Impossible items
The Michael Winner insurance ad where the guy finds a stake through his windscreeen.
"Calm down dear, its only a commercial" and then he witters on about the insurance whilst in the background the poor guy who was worried (like hell he was) is shown a piece of fake glass with a stake through it that was just put over his original windscreen. He sighs with relief...

ONE BIG PROBLEM: The piece of fake glass has a piece of the stake on both sides,
So they've either removed the guys windscreen to put the fake one in, or they've had to smash a hole in it to put the inner piece of the stake through.
(paof2 Nude might not be rude, but rude could be nude..., Wed 21 Apr 2010, 16:29, 2 replies)

This one was newslettered not so long back
The adverts quite funny and the songs decent

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h77DnvDm9XY&feature=player_embedded
(NuffMuff fucks shrubbery, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 16:28, Reply)

OK... you're all wrong
THIS is the greatest commercial ever
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE5nZjJocAg

Natwest's first attempt to mock other banks' attempts to lure students
( likeajackhammer, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 16:25, Reply)

McDonalds
They should use this for their ad.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3_KtEC1rkk
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 16:23, Reply)

Online Poker
There's a row of around 14 Poker pro's walking towards the camera including, Chris Ferguson (5 WSOP Bracelets), Phil Ivey (7 WSOP Bracelets), Erik Seidel (8 WSOP Bracelets) ... and 11 others who have won well over 100 million dollars playing poker, and the tag line is, "We Play at Full Tilt Poker dot com."

Well fuck that, if I play there, I'll lose!
( Cheeses of Nazareth Where's Captain Kirk? www.whereiskirk.com, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 15:58, Reply)

A story about my friend Gary with a vague link to the QOTW and an introduction that goes on for far too long
A few years back, Ms Foxtrot and I had a housemate called Gary. Gary liked to smoke dope. This doesn't relate in any huge way to the story, but it's very hard to talk about him without saying so. He also had a cracking sense of humour and we shared a lot of laughs, stoned and unstoned (but mostly stoned) while he lived with us.

Something that used to crack me up every time was his reaction to the Cillit Bang advert. Whenever it came on, he shouted out - very loudly - "CLIT BANG!!!", which, you have to admit, is pretty fucking funny, and a much better name for the product. What the fuck is Cillit anyway, and why are the makers of this cleaning solution so clean to Bang it?

Obviously, out of context, a gangly curly-haired stoner twat yelling "CLIT BANG!!!" at the telly is a bit weird.

*evil grin*

Gary started seeing this girl called Ro. Not Ensign Ro, although that would have been awesome, the make-up sex with that Bajoron bint must have been awesome. Ro was lovely, game for a laugh and, judging by the noises that came out of Gary's room, a bit of a goer. She also enjoyed a smoke. The only bad thing about Ro was that she ensured Gary spent less time hanging out playing Halo than I would have liked, but here I am being a bastard selfish man.

One evening I knocked on Gary's door and asked if he was free for a smoke, which is a bit like turning up at the Vatican with a schoolboy choir and asking if Ratzinger has a space in his diary. Unfortunately, the response was a slightly high-pitched "Ro's here mate!" which came as something of a surprise as I could hear the TV on in the background. Disgruntled, I turned around and headed for the Xbox in the spare room, only to hear a glorious, glorious proclamation in borderline falsetto.

"CLIT BANG!!!"

As much as I wanted to take up a seat outside Gary's room with a shit-eating grin to watch the carnage emerge, I ensconced myself in the spare room at the end of the corridor. I will never forget the sight of a hot blonde girl running downstairs, clutching her blouse together with (I may have imagined this) a milky-white liquid at the corner of her mouth, followed by a skinny bloke struggling to keep his trousers up blathering all manner of dopey apologies.

Gary later told me the whole story. Over a joint. He may have exaggerated certain aspects. Or I may have misremembered them, I dunno, I was stoned.

Apparently Ro was giving him a blowjob while he smoked a joint. This was a big deal (obviously, it was a blowjob) as all previous blowjobs had been a frantic pre-shag thing rather than a long, relaxed pleasure-sesh. The key error in all this, he was happy to admit, was leaving the telly on behind her. It wasn't his fault that the Cillit Bang advert came on just as he was about to fill her mouth with cock yoghurt, but a little restraint wouldn't have killed him.

Try to imagine this poor girl, having just completed a most generous and apparently very well-executed act of gratification, looking up at Gary with his cock still fairly rigid in her mouth, which was otherwise full of spaff, wondering why on earth he'd just screamed out his intention to whack her on the clitoris.

His reaction was to look at her, grinning stupidly, through a haze of smoke and say "sorry, that's my blowjob cum noise"

Never saw her again. Which is just as well, the lingering mental image I have is based on Gary's assertion that she responded to this by snorting in indignation, which made a little spunkbubble come out of her nose...
(Darth Foxtrot A one-man army dedicated to making fetch happen, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 15:21, 3 replies)

I love Public Information Films
As I've quacked on in a reply a bit further down, old Public Information Films are wonderful. You can learn more about what life was like in a previous decade from one good PIF than from any amount of Kate Thornton pretending to remember Spangles and Peter Kay recalling how he'd play in the street with his swingball/spacehopper/pogo-stick before it bashed into a neighbour's wall and he'd come out and he'd go "HEY-EY-EY-EY!"

My favourite PIF was the one that showed some children playing hide and seek in a field. One child finds a brilliant hiding place; An abandoned fridge! He climbs in and closes the door. Alas it's the sort of fridge with a handle which locks the door from the outside. Click! One child, sealed in a fridge, never to be found (presumably until someone comes to clear the fridge away, takes a look inside and discovers the second-worst thing you could find in a fridge, after CheeseStrings).

What I loved about this PIF was how incredibly specific it was. "If your child goes out playing, AND he finds a fridge that someone's dumped in a field, AND that fridge has one of those automatic locks on the outside, AND your child decides to climb inside, AND he closes the door, AND the door locks itself, then he'll die". In theory they should've made hundreds of these adverts, covering every possible hazard that could befall your child outside. "Come on Billy, let's play on this old tractor!" "Hang on a minute, I'm still hand-cuffed to this lamp-post from our game of Cops and Robbers!" "Never mind that, you can pretend to be the farmer's dog. Here, tie this rope round your neck and pretend it's the lead" "OK! But make sure you tie the other end to the back of the tractor so I can pretend to run along behind it! And throw me the key so I can undo these handcuffs!" "Err, we can't find the key. Oh, look! There's one in the tractor, just under the steering wheel! I'll just twist it to get it out. Oh. That seems to have started the engine, and we're now driving away. Billy, you should probably untie that rope around your neck. Billy?"
(costas, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 15:08, 5 replies)

Do do do dip doooo...
i'm lovin' it.

I'm fucking not. Cunts.
(zebby wasting irony here on, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 14:16, 5 replies)

A good few years ago, at the cinema...
I think I was seeing Robocop 2, that gives you an idea of how long ago.

Before the film trailers started, there was an advert for a local double-glazing firm. I remember it vividly:

Lounge piano jazz soundtrack, to Rolls-Royce driving along country lane. Pulls into airfield and parks next to Cessna light aeroplane. Man in suit gets out and shakes hand with another man, who was waiting by the plane. They both board the plane, it taxis to the end of the runway and takes off. Once it's in the air, freeze frame and display the name of the double-glazing firm.

I also remember the wave of laughter that swept the cinema at the completely irrelevant stock footage which had nothing to do with double-glazing at all :)


Length? About 60 seconds of wondering what the advert was going to be for, followed by about 30 seconds of incredulous laughter...
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 13:29, 4 replies)

the best ad ever?
it's got to be this one
http://www.youtube.com/user/SthlmSolberga#p/u/0/aoRD1wmvwUc
and if anyone likes the tune go here for the full experience :D
(sik ly sweet, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 13:21, 1 reply)

Anyone Remember...
A Tennents ad from around the start of the decade (I think) that featured a Scottish themed bar in Bangkok, run by Thais.

From what I remember it was bloody hilarious. There were ladyboy barmaids called Rab and Rory and a guy at the end urging the viewer to, "Take a dlink big man!"

Immense :D

I'd love to see it again but cant find it anywhere on the webnetz. I wouldn't be that surprise if it has been banned.
(Pat Shatner ,in it for the buzz, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 12:27, 1 reply)

If advertisers were blunt and to the point
I reckon people would be less inclined to dismiss the ads themselves. Something along the lines of the ads produced by Dudley Moore's character in Crazy People

"Volvos, Yes they are boxy, but they're safe"
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 12:17, 3 replies)

Too many...
96% of women agree!

(25 out of 27 surveyed)

If its not at least 1000 people you shouldn't be allowed to fucking say this. The numbers are getting lower.

ISA ISA baby - die.

The Phoneswapper advert, with the guy waving the mobile at a couple of Turkish kebab shop owners, dancing around with it, fucking die.

The Werthers chocolate advert with the woman describing the taste - YUM YUM YUM. Cunt.
(steh30, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 12:10, 1 reply)

Radio Ads
Hate all of them - just the pure banality and patronising idiocy of them. Unlike TV ads, they remain in the 1950s, when just telling someone to buy something was effective. Consider:

SCENE: a busy cafe

Woman #1: How are you Sheila?
Woman #2: Oh, I've been thinking about killing myself.
Woman #1: Really? What you need is a new carpet from Mike's Carpets!
Woman #2: Mike's Carpets?
Woman #1: Yes - the largest range of carpets in the north, on the High Street
Woman #2: Hmm - well I'm not going to kill myself anymore, I'm going to buy a carpet from Mikes Carpets on the High Street!
Woman #1: Waiter! Cancel that order of cyanide!
Both: Ha ha ha ha ha!

OR

SCENE: Two women sitting at home

Woman #1: How is your anus these days, Sheila?
Woman #2: Scabrous and seeping I'm afraid. I have infected piles. More tea?
Woman #1: That's a shame. When my fundament has gone bacterial, I use Pearson's Soothing Ring Balm, made with natural herbal ingredients.
Woman #2: The one with the easy applicator nozzle?
Woman #1: That's the one! I like it so much that I remortgaged my house to buy shares in the company.
Woman #2: Your arse must be a biological hazard!
Woman #1: You have no idea!
Both: Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

OR

SCENE: The garage

Man #1: I don't know what to do, Jeff. The missus says she's going to divorce me.
Man #2: Small dick, Bob?
Man #1: No she says the sheen on the car isn't as good as him at number four.
Man #2: I had the same problem, mate. My missus was doing the postman until I bought Jizzwad's Supa Wax - for a superior shine.
Man #1: Jizzwad's Supa Wax?
Man #2: Yep, takes just ten minutes and keeps marriages together.
Man #1: Cheers, Jeff. But I have got a small dick....
(JessicaJugs, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 11:36, 7 replies)

To the Rolling Stones tune of All Over Now
"It's new Insignia! And it's all over now!"
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 11:28, Reply)

Wonderbra
Not strickly a TV ad but I loved the whole "hello boys!" campain, bloody fat arsed, bearded feminists got it banned for being a distraction to drivers! Misserable bitches!
(The kneeling rifleman Is slowly getting there.., Wed 21 Apr 2010, 10:56, 39 replies)

Lloyds TSB
The current adverts with the animated people.

My flatmate and I like to sing along in our bestest operatic voices to the music. It's a real treat for the ears.
( awayfromthenumbers, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 10:08, 2 replies)

Strongbow
In this day and age of strict advertising standards, it amazes me that Strongbow have continually been allowed to claim through numerous TV adverts down the years that their beverage quenches thirst. Err, no it doesn’t. Alcohol dehydrates you: it does not quench thirst, it makes thirst worse. You are not going to feel any less thirsty after having consumed an alcoholic beverage. The opposite, in fact. I’m not sure how many other ways I can put this.

I’m sure there are many other brands of alcohol that are guilty of this, particularly on the cider side of the market, but Strongbow is the one that stands out the most for me what with their ‘Get a thirst, first’ slogan.



Grumble.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 9:10, 8 replies)

Holiday furniture sales...
What I really hate is the way that the marketing directors of the big furniture stores are still peddling the tired old Seventies strategy of pretending every settee is two hundred quid cheaper on a Bank Holiday.

Who are these adverts aimed at? Who, after working all bloody year, thinks "A-ha! It's Boxing Day! I must get up and buy a sofa while they're all unfeasibly cheap, because there's so rarely a sale on at DFS these days."

Has anyone - ANYONE - ever thought like this?

Also, again from the Seventies, can we please drop the 'only...99' shtick? As in "This fabulous leather sofa is now only £299.99!"

It's three hundred quid. Keep the fucking change.
(Billy The Fish wants to gargle with Lucy Pinder's bath water, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 5:11, 11 replies)

May the gloss in Ross be a good gloss...
...And the windowsills of Winchester shine...

Christ on a bike, it's from 1988. When did I become an old bugger?
(Zachariah Pardon, pardon. J'AI UNE POUSSETTE, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 22:13, 3 replies)

Canesten Oral and Cream Duo
It comes in two parts - a pill and a cream. Now, the adverts show poor thrush-suffering lady placing pill in mouth, taking a sip of water and swallowing. It's a clear demonstration of how to use the product.

But they never show what to do with the cream.
( Curis, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 22:13, 1 reply)

Oh what about the Ariston
and on and on and on

ad?
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Tue 20 Apr 2010, 21:47, 1 reply)

Who remembers..
Scotch and his skeleton parrot?
"Re-Record, Not Fade Away!.."

The Holsten Pils ad, with that bloke from Jurrasic Park, features anagrams of Holsten ie. 'Stops In Hell' where he's on a road and all the traffic lights are stuck on red.

What was the advert, where everything was played backwards?

Love the new Magners ad, with the undefeated cricket team.

The ads that I really don't like, are the ads with Michael Winner in them, especially the one where the bird bumps into the back of his. Very annoying.
(danniekavanagh did nothing constructive on, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 21:39, 10 replies)

Halifax
Sorry if I'm repeating but i haven't had time to check before i wanted to share my hatred for the fat bird that took over when speccy Howard took a break a few years ago. The delusional Manati struts down the road like johnny big biscuits clicking her fingers and nodding her head to the side. Showing a total lack of respect for the proper confidence v weight ratio and displaying all the confidence of a slim bird.
(jimmymack, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 21:39, 7 replies)

If 'Nothing works faster than Anadin' why not take nothing instead.... It's cheaper!
(vamp1refrog, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 21:30, 1 reply)

OUTRAGEOUS
Any advert that claims its subject matter is 'The most OUTRAGEOUS x since y'.
In short, any advert for any teen comedy in the past 11 years.

If they're so outrageous, why did they get slapped with a simple 15 age rating and pass through without the censors batting an eye?
Go back less then half a century and public outrage meant mass burnings of the offending item and anything related or the government banning said item.
Now it means "dick jokes and titties".

Plus, those films are never funny either.
(Captain Fisticuffs A metal Bing Crosby can't do everything., Tue 20 Apr 2010, 20:41, Reply)

Those Bloody Meerkats from comparethemarket.com
They annoy the hell out of me. The world and his wife have all now jumped on to the Eastern European Meerkat Bandwagon.

Everyone is crawling out of the woodwork and claiming "Hey, I've been a fan of meekats wearing smoking jackets since I was merely a glint in the milkman's beady eye!" No you weren't. In fact when the adverts started showing you didn't even know what the hell that small furry creature was, you thought it was an elongated rat or a chihuahua with a growth spurt.

Apparently I have issues with digitally-animated small African mammals. Simples? Assholes more like.
(Draco Rattus ate all the pies on, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 20:25, Reply)

Two words = most annoying advert ever.
Go compare.
(Variable, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 19:32, 1 reply)

I was twenty-six when I met him.
I'd been strolling by the Ouse in York- a marvellous early Autumn day in September. The leaves were bronzing, the ducklings were grown and the water was brown.

There's something about that time of year that makes me feel intensely sad whilst reminding me that there are better times to come, the knowing that it's a mirror image of early spring, but with the heartache that comes with winter still to come, a heartache ahead of me that I could not avoid.

But I digress.

There was an early morning mist and I could see him approaching, his tweed slacks were the perfect riposte to the browns and oranges of the season and his tan brogues were the obvious accessory. He carried a hessian two-handled bag, like a doctor in the '50s. What it contained I could only guess, though to put my mind in such a place would be dangerous for a man like me.

As we approached each other on the lonely riverside path a number of thoughts coursed through my mind. Who was he? Why was he here at this time in the morning? What did he want? Horrified, I noticed that his gait had become visibly more purposeful as Scarborough Bridge came into his line of sight.

I felt in my inside pocket for my packet of Rolos, fingered its sweet curve and felt reassurance move through me like a wave.

By now I could make out features- a slightly wonky mouth, sneaky eyes and a roundness to his face that suggested Arbroath Smokies and Scotch pies simultaneously. I froze as he finally reached me.

He stretched out an upper limb, grasped my hand in his.

I looked down at my palm in the hazy morning sunlight.

In my hand were four passport pictures. His leering face shone out, tempting and goading me as I admired his comb over.

The stranger leaned his breast into mine, exhaled with the stench of marmite on his breath and whispered to me:

'Happiness...is a cigar called Hamlet.'

As he moved further down the path I took a moment to let his words sink in.

Their meaning seeped in to my cortex.

I nodded to the virile stranger (though his back was turned), saluted a passing moorhen and made my way home along the foggy, lonely banks of the Ouse.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 19:28, 1 reply)

Worst ever?
The ego-massage to that WE have paid for. Andrew fucking Lloyd-Webbers free bastarding adverts on the BBC for his bloody musical productions. Half an hour a week for weeks on end finding out who's going to play some role in a musical that I couldn't give a shit about.

Gibbon Felcher.
( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Tue 20 Apr 2010, 19:24, 3 replies)