The worst commercials in TV history..

[vchimpanzee]

People are FATTER now because they don't exercise anymore. When I was young, we WALKED about 1/2 mile to school and back! In all kinds of weather, too! If we wanted a soda, we WALKED to the neighborhood American owned convenience (Not a foreigner owned Quickiemart) store. During summer vacations we played outside all day, running, bike riding, BB rifle safaris, football, baseball, NOT sitting inside an airconditioned, fully automated house of the future, incessantly playing computer games. Nowadays, people drive everywhere, even to the corner mailbox. People these days are nothing but a bunch of legal aged soiled and spoiled, helpless children who can't think or care for themselves, totally lacking any shred of common sense. They have all been brainwashed with today's philosophy of: You are not responsible for any of your actions, Its always someone else's fault, its only illegal if you get caught, if caught, accuse your accuser, and the big one, why work? the government will give you everything.

I agree with you ( and for the record I agree with what LKeller had brought up too ), however one can add "lawsuits"and in many cases the schools themselves as to the reasons why so many people are fat. Several years back I can remember some parent in West Virginia actually suing a school district because he/she didn't think it was fair for their child to dress up and shower in front of other kids for gym class. Result..PE classes become more/less social time like study hall so if one wants exercise, then they have to join the school team. Meanwhile in nearby Virginia, about ten years ago a number of counties started cutting back on gym classes in the high schools making them a "choice" rather than a class one is required to take in order to graduate. Of course many of these same coutnies had made a big deal about banning those "evil" Coke & Pepsi people for the good of their students health but to my knowledge they still did nothing about making gym a required course again. Just another example of "passing the buck", kinda like how those so-called flavored cigarettes were banned by our goverment because they were supposed to get kids hooked on smoking ( funny how I have never seen a pack of those Strawberry flavored Winstons or Grape Newports ) but I do see flavored cigars all over the place being sold in stores and young people do smoke those...yet those products are NOT banned. Same thing with schools banning soda pop YET they won't touch energy drinks with a ten foot pole..could it be because the kids like them too much? Didn't know today's kids had that much power.

If I may go off topic, I remember flavored candy cigarettes. First they appeared in nearly identical boxes, then in slightly different boxes with a new name.

And when I was in elementary school, there were no sodas in school. I went in the teacher's lounge and got my mother a coke when she taught for a year. My teacher didn't think much of my having that unfair advantage, seeing as how I could drink the coke too.

Even when I was in high school, unless you brought a soda, you didn't drink one.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

"Mom, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure honey".
"Do you ******?"

Along those lines, the one with the woman proclaiming, "No more vinegar and water ******s for me!"

Regarding Johnny Carson's pie in the face diarrhea ad, if he were still here, could he see to it that Jamie Lee Curtis gets a pie in her face when she talks to women who make better number 2's when they use Activia yogurt?

For bad commercials today, how about any medicine commercial that spends nearly half its allotted time listing ever more frightening side effects?

 

[searadiofreak]

I no longer live in an area with a Worthington dealership, but if I'm not mistaken, Cal is still advertising on TV, though he's slowed down a lot, being in his late 80s and all.

Mercifully, the one Worthington dealership in Sacramento is gone, but while "Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal" wuz here, his spots were on the indie TV stations (I don't remember seeing them on the network affiliates), and one I remember was ol' Cal running past a row of cars with a tiger on a leash jumping from hood to hood (wonder how many hoods that tiger dented and what that did to the resale value of those cars?).

Yes, Cal is still on in Anchorage, Alaska. I remember him in Seattle in the 80's when he owned his dealership in suburban Federal Way. He used old footage from his L.A. spots, shot decades earlier for his Seattle-area store. Cal's location was the same as another iconic car dealer in Federal Way, "Dick Balch Chevrolet". Dick was famous for taking a sledgehammer to vehicles on his lot and used the violent action to demonstrate how he was "chopping prices". So bad, they were actually good!

 

[nightfly61]

I don't like the cartoon Charmin bears, where the mother bear is trying to wipe baby bear's butt & he is running away. There's a similar one where one of the bears gets clumps of dingleberries stuck in his fur from the "other leading brand". ewww.
I also hate Smilin' Bob & the creepy Burger King spots.

 

[firepoint525]

I don't like the cartoon Charmin bears, where the mother bear is trying to wipe baby bear's butt & he is running away. There's a similar one where one of the bears gets clumps of dingleberries stuck in his fur from the "other leading brand". ewww.

I always figured bears drag their butts on the ground, the same way that dogs do! But I'm not going to stick around to find out!

I also hate Smilin' Bob & the creepy Burger King spots.

Wasn't it Burger King who stuck us with "Herb" back in the '80s? And Krystal who gave us "Bob"? Krystal actually took a vote on "Bob," and he was voted off the air!

 

[azumanga]

Wasn't it Burger King who stuck us with "Herb" back in the '80s? And Krystal who gave us "Bob"? Krystal actually took a vote on "Bob," and he was voted off the air!

Big Boy did the same with, of course, Big Boy in the 1980s. The public voted to keep him as mascot of his own restaurant. But alas, many Big Boy restaurants began to close shortly afterward (including Florida, where Bog Boy pulled out of that state).

 

[BRNout]

The creepy King for BK has to rank right up there as one of the worst long-running ad campaigns - ever. And this from a company that has featured HORRIBLE marketing skills for a good 25 years now. None of their ads make their food seem desirable. And the latest spot with the creepy king supposedly stealing the "formula" for the Egg McMuffin is simply bad salesmanship. Their food is so bad that they have to steal from McDonald's?

With marketing like this no wonder that McDonald's whips their *sses year after year.

Worst in history? Really hard to put a finger on that because there's such a plethora of choices.

However, one that really irks (and bores) me is this pharmaceutical ad where the outlines of simple animated figures (people sitting on benches and stuff) are comprised of the ad script while the narrator drones on and on and on and on and on and on and on about the drug's side effects. Horrible, horrible ad. The thing is 90 seconds long and about 75 seconds of it is a disclaimer. Not only that, it's so damn ineffective that I can't even remember who the sponsor was even after watching the damn thing dozens of times! It should be for a sleep aid because their spots certainly work well for that.

 

[firepoint525]

Burger King also ran a really bad ad recently, that as far as I know, did not feature that stupid "King" in it. Two guys are tossing a football around, and one says to the other that he wants to go to McDonald's because his hands are too small. The other guy offers to hold the first guy's burger for him. The obvious implication here is that Mickey D's burgers are smaller, but it makes these guys seem vain.

 

[nightfly61]

I don't like the surrealism of the Gap Xmas campaigns where they are too politically- same with the Old Navy ads, with all the "too beautiful" people dancing around & doing summer salts.
The crazy woman in all the Glade ads where she tries to hide that she really is just using Glade. She has very wild eyes if you ever noticed.
The old spots Sally Struthers used to do for "Feed the Children" where she was always about to cry & looked like she hadn't missed any meals herself!

 

[LKellerIII]

All this talk about bad fast food commercials made me remember the absolute WORST. Carl's Jr. (may be just a West Coast chain) briefly ran an ad that was supposed to satire a murder mystery or slasher movie.

As suspenseful music plays, the camera pans inside a house, and there are red spots all over the place. As suspense builds, the camera moves up the stairs to see more splotches of red. Finally, the camera enters an upstairs room to show a man (or woman, can't recall) eating a big juicy burger with ketchup dripping out of the bun onto the floor.

Obviously, the viewer was supposed to think the red spots were blood, and get a laugh when they realize it's just ketchup. But talk about making your food seem undesirable! ??? Apparently it occurred to nobody at the advertising agency or Carl's Jr that comparing your food to bodily fluids was not a good idea.

There were a lot of complaints from viewers about this ad, and it was pulled after a week or two.

 

[firepoint525]

Carl's is the same as (I think) Hardee's here, and while I like their food, that ad, and similar others that they have run here, leaves me with the impression that their burgers are especially messy. And since I don't particularly like ketchup, that would be a further turnoff.

Their Paris Hilton ad turned a lot of people off to them, too.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

All this talk about bad fast food commercials made me remember the absolute WORST. Carl's Jr. (may be just a West Coast chain) briefly ran an ad that was supposed to satire a murder mystery or slasher movie.

As suspenseful music plays, the camera pans inside a house, and there are red spots all over the place. As suspense builds, the camera moves up the stairs to see more splotches of red. Finally, the camera enters an upstairs room to show a man (or woman, can't recall) eating a big juicy burger with ketchup dripping out of the bun onto the floor.

This ad, IMO, ranks up there with the latest Jimmy John's campaign--one of which includes drivers involved in a tragic accident making one request: "Can you call Jimmy John's?"

 

[BRNout]

This ad, IMO, ranks up there with the latest Jimmy John's campaign--one of which includes drivers involved in a tragic accident making one request: "Can you call Jimmy John's?"

Yeah, when the uncaring Jimmy John's delivery driver shows up - seemingly annoyed by the ambulance that delayed him. Good catch Tim, that's yet another annoying and very ineffective ad. I like JJ's sandwiches but, contrary to it's goal, that ad would actually tend to discourage me from eating there.

Amazing to me that people at ad agencies get paid 6 figure salaries to come up with some real crap.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Carl's is the same as (I think) Hardee's here, and while I like their food, that ad, and similar others that they have run here, leaves me with the impression that their burgers are especially messy. And since I don't particularly like ketchup, that would be a further turnoff.

Their Paris Hilton ad turned a lot of people off to them, too.

Slightly getting off-topic to a better period of Hardee's advertising--before the Carl's Jr./Thickburger/"Star" era--and the more "hometown" feel, IMO, of old Hardee's ads is this one from 1988 per YouTube (on their Canadian Bacon biscuit--very fitting I post this during breakfast--but IIRC I remember seeing variations of this exact ad from as early as 1985 or '86):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0gqFYp5GNY&feature=related

Also another reminder of a better Hardee's ad, IMO: one promoting Hardee's Fried Chicken from the early '90s--with Hank Williams Jr. on a takeoff of his MNF version of "All My Rowdy Friends . . .," this time singing, "Are you ready for some REAL FOOD?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k65Z-NcFRig&feature=related

 

[Tim L]

The One Burger King ad campaign I thought worked pretty well was the 1970's "Where Kids are King" ads with the animated Burger King..The sooner they ditch that creepy "King" face, the better

 

[gr8oldies]

Old line Hardees ad in the 70s had Mama Cass singing "Hurry on down to Hardees..where the burgers are charcoal broiled"

 

[Stanislav]

Old line Hardees ad in the 70s had Mama Cass singing "Hurry on down to Hardees..where the burgers are charcoal broiled"

I remember that ad -- that was Mama Cass? Really?

 

[gr8oldies]

That's right. I went looking for it on YouTube, but it had been removed. We're talking Hardees before they bought out all the Burger Chefs in my area. Now, they are Carl Jrs. with the Hardees name.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Old line Hardees ad in the 70s had Mama Cass singing "Hurry on down to Hardees..where the burgers are charcoal broiled"

I was going to say that.

"They're not just beef. They're chopped beef steak. Not just cooked they're charco-broiled."

I also remember Gilbert Giddyup shooting a hole in his hat in his first commercial and having that hole there in all future commercials. And who was he chasing?

 

[vchimpanzee]

Wasn't it Burger King who stuck us with "Herb" back in the '80s? And Krystal who gave us "Bob"? Krystal actually took a vote on "Bob," and he was voted off the air!

Big Boy did the same with, of course, Big Boy in the 1980s. The public voted to keep him as mascot of his own restaurant. But alas, many Big Boy restaurants began to close shortly afterward (including Florida, where Bog Boy pulled out of that state).

We didn't have Big boy restaurants. We had Shoney's and still do, though the Big Boy is not longer outside.