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The worst commercials in TV history..
- Thread starter mleach
- Start date
As usual, the start of every NFL season seems to traditionally result in more additions to this thread. 2025 is no exception.
The NFL Float ad from NFL Network is dreadful and cheesy, and apparently many more think that way:
The NFL Float ad from NFL Network is dreadful and cheesy, and apparently many more think that way:
Riding the NFL’s AI Float Into Despair
The most offensive part of the kickoff game wasn’t the loogie seen round the world. It was the league’s horrifying AI slop commercial.
www.theringer.com
do Canadian commercials count? The Homefront ads one with a family eating and the husband/father blurts out that the waitress spilled his coffee right there in front of the whole restaurant and he jumps up and attacks her. And he even spilled that whole pot of coffee on her! I wanna spill hot grits all over that sorry bastard! Give him a dose of his own medicine.
Also the board meeting one where a female employee speaks out at a board meeting saying there was an error in the reports and a bald guy jumps up and attacks her. I wanted to jump through my computer screen and body slam the bastard!
Also the board meeting one where a female employee speaks out at a board meeting saying there was an error in the reports and a bald guy jumps up and attacks her. I wanted to jump through my computer screen and body slam the bastard!
I don’t think commercials about violence are supposed to make people want to body slam or throw grits on somebody….
Well seeing those men treat those women. I cannot watch domestic violence PSAs for that reason
Hoping local ads count here too. Southwest Plumbing operates (unfortunately) in Western Washington. In addition to a large amount of consumer complaints against them going back years, they have a new advertising campaign that is terrible, both stupid and cringy in the extreme.
Unbelievably it has a Vimeo page. I present to you the Southwest Plumbing "Hey Bill!" advertising campaign. "Art Gallery" is the worst but feel free to start anywhere. I challenge anybody to get through all four.
Southwest Plumbing "Hey Bill" campaign
Unbelievably it has a Vimeo page. I present to you the Southwest Plumbing "Hey Bill!" advertising campaign. "Art Gallery" is the worst but feel free to start anywhere. I challenge anybody to get through all four.
Southwest Plumbing "Hey Bill" campaign
Those are all so stupid.
I nominate any and all Xfinity/Comcast streaming commercials that air ad nauseum in place of regular ads on the FAST channels that have appeared in the Channel 4000s spots if you have an X1 box. At least in my local Comcast market. I actually have been watching a lot of the "The Price Is Right: The Barker Era" channel (which is mostly now ca. 1982-1986 shows only, including in the announcing transition shortly after Johnny Olson's death and eventual selection of Rod Roddy as replacement announcer) lately and this "Wifi is Booming" spot is one that airs ad nauseum. Might have been cute the first 2-3 times I saw it but it's annoying now:
I'd rather see, if possible, old commercials from the years that the TPIR reruns aired (a bunch of them are all over Youtube anyway)--I'll even be happy with old Hoveround, Medicare, and Henry Winkler reverse mortgage commercials that were among the TPIR commercial staples in the 2010s--then having to see Xfinity's ads again.
I'd rather see, if possible, old commercials from the years that the TPIR reruns aired (a bunch of them are all over Youtube anyway)--I'll even be happy with old Hoveround, Medicare, and Henry Winkler reverse mortgage commercials that were among the TPIR commercial staples in the 2010s--then having to see Xfinity's ads again.
I have been watching the episodes Pluto has on demand. They don’t play that commercial.
I saw an interview of Walter C. where he said the reason for the delay was CBS had to warm up an old tube camera. Also at that time they double checked everything unless it was one of their reporters.From oldest to most recent (with links to commercial video on YouTube if available), my picks for some of the all-time worst commericals:
--I had seen this at least a year or so ago on YouTube, but it apparently has been deleted. It was a circa-1962 Tide detergent (IIRC) commerical where a guy is singing the praises of Tide outside a housewife's kitchen window. Would have been creepy back in the day--especially in its monochrome glories. IMO this or a similar commercial probably would have been parodied nowadays (on the likes of Simpsons, Family Guy, SNL, etc.).
--The infamous Nov. 22, 1963 episode of ATWT (interrupted 10 minutes into the show by Walter Cronkite to announce the news of the JFK shooting) contains an AWFUL NuSoft commercial (at 5:48 on the YouTube video link below, and about 4 minutes away from Cronkite) featuring a woman dressed up like the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe complaining that "I have so many children, I don't know what to do--about IRONING, IRONING, IRONING!!! . . ." (BTW, by this time IIRC ABC Radio had already broadcast their first bulletin about the Kennedy shooting. I hope this doesn't sound terrible--and if so I apologize--but seeing this commercial almost made me wish Uncle Walter was able to interrupt ATWT for the first bulletin RIGHT during the NuSoft commercial). And I also couldn't understand what the woman said at the beginning of the ad--it almost sounded like she said "Dirty Smurf!" ??? ??? ???
--I barely remember this ad when it originally aired, but this 1979 Coast Soap commercial with the tired "Dancing Granny" (only to be rejuvenated by a Coast shower) practically creeped me out to this day.---
--Then again, along the same lines, I used to think they were funny when I was a kid (particularly the music), but any Coast soap commercial from about 1976-82 (similar to the Dancing Granny one linked above) almost sounds excruciating to hear today.
--Any and all of the Carl's Jr./Hardee's commercials since 1997 (when Carl's Jr. purchased the Hardee's chain and introduced the Midwest to "Star Burgers" and gross commercials)--including the early ones with ketchup shown dripping from burgers (including one from about '98 or so I remember where a guy was eating a Carl's Jr. Thickburger from the window of a multi-story building, and a drip of ketchup ends up on a woman's solid white dress shirt). But this one for the Six Dollar Burger is creepy:
Bring back the old-style Hardee's commercials and the "hometown" feel of many of them!
--Super Bowl ads are not immune from my "worst commercial" list. Along the lines of fast food, Burger King's Super Bowl XXXIX commercial from 2006 with the Whopperettes almost made a vegetarian out of me. LOL. Here's a blog entry (with video of the Whopperette ad) regarding a blogger's review of the infamous BK Super Bowl ad from nearly 4 years ago:
http://www.randomculture.com/random_culture/2006/02/super_bowl_comm_2.html
--Then again, any Burger King ad with the "King" is AWFUL to begin with.
--Of course, how can any thread about "worst commercials in TV history" neglect to mention the Fall 2008 Toyota "Saved By Zero" campaign and how it seemed that one evening during Sunday Night Football it aired at least 5 times in a half-hour time frame!!!! Excruciating. This link below brings back memories of that work of art:
--Free Credit Report.com ads--need I say or link more. Definitely one of the worst (and even more so when you find out you have to enroll in Triple Advantage to get your "free" credit report). Same with the Budweiser "Real Men of Genius" ads--I think those have also been adapted for TV (it seems like they air during at least every other network commercial break during St. Louis Cardinals' radio broadcasts, and has been at least since 2004).
--And I don't mean to pick on the poor man now that he's no longer with us, but if this thread had been posted 6-12 months ago, I'm sure it wouldn't have taken long for someone to nominate any ad featuring Billy Mays as pitchman.
But I digress: My parents moved to Chattanooga while I was in the Air Force (insert joke). One of the benefits of visiting them on leave was watching local Chattanooga TV commercials. There was competition between two of three of the local furniture stores to see who do the craziest commercials. One of my favorites was a guy with a beard calling himself the wolfman. The real Wolfman Jack was alive and how someone didn't get sued?
I'm reminded here of the Kash's Big Bargain Barn commercials on WXIX Cincinnati (might have been on other stations but WXIX was the only Cincinnati station we got on cable) --- preacher Kash Amburgy imploring the viewers to "follow the signs, follow the cars, to Kash's Big Bargain Barn in South Lebanon, Ohiooooo...".
Here's a fairly crude re-creation, I couldn't find the original:
I remember seeing Kash's Big Bargain Barn commercials during the 1970's when the cable tv system in Columbus, Ohio carried WXIX from Cincinnati. I recall Kash saying "Take it away Mabel" and it shows Mabel playing a piano.
Another commercial I remember seeing on the Columbus area cable tv system during the 1970's was C. Miller Chevrolet commercials on WUAB from Cleveland.
C. Miller always ended his commercials by saying "See the world and the USA in a C. Miller Chevrolet" then he would blow a kiss at you.
We didn't get WUAB on cable, though some nearby towns did. Back in the pre-Fox days, WXIX was an outstanding movie station. Columbus didn't get its own independent station (WTTE) until 1984. Before then, WOSU ran reruns of vintage commercial TV shows such as The Twilight Zone and You Bet Your Life on Saturday nights. That was when they had their repeater station WPBO in Portsmouth, which reached deep into Kentucky and could even be seen in West Virginia. My father and I built a UHF yagi antenna with a piece of pipe and elements cannibalized from another old antenna and cut to channel 42. We put it in the attic and it performed very well. I've still got a picture of it here somewhere, wouldn't know where to begin looking.
I do remember Mabel as well.
New commecial, new contender: The Verizon commercial where a Verizon customer starts talking about how cool Verizon is with somebody at a banquet table or something like that. I don't exactly remember because I had to look away because THE VERIZON CUSTOMER'S MOUTH WAS ON HIS CHEST INSTEAD OF ON HIS FACE! I found this super disturbing- I just can't have facial parts on other parts of the body. If you've seen it you will know what I'm talking about.
Val
Val
Were his eyes and nose down there too?
No. Just lips. This is the most gratuitous misuse of body parts since the talking posteriors in the original Seat Geek commercials.
They may be exploiting the psychological uncanny valley effect to keep people's attention on the advertisement -- similar to how people often can't take their eyes off disturbing scenes like train wrecks.
I've noticed advertisers apparently doing this with increasing frequency as it has become harder to make people stay and watch the commercials. Deoderant ads with extreme closeups of obese people's arm pits, mouths full of missing and brown teeth in dental ads.
And don't get me started on all those nasty looking Plexiderm ads.