercials I see regularly. I like the one with the guy watching the news and seeing an 'on the run' guy stealing his pants. Of course, the hot girl on the couch in her underwear doesn't hurt. The one where the guy steals the pants off the balcony railing and then does whatever the rightful owner does (with Stevie Wonder providing the music) is a little too 'corny' for me. I HATE the one for Dockers with the words 'Weekend' 'Work' something something flashing over and over again. I think saying that you can wear Dockers no matte what you're doing. I hate the scene where he and his elegant lady-friend are running and laffing and laffing. She wouldn't run in those shoes!

What's happening to me?

Well, it's happening....

...maybe. I've had this blog for some time now and I've finally decided to actually post to it. (Is that what you do to a blog? 'post to it'?) Well, here it is. I think what I'll have here are mainly 'pet-peeves' (as opposed to other peeves) and my critiques of commercials and things I see on TV. How's that? Hmmmm?