You love to hate them. Horrible commercials are all over the tube, inciting anger and making us wonder how someone, somewhere has money in the bank from creating something so awful. Jason Policastro takes a look at some of the current offenders.
Ride Warrior
ROLLER COASTERS ARE TOTALLY EXTREME. If they were trying to capture what it’s like at your standard American amusement park then they should have posted footage of 5000 morbidly obese children standing in line, clutching stuffed Tasmanian Devils and shoving blimp-sized cotton candy clouds down their throats which would later be vomited into their bumper cars.
Instead they went with the “Ride Warrriors”, a focus group-approved collection of racially diverse twenty-something actors who have likely never entered an amusement park in their lives. These buffoons strike tough poses and claim idiotic titles like “The Diva of Drop”.
If any of these actors ever hit it big later in life and look back on this ad, it will be the equivalent of looking at your significant other’s high school yearbook and discovering they were captain of the chess team.
Palm Pre
This is possibly the most maligned ad campaign in recent memory. This series of surreal commercials feature a pale skinned waif who speaks and acts as though she’s been anesthetized.
She rambles inanely about experiences she’s had that compare to the Palm Pre, but her creepy behavior distracts so powerfully from the product that the viewer is left wondering what the hell he just saw.
At times, it feels as though someone is conducting a psychological evaluation of an emotionally disturbed individual, as the sickly looking figure talks to herself and stares into thin air. Naturally, Modernista! (exclamation point!), the ad firm responsible for this garbage, is taking the stance that any buzz is good buzz because you remember the ad. I call this the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder approach to advertising.
Olive Garden
If there was a lifetime achievement award for perennially terrible commercials, I’d be handing it to The Olive Garden. Theirs feature an impossibly jovial bunch of yuppies guffawing over heaps of salad and pasta, supposedly having the time of their lives while delivering one-liners that elicit maniacal laughter from the rest of the table and stone faced silence from the average TV viewer.
The latest masterpiece features a mother and her teenage son “bonding”. In reality, this commercial would feature awkward silence, no eye contact, and a look of resigned disappointment on Mom’s face – but that doesn’t move breadsticks, people!
GM Reinvention
For me, this is easily the most dishonest and offensive of the lot. By filling this piece of drek with inspiring images like sunrises, sports scenes, and waving American flags, GM is assuming that the average viewer has the intellectual maturity of a kindergartener.
It’s as if they think that their years of blocking the electric car, refusal to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, and otherwise total failure as a company will be forgotten if they show us a football touchdown with a GM logo on it.
The sad part is, the average mouth-breathing TV viewer probably will. The only bright spot here is the corresponding spoof ad that captures my feelings on this trash perfectly.
Progressive Insurance
You know Flo as the gratingly bubbly character on the Progressive Insurance commercials where shoppers browse for insurance in boxes on shelves in an expanse of white space. The wild-eyed Flo sports an unfortunate amount of lipstick and acts as if she’s just drank a case of Red Bull.
I just have to ask: What is the appeal? There are five million different versions of Flo helping out some clueless sod who seems to have never heard of the concept of insurance, lurking about the store as if it were a minefield.
Oh I see – Flo is our obnoxious ambassador in the big scary world of um, purchasing insurance?
McDonald’s McNuggets
Oh, where to begin. McDonald’s continues its proud tradition of racially offensive commercials by creating a love triangle, complete with McNuggets and an R&B song.
Here we have a hungry Romeo pleading to his ladyfriend to share her secret. He asks her if she’s been “dippin” on him. It’s like he’s jealous of her McNuggets tryst one minute, and then wants to join in at the end. One begins to wonder if our protagonist would rather be in bed with the woman or her nuggets. Or both.
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22 Comments... join the discussion!
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That theme park ad is so incredibly bad. It makes me want to scream at the computer screen. AghghghghhghghghghahghahgahAHGAHGHAHGAHAHA!
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HA! Every time I see any of those Palm Pre ads I want to smash my TV with a hammer… McDonalds… they’ve been so terrible for so long i’m almost numb to their garbage. At this point passing a McDonalds on the street is painful.
Thanks for the link to the GM spoof though, that was worth re-watching these ridiculous commercials…
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MadTV knew exactly how we all felt with the Olive Garden ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKZS4Jn6gRM
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Somehow getting offended in more than one way at the same time causes me to laugh my head off. Good to know.
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good lord, my thoughts exactly on the Olive Garden crap. Eery Olive Garden commercial is the stupidest most unbelievable train of drivel…it makes me completely loose my appetite!
I kinda like the Palm Pre commercial…maybe it’s just because i want a Palm Pre…
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Gah, the GM commercial pisses me off most because it’s paid for with taxpayer money.
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Amen. They managed to stretch this one out to a full minute as well, making sure to put each of those dollars to good use.
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I couldn’t even make it through the entire minute, and considering our ADD or ADHD or whatever the hell they are calling it now culture, I doubt many other people do.
Though I did make it all the way through the spoof. Awesome.
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Oh man…these are terrible (and jaw-droppingly pandering *coughGMcough*). I’m not really looking forward to being confronted with American TV again.
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Great list and reviews. If I may – the mother and son Olive Garden commercial is really bad, but alcose second is the one where the parents are visiting their daughter in college. They sit on her bed joking about how they have treat her friends too or some crap.
Reality – Mom and Dad saunter awkwardly around Susie’s dorm staring quizzically at the stoned and drunken students raging on a Friday evening. They knock on Susie’s door a bit early, ready to take her to the Olive Garden because they don’t know of any other restaurants near the school and are not sure what Eat N’ Park is. Susie answers in her thong and frat boy Tommy’s Ed Hardy t-shirt thinking its her roommate. Tommy is in the room…wearing far less.
THAT is how visits to your daughter’s dorm room go…
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I am so glad I don’t own a TV
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I know the writer of the amusement park commercial. It’s about time that these advertising clowns gave up on that “X-Treme” marketing bull. Or used actors that aren’t a bunch of cosmetic surgery riddled robots from LA. Or got new jobs all together.
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I’m glad we can assume so much about what the ‘average TV viewer’ is (a mouth breather) that it activates the mind-reading abilities of bloggers on this site and the ability to see into the depths of the souls of people they don’t know.
YAY SUPERIORITY!
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Are you THE Scott McD? Like of the Mc D Empire!?! Thanks for sharing your insightful comments with the rest of us!
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hahahaha! Kate, you are wonderful. I don’t know you but you rock my world. Thank you.
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Oh man, the only thing worse than those commercials about going to Oliver Garden is actually going to Olive Garden.
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I HATE FLO. ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG.
You forgot the commercials on PeachTree TV though, the ones where young people of questionable morals try to recruit people for Post Secondary. So they interview a single mother with poor grammar and the announcer says, “if she can do it, YOU can do it.”
Awesome.
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Every time a Olive Garden commercial came on the TV when I was young, my father would immediately follow it with a comment about how no self-respecting Italian would eat at that dump. Needless to say, I was never allowed to eat there. However, by some strange reverse psychology, I am drawn to these terrible ads and look forward to the day I will enjoy endless salad and breadsticks for my first time (sorry grandma D’Auria).
As for the GM bit, I believe their marketing team is doing a stand up job of appealing to its target market. Oh yeah and thanks for the reminderd about how you failed miserably before–that makes me excited to invest in your prduct.
Let’s not get too down on US advertising though, as many other countries devise similar, if not worse, marketing schemes. Even still, we buy the crap so who’s to tell them they are wrong. We’re all sapps on some level. I just happen to be broke so I can’t afford a TV or the stuff they’re selling…I’ll get my chance though
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Do you know that the “Ride Warrior” commercials are played in a bunch of different markets? In NE PA they have the same one for Dorney Park.
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When I see the Palm Pre pale faced character from the Lord of the Rings or whatever I want to scream, plus I am trying to figure out who they want to appeal to. I kind of get a kick out of Flo, but she is a bit much sometimes. What about the whole category of the pharmaceutical commercials, “ask your doctor about…” (the pill for some fairly inconsequential disease) then the warning that the side effects include brain hemmorhage, bloody flux, etc. Maybe the first step in solving the health care issue is to ban these things as it used to be, companies will spend less on advertising and fewer idiots will schedule appointments just to “ask their doctor about….”
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Well, I do like Flo in the insurance commercials. This actress has come up with the personality of what she was requested to do. A style of retro – hair, makeup, etc.
The commercials which I can’t stand are some like “Hey – Bob is so happy now that he’s got Viagra it’s just like he needs a parade celebrating him”. Sicko.Also, there’s a commercial around where a couple are looking into the freezer in their kitchen and they keep lovey doving it. They are apparently advertising frozen foods. Why sex has to be put into commercials at all baffles me. I guess something has to get the public’s attention.
As long as there’s no rap in commercials I will tolerate most of them.
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